Mr. Turow's 'One L' was published in 1977. His memoir covers his first year at Harvard Law School which began in September 1975. The author was 26 years old and three-or-four-years older than most of the other students. For three years prior to entering Harvard, Mr. Turow taught creative writing at Stanford and it shows. 'One L' is a clear, gripping, heartfelt presentation. The guy certainly is smart but also, even more valuable, observant, introspective, speculative, thoughtful, and progressive in his attitudes. For a young man he appears more mature than people typically his age. Despite me not having either the work ethic or intelligence to succeed at Harvard or demanding fields as the law or medicine, for that matter, I found the memoir to be very informative, entertaining, and interesting.

Mr. Turow puts a very human face on the challenging career path. Terror for first-year students seems to be a constant companion. The author covers such topics as professors' reputations and teaching styles, the legal structure, tort suits, study groups, the aspirations on being selected for Harvard Law Review, legal thinking, career potential, burn out, personal sacrifices, the competitive environment, oral arguments, exams, moot court, research skills, racism, sexism, and the Socratic method of teaching. When I was at college, if I had been exposed to the Socratic method, it's a sure bet I'd have soiled my underwear and flipped out by yelling at the professor every nasty profanity-laced pejorative known to man. The book also has some humor and, thankfully, ignores dorm room shenanigans. The pressure to perform well also manifested itself in personality conflicts and altered relationships. Because the memoir was written in 1977 I'd imagine the Internet has changed certain aspects of the law school process in 2017, especially involving research.

I can understand why people thinking of entering law school would find 'One L' informative but Mr. Turow does such a great job of conveying the mood and difficulties of Harvard law school that even laymen like myself found the book engrossing. His conclusion to the work was especially humane and well thought out. I finished the book appreciating the challenges of the demanding field. Getting that degree sure isn't a cake walk.

It is profoundly ironic and just-about-right that most people who will study law and become lawyers read “One L” BEFORE their first year of law school. Before they know anything about what the book references. Before they can relate. Before all the nuances and insights have any real meaning. This book is not at all a guide, and so it is of very limited utility when it is read in advance instead of in reflection. But law students simply cannot help themselves. In anticipating and trying to prepare for the tumultuous first year, most readers are already, subconsciously or not, engaging in a kind of slow-motion oneupmanship. In some sense, the book describes and critiques the natural inclinations displayed by the very people most often reading it.

I (solely by coincidence) did not read “One L” until I had completely finished my 1L year. I started the book one hour after I hit send on the final assignment for NLaw’s Write-On. Immediately, I felt like I was being given the hug I had not known I needed. Turow writes with such honesty and frankness, and only a very small and tasteful dose of rose-tinted-glasses syndrome, that one is sometimes left wondering why he didn’t abandon the law for a career as a psychologist.

I highly recommend that absolutely no one reads One L before starting law school; it would seem overwrought, melodramatic, and serious in ways that are crude and self-important. I also highly recommend that absolutely everyone reads One L after their first year. In doing so, I realized that the neuroses and paranoia, the complex emotional cocktail of competitiveness, pride, envy, forced collaboration, genuine companionship, shame, and self-effacing identity crisis that Turow puts under the microscope are common to first year students at American law schools and have not evolved substantially since the mid 1970s (by Turow’s estimation, since the late 1880s). The sense of connection I feel now, after peering into Turow’s mind and heart, flows from his sheer vulnerability, an aspect of humans that is sometimes hard to come by at law school, but, when found, is always the diamond in the rough that makes the whole experience bearable.

Now, granted, I didn't go to Harvard Law, but I DID attend a fairly high ranked law school and, from my experience, Turow protests FAR too much. It makes for a good story, but oh, the drama! I only wish that William and Mary had been that exciting and filled with academic intrigue!

"They will be the One Ls"

I was given this book to be given more insight in how the legal world works since I am leaning in that direction myself. I now understand that the first year of law school is something hysterical for many students to navigate through.

I think that Turow seemed a bit exaggerated at some places of his novel. However, the book was enjoyable. Through a tale of his first year, Turow manages to capture the headaches that students all around him suffered in a game of deciphering the codes of law.

The one thing that I got form this book is that I'm very glad that I'm not a lawyer or ever contemplated law school. Even though this book is decades old, the systems still sound similar, the environment doesn't seem like one that is conductive to learning. I really hated how by the end it seemed like everyone was happy when someone else failed. Not sure how that could possibly build an environment where you have a good support system when you need one the most.

I'm a fan of Scott Turow's writing and have been aware of this book that he wrote about his first year at Harvard Law School, but didn't give much thought to reading it until someone donated the audio book to our library's used book store. I don't normally listen to audio books because I can't concentrate on a book if I am doing other things, but I listened to this one in my car while I was driving around town so it took me several days to finish. I would have been able to read the actual book much more quickly.

The audio book begins with an introduction by Scott Turow. I'm glad he did not narrate the entire book, because his voice was not particularly pleasant. I am happy that I listened to this book. My brother graduated from Columbia Law School in the late 1960's. This book gave me a better understanding of what he might have gone through during his first year. Turow talks a lot about the competition to make the Harvard Law Review and my brother was on the Law Review at Columbia. As I listened to the book, I was trying to picture which of the characters in Turow's class my brother would have been.

At times the author was a little whiny about how difficult law school is and what the students went through. I would expect Harvard Law School to be extremely demanding and it is. This would be a good read for anyone considering attending law school.

One fun item in the book was that there was a student in Turow's class whose name was Sandy Stern and that is the name of one of the major characters in Turow's books.

Holter Graham did a nice job of narrating the book. Since it was autobiographical about one person's experience, he didn't have to use a lot of different voices or accents.

There are issues I have with this book: it’s a little dated, the progressive portions fall flat to a modern, critical perspective, and the author is, of course, an ivy league law school graduate–meaning he’s not the most likable person (although he willingly acknowledges past mistakes that he accounts to being driven mad his 1L year).

That said, the author and his accounts of words from his peers hit hard continuously throughout the book for an incoming 1L. First is the realistic look into the slough that is the first year of law school—with substance abuse, mental health, interpersonal relationships, poor eating and sleeping habits, temptation, and cruelty, popping up time and time again.

Gina, for any student, especially a female one, is consistently insightful. Two examples come to mind:

“They’re turning me into someone else…They’re making me different…It’s someone I don’t want to be…Don’t you get the feeling all the time that you’re being indoctrinated?”

“I know how this sounds…but a lot of the women say the same thing. When I get called on, I really think about rape. It’s sudden. You’re exposed. You can’t move. You can’t say no. And there’s this man who’s in control, telling you exactly what to do. Maybe that’s melodramatic…but for me, a lot of the stuff in class shows up all kinds of male/female power relations that I’ve sort of been training myself to resent.”

I think these quotes speak to the core of the book, the turmoil of going to law school and maintaining a good, principled heart while within the epitome of an ivory tower.

The book is so honest, that I felt my stomach twist and my heartbeat quicken in empathy for the 1975-1976 Harvard 1Ls and worry for my own future. At the same time, though, I felt excited and resolved to work hard.

The writing is inarguably good, with a gripping voice and excellent word choice. But that's to be expected from an accomplished writer like Scott Turow.

I wouldn’t go as far as to give it the praise that every 0L needs to read this book, but I found it enjoyable and affirming. So if you're anxious and unsure, it's worth the try.

idk it was well written but it didnt say anything that surprised me
like yeah its harvard law school, its gonna be hard and the people are going to be prestigious and competitive. kinda expected that

The single most read book by people contemplating law school. There are clear pros and cons to this. On the pro side, Turow is a good writer who structures even this supposed transcript of his memoir with a fair amount of novelistic suspense. Our hero must confront good and evil personified by his various professors (seriously, there are times when you'd think you were reading Harry Potter). Ultimately, as in a good modern novel, he must face the true nemesis that lies within (his capacity to cross over to the dark side and become an evil lawyer). Beyond entertainment, it does gently introduce the reader to the basic scene of law school with many of its organizing concepts (the curriculum, the socratic method, moot court, exam structure, etc.) and regalia (hornbooks, briefs, outlines).

However, I've already heard (and believe me, I haven't been looking all that hard) much reaction to this book as painting a fairly extreme picture of Law School that just doesn't accurately describe most of the contemporary reality. Like "The Paper Chase" (the film most recommended to would-be law students), it is set in the sacred halls of Harvard Law School, where a very particular prestige-borne madness prevails. More fundamentally, it was written 30 years ago, and at a time Turow himself acknowledges as one of tense generational conflict. He suggests that it was in the wake of Watergate that lawyers suddenly took a massive plunge in the estimation of their fellow Americans, such that even beginning law students were anxious not to replicate the degraded culture of their predecessors. Inevitably, this generated a lot of conflict with the professoriate, which appears in Turow's book as deeply divided between conservative old guard who considered humiliation a basic teaching tool and younger faculty who fashioned themselves progressives. The kind of politicization of the classroom that added considerably to Turow's anxiety and self-doubt was a product of the times. I'm sure there are new campus politics now, but not the ones depicted in "One L."

Above all, the general consensus I've seen is that Law School is just not so traumatic anymore. Which is not to say that the madness over prestige, getting top grades, making law review and all the rest have gone away. After all, those things have an economic basis in the corporate law firms themselves. Maybe this recession will change the field somehow...

This review isn't for you, it's just me throwing my unfiltered thoughts down.
This is a fantastic case study on human nature. Other reviews claim that characters must have been exaggerated, but I see this as totally realistic. I've seen people react halfway as crazy in competition, and I did not have the stakes of Harvard law school. The top 1% of HS goes to good colleges, the top .1% of good colleges go to HLS. These are the (school) smartest, and hardest working people... who are used to being the best and excelling. Only 10% of them can get the best grades to make The Law Review. Of course they're going to push themselves to make that quota, and be frustrated or driven mad when they cannot achieve it or it is threatened.
With that in mind, I loved the insanity with the first midterm exams. I thought everyone had experienced that insanity, but I guess not from what people say in reviews of this book? Friendships are tested and people are pushed* to their breaking point. The author swears he will never act that way again, and I thought that would be the awakening of most students... But it was not. The chaos doubles down second semester. Study groups preparing outlines are like nations in all our wars. Stephen is the 2nd in command of the author's ship, presenting reports while the author barks decisive commands of how they're group will operate. "We'll take new members only if they give us nores. No, no trading out outline for another, it would then be traded by them to others". Characters like Kyle prey upon weak teachers he knows he can manipulate in the name of "unfairness", pulls the likable Phyllis (reasonable student and mother) to help overturn a teacher's decision, only to exclude her from his study group on his judgement that she isn't good enough to be on it.
It's literally war.
And why wouldn't it be? These students came to HLS to have an advantage, and not getting good grades would be throwing away the advantage.
So, being efficient and mentally stable in law school:
The most relatable scene was after Perini cold called the author, who was unprepared, and knowing that he would never be called in again, he became a backseat observer to the madness in the classroom. Since grades were only dependant on end of year exams and not even tied to one's name, it's all a game. The author put a lot of focus on the "problems with law school", but he missed the source. All of the problems were, at the end of the day, manufactured by the students. If they had accepted that it was just a game, none of the stress and insanity would have happened. If they thought about it, the structure of HLS and it's "systematic problems" were actually very much in the student's favor (if you see it as a game). The fear of perini calling on someone and them not being prepared is totally artificial. Perini could not alter their grades, expel them, or physically harm them. If they said they were unprepared, he couldn't affect them. He could only mock and shame them in front of their peers. But everyone was mocked and shamed anyway. And what your peers thought of you doesn't affect your grades, job placement or salery. If they had accepted the game, and only prepared for final exams, all of the stress would have been avoided. The author cried about how exams weren't like real lawyering. Cry about it. Harvard explicitly publishes the all the final exams from last year's classes and teachers. Forget "being good at lawyering" your first year? Play the game, learn for the exam, and nail it. Don't get in the mix of anything else. People who did that are the "silent geniuses" he spoke.of in paranoia but couldn't understand how they succeeded.
It makes total sense that teachers were egomaniacs. These people were the highest grades in their class, and wanted to flaunt it. The Socratic method system gave the teacher (who has years of experience and a wealth of knowledge on a subject matter) the opportunity to beat any student in a verbal argument and show off how much they knew. Beaten children become abusive parents. They were belittled by their hls teachers, now it's their turn. That's just how teaching at law school is supposed to be, they think to themselves.
Really good book, but no one would appreciate it until they've gone through higher education/boot camp/a beauty pageant where they're pitted against people who need to succeed and will stab you in the back to get ahead for their own ends.

The last part was terribly boring.

2023 reads, #79. I recently took the time to re-read the novel The Paper Chase (my review) by John Jay Osborn, in honor of his recent passing, and ended up enjoying just as much as when I originally read it back in high school; and that got me thinking yet again about legal thriller author Scott Turow's very first book, which for those who don't know is actually a nonfiction memoir about his first year at Harvard Law School in the early 1970s, the exact same setting and years as The Paper Chase too. So I put that on reserve at the Chicago Public Library as well, and just got done reading that for the first time, and it was interesting too for sure, both because of the ways it mirrored Osborn's novel and the way it differed from it.

Turow isn't trying to affix a three-act plot to his manuscript, like Osborn did with The Paper Chase, so he can just tell the story of being at HLS in a very straightforward and factual way, which both adds to his version of the story and takes away from it; for while you get a lot more detail about the experience in Turow's book, in the way you would expect a piece of long-form magazine journalism to talk about the subject as well, it's also drier and less romantic than Osborn's novel, which when all is said and done is not just about the law school itself but this young, confused, often terrified hero at the heart of the story. (Also, if you're like me, you'll be struck by how many incredibly simple things about the law Turow needs to describe here, such as what depositions are, which makes me realize how much more all of us as a society now know about the law in general, because of the endless legal TV shows and movies and thriller novels that have been released to the public in the 50 years since Turow's book first came out.) Although it's getting the maximum 5 out of 5 stars from me today, it's still not being recommended to every person out there; you need to be in the mood for a fairly dry factual look at what the first year of a law school is like if you're going to get any pleasure out of it at all, which is not the case with The Paper Chase, so judge whether to pick it up or not based on what you think your reaction would be to that.