In a matter of days, some of you will walk into your very first law school class.
Others will head back for your second or third year, armed with a little more confidence, a lot more reading, and probably a better understanding of where the coffee is.
I envy you.
Not because I miss the exams.
Not because I’d love to relive cold calls or finals.
I envy you because you’re starting your legal career at a time when you have an opportunity my generation never had.
The funny thing is, almost nobody will mention it during orientation.
You’ll hear about study groups, internships, networking receptions, journals, clinics, and summer associate positions. You’ll get plenty of good advice about grades and time management.
Listen to all of it.
But I’d like to add one more suggestion.
Start writing.
Not because you’re trying to become an influencer.
Not because you’re trying to get followers.
Because writing will make you a better lawyer.
I didn’t understand that when I was in school.
Back then, I thought writing was something lawyers did after they had become experts. You spent years learning, years practicing, years earning credibility, and only then did you have something worth saying.
Now I think I had it backwards.
You become a better lawyer by trying to explain what you’re learning.
The first time you sit down and try to summarize a complicated case in plain English, you’ll discover very quickly whether you actually understood it.
The first time you explain a Supreme Court opinion to someone who has never been to law school, you’ll realize how much unnecessary jargon lawyers use.
The first time someone asks you a follow-up question you can’t answer, you’ll go back, read more carefully, and remember the material far better than if you’d simply highlighted another page in your casebook.
Writing has a way of exposing the gaps in your own thinking.
That’s a gift.
Some of you will immediately think, “Who wants to hear from a first-year law student?”
That’s the wrong question.
The better question is this:
Who else is trying to understand the same things you are?
There will always be another student preparing for the same class.
Another college student is wondering whether law school is right for them.
Another friend asked why a court reached a particular decision.
You don’t have to pretend to be the smartest person in the room.
You just have to be honest about what you’re learning.
Over time, something unexpected happens.
You don’t just become a better writer.
You become a clearer thinker.
You ask better questions.
You become more comfortable explaining complicated ideas without hiding behind legal terminology.
Clients notice that.
Judges notice that.
Partners notice that.
Long before social media, the best lawyers were almost always the best communicators.
That hasn’t changed.
The platforms have.
Here’s something else I wish someone had told me.
Don’t worry if hardly anyone reads what you write at first.
Almost nobody read my early work.
Honestly, some of it deserved that fate.
But that’s not the point.
Every article, every post, every attempt to explain an idea was practice.
Not practice for social media.
Practice for being a lawyer.
Years later, I realized something I never expected.
People weren’t just finding my content.
They were finding me.
By the time some of them called my office, they already had a sense of how I thought, how I communicated, and what mattered to me.
I never set out to build that.
It happened because I kept writing.
If you’re beginning law school this fall—or heading into your second or third year—you have an opportunity that simply didn’t exist when I was sitting where you are.
You can spend the next three years collecting grades and experiences.
Or you can spend the next three years finding your voice.
One earns you a degree.
The other can shape your entire career.
If I had the chance to start over again, I know exactly which one I’d begin working on the first week of classes
Amanda Demanda is the founder of Amanda Demanda Injury Lawyers and a nationally recognized trial attorney with a focus on serious and catastrophic commercial truck accident litigation. She currently serves as President of the Miami-Dade Trial Lawyers Association. She has built one of the most visible plaintiff firms in the country, with offices in Miami, Tampa, Houston, Dallas, and throughout Florida and Texas, allowing her team to handle high-stakes cases across key transportation corridors. Known for blending courtroom skill with strategic insight, Amanda brings a people-first, safety-driven approach to complex trucking and personal injury cases, with a focus on accountability and real-world impact.
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