Advice for those starting law school

When you step through the doors of a law school, you will find yourself in a labyrinth filled with thousands of legal articles, centuries-old precedents, and archaic terms. Your professors will provide you with the basic maps (textbooks) to show you the way through this labyrinth. I, however, want to focus on strategies that will help you read those maps better, create your own compass, and most importantly, find your own unique voice as a legal professional. Let's take a look together at what you should pack in your lawyer's bag for this long and arduous journey.

1. Going Beyond the Text of the Law: Read to Understand, Read to Interpret

Law is reading. But not all reading is the same. Perhaps due to the influence of the test-taking habits from secondary education, as PISA results also show, we have serious weaknesses in deeply understanding and interpreting a text. The result of a misinterpretation when reading a literary text might at most be a friendly disagreement with a friend. However, the cost of misinterpreting a contract, a legal article, or a court decision can be a person's freedom or a company's future.

Therefore, it is essential to develop your interpretation muscles. The way to do this is through texts that will warn you when you "misunderstand." Solid texts written in fields like philosophy, history, and economics reveal themselves immediately when you do not understand them. You cannot follow the argument, and you cannot reach a conclusion. These fields teach you how to deconstruct the structure of a text, understand the author's intent, and read between the lines.

2. Your Pen is Your Sword: Write to Think, Write to Persuade

A lawyer's most powerful weapon is the words they use. Lawsuits, legal opinions, contracts... Your profession relies on the ability to present your thoughts persuasively in writing. However, test-oriented education is dulling our most fundamental tool of thought: the ability to write.

Writing is the most disciplined form of thinking. When you put a claim on paper, you clearly see the gaps, logical leaps, and weak links in your argument. Expecting personalized feedback from your professor in an amphitheater with hundreds of students is wishful thinking. The solution is in your hands: Create your own "feedback mechanism." Form a writing group with friends who suffer from the same problem, and ruthlessly critique each other's petitions and articles. Participate in online workshops. Remember, being a good writer is a prerequisite for being a good lawyer.

3. The ''I'm a Humanities Student'' Excuse is Over: Speak the Language of Science and Technology

The sentence "I am a humanities student, not a science student" is not a valid excuse for a 21st-century lawyer. From cybercrimes to medical law, from intellectual property to environmental lawsuits, the most modern and complex areas of law require basic scientific and technological literacy. How effective can you be in a cyberbullying case without understanding what an IP address means, or in a patent case without understanding how an algorithm works? Without grasping the method of scientific thinking, how can you pass an expert report through a critical filter? Instead of "watering down" these topics or "running away" from them, tackle them head-on.

4. Don't Be Afraid of Numbers: You Cannot Fully Understand Law Without Understanding the Market

Commercial law, law of obligations, competition law, banking law... The heart of modern law beats in economic and financial relations. Staying away from these areas is narrowing your own scope of action as a lawyer. However, I have a warning: Most popular economics books are written through the lens of a specific ideology (usually neoliberalism). Therefore, read both mainstream texts that explain how the market works and those that look at those texts from a critical distance.

5. Be Aware of Your Own Glasses: Law and Ideology

Law is never a neutral, sterile field; it is political from start to finish. The person who writes the law, interprets it, and applies it is a human being. Every person has a window through which they view the world, a set of preconceptions, and an ideology. The point is not to be "without ideology" (which is impossible), but to be aware of your own ideology, political expectations, and filters. Otherwise, you become a prisoner of your own tendencies and seek not justice, but merely an echo of your own views. Know politics, but also be ruthlessly critical of your own political stance.

Still, there are some texts I cannot pass by without mentioning that every lawyer should absolutely read: 

Victor Hugo's The Last Day of a Condemned Man

Faruk Erem's Memoirs of a Criminal Lawyer

Samuel Moyn's Human Rights and the Uses of History (brought to our language with Seza Özdemir's smooth translation)

Ernst Von Hirsch's My Memoirs and Method in Practical Law should not be overlooked. 

In our country, legal education is not being conducted properly in many universities that have fallen for the ease of opening a law faculty. Do not let this discourage you. Fortunately, there is YouTube. The Union of Turkish Bar Associations, various law societies, and law firms have wonderful video series. Do not avoid these videos based on the difficulty and boredom of school lessons. Definitely watch them. Especially if you are sensitive to your surroundings and know lawyers, apprentice with them. Apprenticeship is the key to mastery. Enjoy the apprenticeship. Do not be late in this regard like I was. 

Remember, law school teaches you the laws, but you learn to be a lawyer yourself. Being a lawyer is not about memorizing a pile of texts, but mastering the art of thinking, reasoning, and constructing arguments in a certain way. Enjoy this journey, read a lot, write even more, and most importantly, never stop asking and questioning justice.

May your path be clear!