Melissa painstakingly learns that skill as she slaves over her first brief. She had a week to conduct research, gather resources and write an outline — then four days to write. The day before it was due, she didn’t sleep at all.

Come Monday, Melissa drags herself to Criminal Law class first thing in the morning. “I’ve never seen more bags under eyes,” says Melissa. “I didn’t enter anything resembling the horizontal position from 11:30 Sunday morning until 4 o’clock Monday afternoon. I was writing, writing, writing. I finished at 7:30 in the morning, took a shower, got some coffee, came to school, went and sat in class for four-and-a-half hours straight, went to lunch with Professor Morse. I was delirious by the afternoon.”

What makes the work tolerable is the support she receives from faculty. “One of the biggest draws for me is the amount of interaction you have with faculty. I went out to lunch with every one of my professors the first semester and most of them this semester. They’re extremely accessible. Most of them are interested in what students want to get out of law school. They don’t just talk about Trusts and Estates.”

And her classmates have been great. “Everyone is just as scared as me, and not trying to cover it up by being showy or arrogant or competitive. We’re all here to help each other. It’s an amazing feeling and one that I didn’t expect to have in law school.”