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If you’ve already read the “About” section of this blawg, then you already know my significant other is also pursuing a law degree. Scary. I know. So imagine the fear I had when I first learned he would be going to law school.

From what I had heard on blawgs and from people who had a niece whose friend’s boyfriend’s best friend was in law school (or something of that sort, too lazy to diagram), law school would KILL the relationship. Or would turn my significant other into an unattractive, smelly, unshorn, libido-crushing monk two weeks into his first 1L semester. And that’s where author Scott Turow’s “1L: The Turbulent True Story of a First Year at Harvard Law School” came in.

Turow’s account at the Ivy may be somewhat dated (he attended in the ’70s), and his mere admission into the hallowed halls of Harvard Law were something me and my LSAT score could only dream about, but the book gave me a realistic idea of what my boyfriend and our relationship would be facing. School work would be hard, but it could be managed. The relationship would need to be adjusted, but it could be maintained. Factor into that the fact that me and the boyfriend had been dating for an long, long, long time (almost five years when he started in fall 2008), and we had a pretty good shot at survival.

And for those of you who plan on strapping on a pair of steel undies and throwing away the key for three years, the book can also help you filter through the mixed messages of gunners, whose goal is to make you soil yourself with stories of the first year, and well-meaning-but-misled advice givers, and develop a healthy perspective on what to expect.