Hey Freyo,
I actually understand your anxiety about studying law, I still remember when I was in year 12 I could browse through the law forums like a maniac and essentially the overall picture I could get about what studying a law degree was like is a depressing one with essentially the same characteristics that you have managed to summarise. I guess there really isn't a typical day of a law student, it depends also on what degree you are considering of combining law with, for me, I go to UNSW, and we have small classes instead of big lectures where we have assigned readings to do from the prescribed textbook every lesson and we could make notes on those readings before going into class and discuss what the cases and concepts in the readings were about. Hence, law is probably the only subject where you can't come to a lecture unprepared, if you haven't done your readings before the lecture, you will find yourself very rapidly lost in what the teacher or other students are talking about.
In many ways, unsurprisingly, law is a very stressful degree. It is certainly not a degree where you can do say 9 weeks of readings in advance and think you will be sweet for your notes, since you need to revise over your notes all the time to make them 'exam ready'-summarising what the textbook says will not cut it-but how to argue in law and think critically as well as writing 'exam ready' notes will be a skill that you will gradually accumulate as you study law so there is no need to worry too much. You need to embrace the learning curve in many ways, legal studies is not exactly identical to law in uni, in legal studies you learn a lot about effectiveness of a particular law reform, but in law, you need to delve into what the actual piece of legislation states and how to apply it to hypothetical problems. Hence to excel in law, you have to develop a strong ability to raise an argument for, and then deconstruct that argument by a counterargument-it is a bit like arguing with yourself, but just for every single case, and then determining how to RESOLVE that argument by deciding which side has the stronger case. I think the coming to an conclusion part is the most challenging and takes time to master.
In a way, what I was surprised about when I entered a law degree wasn't the amount of readings I had to do, but the importance of consistency. Law is a subject where you need to work very hard at regardless how much assessments you have at the moment or what part of the term you are in simply because it is a very demanding degree. Another thing I discovered is the extremely competitive nature of law students, as in, even for class participation points, you need to fight to put your hand up early enough to be noticed for an input, and that input is expected to be an intelligent and critical viewpoint of the material rather than just merely summarising the material. Law is very pedantic about the use of particular words, and sometimes it can drive you a bit crazy where by convention, two phrases usually share similar meaning, but in law, there will be a pertinent need to differentiate them, e.g. a risk of great injury is different from a great risk of injury. Even outside of class, there is countless opportunities for internal and external competitions whether it be mooting, negotiations or client interviewing or essay writing competitions, there seems to be endless chances for you to develop your practical skills as an aspiring lawyer and compete with a very competitive cohort outside of the classroom. There is also a persistent desire to get a law internship to gain some work experience to enhance one's employability in this industry in the future.
What you need to keep in mind is to keep your options a bit open, since 50% of law graduates actually don't end up being a lawyer. But from your articulation of how much you liked legal studies, it will assist you to enjoy your studies of law but not necessarily, since the nature of the courses do differ quite significantly. Unlike the HSC, for many law courses, you will have open book exams, hence making really good notes is of paramount importance in excelling, there isn't much rote learning, you need to develop a skill to apply the law, and this really can't be developed regardless of how many law studies guides you read-personal experience, you have to actually start studying the law to develop it.
Law is not quite as grim as perhaps some of the forum posts on this forum has portrayed it to be, if you managed to meet the right people, the study of law can be tough, but also because of its demanding nature, can allow the formation of very strong friendships as you share resources and study together. To excel in law, at least in UNSW, you need to be willing to share your ideas, rather than fearing they are stupid and never articulating them out, because this is the only way to gain class participation points which accounts for a substantial 20% of the course marks. There are different types of assessments in law, some may be a court observation assignment where you go to court and observe civil/criminal cases and discuss your observations in light of what you are studying right now-i.e. by writing a court observation report, there will be hypothetical question assignments where you are given a hypothetical problem-usually one or two pages long-and you have to apply the law to advise different parties in the question about the likely outcome and explain why, there is also final exams-where often involve theoretical problem and writing essays. For first semester of law in UNSW, you also need to complete a 10% component related to legal research methods where you are introduced to how to use legal databases to search for cases relevant to a particular topic area and journal articles.
For some law students, particular those combining it with arts or commerce or international studies, they usually have two to three days off from uni, and hence more time to study than say, if you combined law with science or engineering or actuarial studies. The most important thing in law is to keep an open mind, don't have a stubborn opinion and always be willing to listen to the perspectives of others and critically evaluate the strength of their argument. What you get out of your law degree is essentially what you make of it, it is up to you to decide how much competitions you participate in-many competitions requires a partner, so it might be a good idea to make friends before joining to have better teamwork, how deeply you do your readings-don't think readings are just read through say 40 pages and you are done, you physically need to understand every single sentence of what you read, for cases, you could be expected to do case briefs involving the material facts-the facts relevant to why a case is determined a certain way, you will be surprised to know that the names of the parties or the date that the case happened often is not relevant to the material facts, application of law-the judges reasoning, often there are multiple judges, and you need to summarise their reasoning individually-not as easy as you think, sometimes the way judges speak is very convoluted, they can spend pages talking about essentially what can be articulated in the same sentence.
I personally quite enjoyed the challenge of studying a law degree, although I am currently performing much better in the science component of my degree than my law one. In UNSW, you have LAWPLUS and law peer mentoring programs which are designed to assist first years to make a smooth transition into their law degree, and I found both to be of an immense help. Law can also be frustrating because the law itself is rapidly changing, so the experiences of different generations of law students-in regards of the content they have learnt will be very different, so you need to keep up to date with any changes in the law and always embrace the fact that what you are learning is not a static body of knowledge, but rather a dynamic, ever evolving body, one which you can have the power to make changes. Law is all about ambiguities, not certainties, it is all about forming an appreciation of the current shortcomings and loopholes in the law so that you are empowered to have the capacities to propose changes and reforms to make it better and fairer for all.
