One of the members of my church small group is currently a 1L. His first law school exam is tomorrow. I’d been trying for weeks to meet him for dinner but our schedules hadn’t lined up. Due to my early Thanksgiving celebrations and his returning early from Thanksgiving in order to study for exams, we were able to go out for dinner on Friday. It also marked a rare trip to Raleigh for me.

We talked about plenty of things as it had been a while since we’d gotten together, but the focus of the conversation was on his upcoming exams. Sitting there trying to remember what I did successfully and what I wished I could change about my own law school exam preparations, I can’t say that it surfaced the fondest memories. I habitually buried myself in the recesses of the international law library, a place without natural light and that could only be accessed by navigating the labyrinth of interconnected buildings of Harvard Law School. It was (and presumably still is) the sort of place where you could set a very sad horror movie. At least I wasn’t disturbed much down there; my only human contact would be with a confused janitor. That first semester, though, I tried to study alongside classmates. I did not recommend it to him. I also gave him permission, repeatedly for emphasis, that it is okay to not go back to studying on the same day when you have an exam in the morning. The goal is to be empty when you finish the test, especially with the way many law school exams encourage word vomit and continuing to type more and more until the allotted time is complete, and you need to recharge after that. Beating yourself up over not immediately going back to studying won’t help. I hope he takes at least that message to heart.

The restaurant itself was also very good, a mixed cuisine place with influences from across the Levant and the southern Mediterranean. It will be a recommended spot on the always in-progress restaurant spreadsheet I maintain. Going with another person was nice too because it allowed us to get multiple things and share them instead of me having to commit to a single choice per course. That, though, wasn’t the main point of the evening. The point was to give some encouragement to a young man who is now in the final stages of the marathon that is the first semester of law school and needs to kick hard to the finish.