Myth Busting: You Can’t Have a Love Life While in Law School

*Published this post long after the bar exam, so don’t be confused by the post date :)

Before I started law school, I spoke to my mentor about what to expect. He graduated from Howard Law and told me that law school would rob me of my free time and thus constrain the time I had to hang out with friends and family and maintain a romantic relationship.

At this point, my boyfriend and I had been dating for about two years and I was loving where our relationship was, but the news my mentor gave me stunned me. My boyfriend and I had already built a solid foundation, starting off as friends and building to have a strong relationship, and I couldn’t square the idea of not spending time with him or my loved ones. I knew my relationship with him, my friends, and family were central to my existence.

Later on, I went to a baby shower and a cousin came up to me to congratulate me on law school. I thanked her and expected the conversation to be done, but she proceeded to tell me that when I started law school I wouldn’t be able to attend family functions like the one I was at. Here was someone who never went to law school, but made their assumptions on the experience truth. A truth that I needed to realize and take seriously.

So what did I do? I spent evenings with my boyfriend when he and I had the bandwidth. We had staycations in New York by staying in hotels and ordering our favorite foods. We booked trips to Washington D.C. and St. Lucia and had an amazing time every time all while I was going through law school. My boyfriend has been the only person to comfort me when I’m overwhelmed at the end of the day late at night. He has spoken life into me (a phrase my cousin Maya likes to say) and reminded me that I am capable of achieving whatever I set my mind to. This journey would have been much more lonely, quiet, and draining without him. He has been the silver lining especially on my worst days and has been such a loud supporter on my best days.

Sometimes the people who care about us—and the ones who don’t—project their fears and personal experiences onto you fueled by genuine care or under the guise of helpful advice. Everyone has to make their own personal decisions based on who they are, but I don’t subscribe to the idea that all things fun and fulfilling need to stop for three years—life continues while we’re in law school and it’s asinine to believe it should. That defies the way life operates. There is always one or two dominant things that we individually focus on, but there are countless ancillary thoughts that race through our minds. There is never the opportunity to stop your ancillary thoughts or experiences to solely focus on your limited dominant concerns. So why would I apply a backwards logic to being in a relationship while in law school? I will note that not everyone may be in the right mental space or have the capacity to start a new relationship while in law school or even maintain. Law school will inherently take a lot of your time, but you can either allow it to take all or some of your free time. You have to decide how you want to spend your time outside of class and if you’re able to maintain the relationships that mean the most to you during those three years, I think you’ll be better for it. Allow your relationships to change to maintain your workload, but don’t deny them completely. Don’t render them obsolete because if you do, you’ll likely have a lonely bar experience and spend time rebuilding those relationships. If your relationship is dragging you into toxicity and not allowing you to thrive in life or in law school specifically, let it go or better yet, don’t even let it begin. But when you have a healthy relationship, I say pursue it and lay down your boundaries and expectations for this new chapter of your academic journey.

I’m also not alone in my thinking. I have friends who entered law school single and met their partners over these three years. Through breakups and dating app potentials, they’ve still shown up for class, been active in affinity groups and competition teams, and sat for their exams. Some of my friends have gone through this chapter single and that’s perfectly fine.

Now that the bar exam is in my near future, I plan to use the same gameplay I used in law school. I’m prepared to study every day and treat my study schedule like a full time job. I plan to limit as many distractions as possible and truly lock myself into my study plan to avoid falling behind. But that doesn’t mean I’ll write off the chances to take a walk with my friend and neighbor (hey Tara :)) in between our study sessions or spend time with my family at the end of our day. I don’t plan to put my mental health on the back burner especially as a formerly depressed and consistent anxious girl. There are things I will not compromise because I know my wellbeing depends on my little important habits.

During my 3L fall, I went to speak at my alma mater with a classmate to answer pre-law students’ questions about law school and one of the questions was whether one can date while in law school. I’m six years into my relationship and half of that time was through law school. I’ve grown a tremendous amount as an individual and as a partner and because my cup, in my personal life through my fulfilling relationships, has been so full I’ve been able to pour into my mentees and into my law school scholarship program. While in a relationship, I’ve worked two summers as a summer associate, passed all my classes, served as Vice President of BLSA, and served as en executive board member of my school’s Alternative Dispute Resolution Honors Society and the Entertainment Law Society. I’ve participated in my school’s talent show, organized a panel discussion, planned programming for diverse students, and traveled on behalf of my school for admissions events. Nothing about being in a healthy relationship has stopped any of those things.

I think you can guess what my answer to that question was.

Law school can be whatever you make it and that advice goes for every part of life. You can, to some degree, control how much time you allocate to your studies and to your personal time. You have the ability to experience this life for yourself and then determine what works best for you. Self preservation in a system that devalues that makes it a superpower, so hold on to that and act on it :)