I teach Legal Methods in the spring semester. In my school, Legal Methods is a required course for 1L students who did not perform well academically in their fall semester. For many of them, this is their last chance to stay in law school.
Unsurprisingly, part of my role in teaching the class is to help students navigate a variety of emotions as they process being in my class. Something I often come back to with students is what success in law school means. We know that law school is filled with visible markers of achievement: grades, class rank, law review, clerkships, offers, and bar passage. While these milestones matter, they can quietly crowd out the more important individual question of what success means to each student.
When students measure themselves only against external benchmarks, they may achieve impressive credentials while feeling disconnected, burned out, or uncertain about their own goals. Alternatively, students may miss the external marks and feel disheartened and uncertain about whether they belong.
Academic support professionals are uniquely positioned to help students define success in a way that is both personally meaningful and professionally sustainable. Here are some things I keep in mind as I navigate these conversations with students:
1. Widen Traditional Narratives of Success
Many students arrive with an implicit script, including top grades, prestigious internships, elite employers. While those paths are valid, they are not the only versions of success. Naming this openly helps students see that there are many fulfilling legal careers, and career paths are rarely linear (mine certainly wasn’t!). Additionally, students should recognize that prestige is different from fulfillment. By widening the narrative of “success,” we give students permission to explore what actually aligns with their values.
2. Separate Performance from Worth
High-achieving environments can blur the line between how students perform and how they see themselves. A bad exam becomes a statement about identity. A missed opportunity becomes a referendum on belonging.
Academic support can help students practice language and thinking that separates what happened (a performance outcome) from who I am (a capable, growing professional). This distinction supports resilience and reduces the emotional weight attached to every data point.
3. Encourage Values-Based Goal Setting
Often, I find myself asking students only, “What kind of job do you want?” However, this closes the discussion. Instead, I try to be deliberate about asking questions like:
- What kind of lawyer do you want to be?
- What kind of life do you want your career to support?
- What values do you want your work to reflect?
This also works when narrowed to the academic setting. Rather than assuming every student wants a 4.0, asking students why they came to law school and what experiences they want to have while here can help shift the conversation from grades to values. And, values-based conversations help students connect daily effort to long-term meaning, making motivation more intrinsic and sustainable.
4. Normalize Changing Definitions of Success
What success looks like in 1L year may not match what it looks like in 3L year, or five years into practice. Students should know that redefining success is not failure; it’s growth. We can model this by sharing nonlinear career stories, alumni paths that have changed over time, and examples of lawyers who recalibrated their priorities. Flexibility in goals is a professional strength that we can start to normalize early in law school.
5. Teach Students to Track Personal Wins
Not all progress shows up on transcripts. Encourage students to notice the non-grade-based wins, such as improved time management; greater confidence in class; stronger analysis; healthier boundaries; or an increased willingness to seek feedback. These are all skills students should be developing in law school, and tracking these wins helps students see growth that grades may not capture.
Helping students develop a personal definition of success doesn’t mean ignoring institutional benchmarks. It means placing them in a broader, healthier context. When students define success on their own terms – grounded in values, growth, and professional identity – they are more likely to persist through challenges, make intentional choices, and build careers that feel meaningful.
Academic support plays a powerful role in helping students ask and answer the most important question of all: What does success look like for me?
(Dayna Smith)
