From drafting techniques to ‘sense-checks’ — the realities of legal practice are a far cry from law school…
Law school prepares you to argue difficult points of law. What it does not prepare you for is arguing about style. Not legal style. Personal style. If the first lesson of practice is that the law is real, the second is that the job is deeply, stubbornly human. Once you’ve survived the obvious shocks — the workload, the pressure, the late nights — you start encountering the quieter lessons. The ones nobody warns you about because they’re not written down anywhere. You’re just expected to absorb them.
Here are eight more things that never appear on a syllabus, but quietly shape your life in practice.
1. “Good drafting” depends entirely on who’s reading it
One of the earliest shocks is discovering that good drafting is not a fixed concept.
You give the same piece of work to two partners.
Partner A replies:
➡️“Clear. Commercial. Exactly what I was after.”
You briefly experience joy.
Partner B replies:
➡️“This isn’t my style.”
What follows is not feedback. It is an expansion event. The document grows by several pages. Footnotes appear for points no one questioned. A simple, cut-and-dry commercial issue — the legal equivalent of a parking ticket — is treated as though it might one day reach the Supreme Court.
You rewrite it. Carefully. Thoroughly. Slowly.
Two days later, Partner B reviews your time entries and asks — genuinely —
➡️“Why did this take so long?”
This is when you learn the real rule:
some partners want elegance,
some want armour,
and some want armour without seeing the cost of forging it.
None of this is written down. You learn it once, painfully, and then tailor everything you write before you open a blank page.
2. “Just have a look” now owns your afternoon
In law school, instructions are specific. In practice, they arrive disguised as suggestions.
➡️“Just have a look.”
➡️“Can you sense-check this?”
➡️“Nothing urgent.”
These phrases translate roughly to:
Please think about this continuously until I email you again.
By the time you reply, the issue has evolved, the context has shifted, and everyone agrees — sincerely — that this was always the scope.
3. Simple matters are where mistakes get noticed fastest
Complex matters allow room for error. Simple ones do not. If something is described as “straightforward,” expectations rise immediately. There is no tolerance for hesitation, formatting slips, or questions that suggest the task might not be straightforward after all. You learn to triple-check not because the law is difficult — but because the margin for embarrassment is microscopic.
4. Time works differently once it’s reviewed
You complete the task.You meet the deadline.You send it over. Two days later, you’re asked why it took as long as it did.
Not because the work was bad. Because the task was supposed to be quick — a fact no one mentioned at the time.You slowly realise that time is judged backwards. Outcomes define expectations retroactively.
5. Instructions will change — but quietly, and in the past tense
You receive instructions. You confirm them.You proceed exactly as asked.
Halfway through, a new email arrives:
➡️“Actually, let’s also think about…”
This is not an addition. It is a subtle rewrite of history. By the end, the original task no longer exists, and everyone agrees — without irony — that this was always what was meant.
6. Legal TV shows aren’t wrong — they just skip the middle
Shows like Suits get mocked, but they’re not wrong about the personalities or pressure.
What they omit is the middle:
➡️The waiting.
➡️The redlines.
➡️The emails about tone.
The moment you realise the issue isn’t legal at all — it’s stylistic. Real practice is less dramatic, but far more exhausting.
7. You learn who actually keeps the firm running
Very early, you realise the most important people are not always the most senior.
They are the ones who know:
➡️which systems lie
➡️which deadlines matter
➡️which filings get rejected
➡️and which problems can be fixed quietly before they become public
Ignoring this knowledge is how junior lawyers suffer unnecessarily.
8. The absurdity isn’t a distraction — it’s the texture of the job
The law is serious. The consequences matter.
But you will also:
debate commas longer than submissions
receive “urgent” emails that resolve themselves
and spend hours perfecting something that will never be read again
If you can’t laugh at that gap, the job becomes unbearable.
What law school really misses
Law school teaches doctrine. Practice teaches navigation. Navigation of people. Of preferences.Of expectations that change depending on who’s asking. And somewhere between the parking tickets treated like constitutional crises and the emails asking why something took so long, you learn the truth:
Being a good lawyer isn’t just knowing the law. It’s knowing who wants it, how they want it and why they’ll change their mind tomorrow. That’s the real curriculum.
Further reading: 8 things law school doesn’t teach you (but every junior lawyer learns fast)
Sherlock Grant is the author of the Curious Case Files series, including the recently released True & Absurd Lawsuits: The Cases Kept Coming, exploring real courtroom disputes where logic and outcome quietly part ways.