Samuel Lipman is a Charleston, South Carolina native and a 2020 graduate from Clemson University. We recently sat down with Lipman to talk about his experience at the Law School. Below are excerpts from the interview.
What attracted you to Charleston School of Law?
Samuel Lipman: Definitely the location. Charleston is where I’m from originally. It’s where my wife is from originally. The prospect of starting our family here was extremely enticing. This is a lovely city from all perspectives.
What were your expectations when you arrived as a 1L?
Samuel Lipman: My expectations at Charleston School of Law when I arrived as a 1L definitely included the teacher-student relationship. It’s one of the sort of the selling factors in the school. So, my expectation was that the teachers were going to be approachable, accessible, and available. And my experience has been exactly that. I expected to be learning the law from some esteemed professors and to be able to go and talk to them any time I needed something and that’s been exactly my experience.
When I first came to the Open House I was told that this school is one of the best places to go for the teacher student relationship. Part of me thought that might have just been lip service, that they’re just trying to sell me on the school. My experience has been that they are totally honest. That that is one of the most accurate things about this school, that every single professor here really, really wants you to succeed.
What student organizations have you been involved in?
Samuel Lipman: I’m in the Phi Delta Phi (PDP), Phi Alpha Delta (PAD), the Business Law Society, the Real Estate Society, I’m a member of the Charleston Law Review, a legal writing teaching fellow for Professor McElreath, and I have just been accepted or been invited to become a member of the Transactional Law team.
How do you balance class and all those extracurricular activities?
Samuel Lipman: My professional background is a production supervisor for a series of paper production plants. Time management was my job. I’m pretty good at compartmentalizing and figuring out, when I have blocks of time, how to most effectively use those blocks of time. Identifying where I can work ahead so that I have buffers when things come up, because they always do come up, but really the answer, as anyone will tell you, is time management.
I was married when I started. Part of the reason that I’ve been as successful academically as I have been is because of my wife. I have somebody who’s, cooking most of the meals, she’s doing most of the housework, she is sort of there making sure that I’m not having to worry about really anything but law school. I can’t thank her enough for it.
What advice, this is the final question, what advice would you give perspective and current 1L students who are coming on about how to be successful in law school based on your success?
Samuel Lipman: Based on my experience in law school, the number one piece of advice I give to any law student is to just worry about yourself and not worry about your peers. Beyond that, treating this like a full time job is the number one thing that I find anybody who’s successful and all my friends that are successful treated it the same way that I did. I’m here on Sunday. I’m here a lot of Saturday. You get out what you put in, and so the more you put in to law school. That has been my experience.
What has law school taught you about you?
Samuel Lipman: Law school has taught me that I am capable of doing anything and if I put the time in, if I put the energy in, I can be successful at whatever it is that I want. And that it wasn’t too late to do that.
