GP|Solo Law Student

Relationship Intact: Surviving Law School with a Partner

By Sara Lingafelter

During law school orientation, I attended a panel on the topic of work/life balance during law school, eager to learn strategies for maintaining my relationship with my spouse despite the stresses of law school.  A professor on the panel pointed out what most of us already knew: that many marriages do not survive the transition to lawyerdom, and that law school is an incredibly challenging phase in our personal relationships.  It turns out, these are vast understatements, as any law student or new lawyer well knows.

I had been married for several years before entering the pupal case of law school.  Even though my spouse and I are well established together, law school affected our relationship in a few simple but huge ways.  Each couple will have a different experience, but, in our case, law school altered my approach to “fighting” with my spouse.  My stress level increased to an unsustainable (inhuman) level, and law school dampened my self-esteem to an unsustainable level.  Each of these impacts trickled down to a long list of relationship stressors.  By making conscious choices, you can balance law school and the first few years of practice with your personal relationships.  It just takes some work.

1. Make a daily effort.  I have an attorney friend who posts reminders to herself on flashcards around her workplace and carries them with her.  One reminder asks her, “What did I do for my marriage today?”  One daily effort devoted to your spouse or partner can be a tiny amount of time spent with a huge return on investment.
2. Find common ground.  Before law school, my husband and I had our own activities and our independence worked for both of us.  During law school, free time was hard to come by, so we worked to identify activities that we both enjoyed and could do together.  For us, that meant rock climbing.  Climbing was, and is, a way to remain connected to each other even during the inevitable “reprogramming” of law school, and it got me out of law student mode in a way no other activity did.  My husband and I agreed to prioritize climbing “dates” and trips, even over school and bar exam preparation.  I even took a four-day weekend during bar exam study to go on a climbing trip with my spouse and friends; I was a much happier partner for it.
3. Resist the temptation to fight like a lawyer.  The Socratic method, and law school as a whole, inevitably alters the way we deal with conflict.  I became tuned to interests and positions, and hyper-tuned to whether others are acting and communicating emotionally or rationally.  As productive as these skills are in my legal practice, it can be a challenge to let my spouse vent and emote without trying to facilitate or mediate his dispute, whether it is with me or a third party.  I find myself spending a lot more time trying to listen patiently than actually talking.  I try, very hard, to “take off” my lawyer communication skills when interacting with my spouse.  He and I met and fell in love when I was a non-lawyer, and it helps me maintain my sense of self to spend time with him in non-lawyer mode.
4. Finally, don’t underestimate your significant other’s position while you are in school, bar exam review, and in the first few years of practice.  In our household, my spouse and I had always been workers and earners, and it was a huge stress for him to suddenly have to be the “breadwinner” for an extended period of time, especially during a job market downturn.  The partners of law students may suffer from isolation and exclusion, because of the sheer amount of time we have to spend on our school and career-development activities.  Kindness to each other, and taking good care of each other, are more important than ever during this stressful period, and learning to operate together through extreme stress as a team during law school is a worthwhile investment that will reap rewards before and after graduation.

My spouse and I made it through classes and finals, on-campus interviews, bar exam preparation and beyond.  We survived my first two legal jobs and their respective challenges.  We are now settled into a very happy routine with my new solo practice and our conscious efforts to maintain lives outside of work.  With a lot of work, and a great deal of patience on both sides of the equation, you and your partner can balance law school and your relationship.

Sara Lingafelter is a solo, general practice attorney in Poulsbo, Washington.  In her free time, Sara enjoys spending time with her dog, Hana, and her spouse, Chris.  Chris and Sara can routinely be found hanging off of cliff faces up and down the West Coast.

Copyright 2008