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Since I've mentioned it in some capacity in each of my last two posts and mentioned that it would show up as a topic sooner or later, I might as well bring it up now: Bar Review. No, it has nothing to do with the bar exam, so you can go ahead and bring your heart rate back down. The Bar Review I'm talking about has to do with the other kind of bar—the one where you get drinks. At my law school (and I think many others), Bar Review takes place every Thursday: the social chair of the Student Bar Association chooses a locale every week for everyone to show up and have a few beers together. 

If the thought of setting foot in a bar sounds just plain awful to you, feel free to disregard this post and come back next month when I talk about a different social activity for shy law students (just as a refresher, that's what this column is about). But if your feelings towards drinking establishments are less decidedly adverse, you might want to seriously consider attending a Bar Review or two. 

Why, of all things, am I encouraging you to go to a bar? As I mentioned way back in my first post, it's extremely important for professional purposes to form bonds with your fellow classmates. Bar Review is a great way to do that. I firmly believe that it's almost impossible to build a particularly strong friendship with someone just based on your classroom interactions with that person. Spending time with your classmates outside the confines of the law school gives an extra dimension to those relationships. And, rather conveniently, Bar Review gives you the opportunity to spend extracurricular time with a lot of your classmates all at once, with no organizational effort or awkward let's-hang-out conversations on your part. 

Let me be clear, of course: you don't have to drink. In fact, I would encourage you not to get, *ahem*, absolutely poop-faced in front of your classmates, seeing as one of the big goals here is to build friendly relationships that will later be professionally beneficial. The point is to have a little fun and break out of that serious shell that you wear all day at school. Because I made a commitment early in my law school career to go to Bar Review as often as humanly possible, I got to know people from other "colleges" and years to a degree that relatively few of my 1L classmates could rival. And this is coming from someone who's not exactly a "party girl." I just made a point of pushing myself out of my comfort zone.

If your law school doesn't have a weekly Bar Review, don't dismay—this is a chance for you to stretch your leadership wings. In the age of Facebook, organizing a Bar Review is easy as pie. Just make sure to give the bar a call or an email earlier in the week to let them know you're coming, and then make a Facebook event out of it. If you plan it, they will come.