If you’re a law student with ADHD, you’ve come to the right place! We’re excited to welcome Emory Robertson for a two-part FAQ covering some of the common questions asked by law students with ADHD.
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Questions for Law Students with ADHD:
- Question 1: I have ADHD. Can I really succeed in law school?
- Question 2: I did well in school until now, but I feel like the law school environment wasn’t created for people like me. How do I adjust and succeed in this new learning environment?
- Question 3: I struggle to manage time. How do I find the calendaring and time-management strategies that work best for me?
- Question 4: There is so much to do. How do I figure out what to prioritize?
- Question 5: I’m struggling to estimate how long assignments, readings, and studying will take me. How can I improve scheduling and estimating an appropriate to-do list?
- Question 6: How can I figure out my learning style and use it to my advantage?
- Question 7: How do I create a study environment that is right for me?
Question 1. I have ADHD. Can I really succeed in law school?
Yes! Many successful law students and attorneys have disabilities and learning differences, including ADHD. In a survey by the Law School Admissions Council, 12% of the responding 2022 cohort of law students self-reported having a disability. The number of law firm associates who disclosed having a disability doubled from 2019 to 2021. Be encouraged – it is possible to complete law school, pass the bar, and become a successful attorney with ADHD.
People with ADHD have unique strengths that can be valuable in both the law school environment and in legal practice, including creative pattern recognition and problem-solving skills, stress resistance and effective crisis management, and a strong sense of justice and empathy. Many people with ADHD also experience periods of intense hyperfocus and benefit greatly from structured periods of productivity and rest. While some aspects of law school may present additional challenges due to your neurodivergence, your brain is also uniquely positioned to excel in many areas of the legal field.
It will take time to adapt to the law school environment and find ways to make the material more accessible for yourself. With the right strategies, self-awareness, and supports in place, you can thrive in law school while embracing the unique perspective and strengths that come with having ADHD.
Question 2. I did well in school until now, but I feel like the law school environment wasn’t created for people like me. How do I adjust and succeed in this new learning environment?
Law school is very different from any schooling you have completed so far. You will be responsible for learning a large volume of material from day one, and you will likely feel overscheduled. In the classroom, the Socractic method may challenge your ability to focus and identify important information. Your grades in law school are typically determined based on your performance on one final exam or final paper, with limited opportunities for feedback throughout the semester.
This is a lot to manage for anyone, but it’s clear that the typical law school setting wasn’t created for people with ADHD or other learning differences in mind. While law students have become increasingly diverse, the law school curriculum hasn’t changed very much over the years. In her article, Am I Disabled? Disability Identity and Law Faculty, Professor Katie Eyer noted, “[l]aw schools and the legal profession . . . continue to be structurally inaccessible, incorporating gatekeeping rituals and a wider cultural perspective that leaves no space for bodies and minds that cannot produce unceasing full-bore performance.”
Rather than becoming discouraged by these institutional challenges, focus on exploring learning strategies that work for you. As you adjust to law school, you will likely need to use trial and error to determine how you learn best in this environment. Not every strategy will work for your presentation of ADHD and not every strategy is well-suited to law school. Consider creating a log to track which strategies work for you, which do not, and why. This will help you understand how ADHD impacts your academic performance and what you can do to accommodate yourself.
Settling into new environments can be challenging for anyone, but those with ADHD often struggle with change more than their neurotypical peers. While you may need to invest more time and effort than some of your colleagues, the skills and strategies you develop now will serve you well in legal practice, where the stakes are higher, and your work directly impacts your clients.
Question 3. I struggle to manage time. How do I find the calendaring and time-management strategies that work best for me?
ADHD often impacts a person’s ability to carry out “executive functions,” which ADHD expert Dr. Russel Barkley describes as “those neurological processes needed to sustain problem-solving toward a goal.” These deficits in executive function can lead to problems with time management. Developing a reliable, accessible calendaring system can help you manage competing academic demands.
Experiment with different calendaring tools, and remember, there is not one “right” way to calendar. If you prefer to write by hand, you can use a physical planner or white board system. Digital calendaring systems are accessible anywhere and allow for easy editing. Try options tailored for people with ADHD, like Tiimo. Google Calendar is a visually appealing and financially accessible option. Whichever calendaring tool works best for you, try strategies that help you externalize or visualize time, like time-blocking.
Once you’ve decided on calendaring tool, think about your mental energy levels throughout a typical day. Which part of the day do you think clearly and feel productive? Capitalize on this time where possible by blocking off focused study time.
Don’t forget the importance of building breaks into your study schedule. One study on time management strategies among graduate students found that taking pre-determined, systematic breaks “had mood benefits and appeared to have efficiency benefits (i.e. similar task completion in shorter time) over taking self-regulated breaks.” Try using the Pomodoro technique, a classic example of this structured work/rest pattern. To maintain the stamina necessary to complete law school successfully, your scheduled breaks will be just as important as your other assignments.
Question 4. There is so much to do. How do I figure out what to prioritize?
As a law student, you must learn to make wise decisions about how to spend your time to manage competing demands in a high-pressure environment. People with ADHD often experience “impaired decision making in tasks involving a significant degree of cognitive control,” so it makes sense if you are struggling with figuring out how you should spend your time when you have so much work to do. Consider how this multi-step brain-dumping process may help you externalize and prioritize your to-do list.
However, sometimes even with a clear list of tasks outlined, you may find yourself struggling to start or complete the tasks on your list. Try to avoid getting caught in planning loops or creating endless lists without completing tasks. Effective planning is important, but don’t let it consume too much time.
One study revealed that perfectionism is associated with adult ADHD, and this can lead to resistance to getting started. If you feel pressure to create a polished product in one sitting, you may find that purposefully making errors on the first attempt can help break this resistance to getting started. (Just make sure to highlight your initial intentional errors in an eye-catching way so that you can easily identify and correct them later on.)
If you need additional help calendaring or figuring out how to prioritize your tasks, consider consulting a mentor, ADHD coach, tutor, or experienced law student for more strategies.
Question 5. I’m struggling to estimate how long assignments, readings, and studying will take me. How can I improve scheduling and estimating an appropriate to-do list?
If you’re struggling to estimate how long assignments will take to complete, you’re not alone. Law students often find that they underestimate how much time they will need to devote to each assignment, especially at the start. Many people with ADHD experience additional challenges with time perception and time-blindness. This can make it difficult to conceptualize how much time is needed to complete certain tasks and how much time has passed while working on a task.
In her recent book, If you are a time optimist, when planning your to-do list for the next day or week, try overestimating the amount of time you think you need for each assignment. As you time-block your study schedule, add in a 15–30-minute buffer period between each task or assignment. This will help you easily adjust if you have underestimated the amount of time required for a given task.
To improve time estimation skills, it may help to keep a log of how you spend your study time. If you find that time-blocking works for you, you can edit your time-blocks to include a log of tasks you completed during a specific block of time. For example, say you have blocked out 3 hours for reading your Torts assignment. At the end of the three-hour study period, jot down a short bullet-point list of the tasks you completed (i.e., “read 4 out of 6 assigned cases, reviewed Examples and Explanations passage on Trespass and Conversion”). You can revisit your calendar at the end of the day or the end of the week to see how you used your time and how you may need to adjust your time estimations for assignments.
Here are a few additional resources on time management and organization for law students.
Question 6. How can I figure out my learning style and use it to my advantage?
While Learning Style theory is commonly discussed and applied in academic support communities, systematic review and meta-analyses have found no support for claims that academic instruction tailored to a student’s preferred learning style improves actual learning outcomes. Still, many students find that different learning modalities help them stay engaged while learning.
If you find that you are drawn to a particular learning modality (visual, auditory, or kinesthetic), it is fine to gravitate toward what feels best for you. However, be sure to seek opportunities to learn and study through a variety of modalities. You can do this by supplementing your reading with tutorial videos or podcasts, creating visual diagrams or flowcharts based on your reading, and by meeting with classmates to talk through your understanding of the cases you are reading that week in class.
Where possible, try to incorporate active learning techniques, like retrieval practice. For law students, retrieval practice can involve self-testing, teaching concepts to others by memory, active elaboration through plain language explanations, and writing outlines of concepts by memory. Studies also show that dividing long study sessions into spaced practice leads to better long-term retention.
No matter how you prefer to study, you are more likely to retain new information when you engage with the material through all modalities and when you apply active learning techniques to retrieve the information you want to learn and apply it to new situations.
Question 7. How do I create a study environment that is right for me?
Each student focuses best in different study environments. You can use what you know about your ADHD and your learning preferences to curate a study environment that is comfortable but conducive to productivity.
Aim for a distraction-free environment. You may find that working in public spaces or body-doubling helps you stay focused. If you choose to work at a library, university building, or coffee shop, make sure that the location you choose encourages focused, quiet work. Some public co-working spaces have a more social and collaborative culture, while others tend to foster quiet, independent work around others. If you prefer to work at home, be sure to set up your study space in an area where you won’t be tempted to pick up your hobbies, watch TV, or gravitate to other tasks that demand your attention, like household chores.
Some people prefer a dedicated study space that they always use. If you like to study in different spaces depending on your mood or the type of task you need to complete, you can create a “menu” of study locations to choose from. Your menu could include the law school library, a local coffeeshop, your home workspace, or a friend’s apartment. If you feel like you need a break from the law school environment, try your local public library or a building on the main university campus for a change in scenery and company. Jot this menu down in your planner or in a note on your phone so that you can turn to it if you feel like your typical study space isn’t working for you.
Consider your physical needs when identifying possible study spaces as well, ensuring that you will have access to food, water, and a restroom. No matter where or when you study, if your physical needs aren’t met first and you are not well rested, you likely will not be able to focus well. Finally, make sure to consider things beyond the location of where you will work, like the time of day you focus best in that particular location.
Was this helpful? Check out part two of our ADHD in law school FAQ! Want more sent to you? Sign up for our free newsletter. And reach out if you’d like to talk about law school tutoring help. We work with many students with ADHD and other types of neurodiversity.
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