How can I draw insights from my 1L year experience and apply them going forward?


You can always incorporate into your decision making process any profound insight you get from law school (or elsewhere). The two things I would suggest for your first year, which might make your future life more successful, are:

1) Master the use of time. A lot of law students have problems juggling all their class work, writing projects, part-time jobs, group activities, etc. If you learn to prioritize and organize your time well, this will make you much more successful in life. Sadly, although the things you are juggling will be different in professional life, there may be more of them, and how well you juggle them may have an impact on a lot of people besides you.

2) Start picking up good habits now. Start doing all the things that are expected of a professional now. Ingrain as habits the things that other attorneys will fail to do. Meet deadlines - class, social, group. Return e-mails and phone calls within 24 hours. Keep your head screwed on straight as much as possible.

Making professionalism a habit now, even in these simple ways, will make it that much easier as an attorney. (There are more complaints to bar associations and attorney regulatory commissions for bad communication by attorneys than almost any other complaint.) In addition, this will make a good impression on persons around you (i.e., persons from whom you might need references) and on fellow students with whom you might end up working in the future.