If you’re starting law school this fall, you’ve probably already been told what to read.

Casebooks. Maybe a primer on contracts. Something to get your head around how lawyers think before your first cold call.

That advice isn’t wrong.

It’s just incomplete.

Because your most important summer reading isn’t on your syllabus. It’s everything that teaches you how to be seen and understood as a future lawyer.

That might sound out of place in a profession that still likes to believe that merit speaks for itself. It doesn’t. Not anymore.

By the time you graduate, platforms like LinkedIn and TikTok will play a real role in how employers, clients, and even colleagues encounter your ideas. And tools like ChatGPT are already shaping how legal information is summarized, surfaced, and trusted.

You are not just preparing to practice law.

You are preparing to be interpreted.

Most law students wait too long to think about that.

They focus, understandably, on grades, journals, and internships. Those things matter. But they are not the whole story. The students who stand out today are not just the ones who perform well academically. They are the ones who build a point of view early and make it visible.

That doesn’t mean turning yourself into a content machine. It means becoming legible.

Can someone understand what interests you in the law? Can they see how you think about a problem? Can they find you when they’re looking for insight on an issue that matters to you?

Those are not vanity questions. They are professional ones.

The simplest way to start is also the most uncomfortable. Write something. Not for a class. Not for a grade. For yourself, and for anyone willing to read it.

Take a case you’re following and explain it in plain English. React to a legal development that genuinely interests you. Ask a question publicly that you’re still trying to answer.

Do that consistently, even in small ways, and something important happens.

You stop sounding like a law student.

You start sounding like a lawyer.

There’s another benefit that’s easy to overlook. Building a visible body of work makes you better at the substance of the law. It forces clarity. It pushes you to move beyond jargon. It makes you take positions rather than hide behind summaries.

In other words, it accelerates the exact skills law school is supposed to teach.

None of this replaces the traditional path. You still need to do the reading. You still need to show up prepared. You still need to earn the credentials that open doors.

But if you rely on those things alone, you’re leaving something on the table.

Because when you graduate, you won’t just be competing on what you know.

You’ll be competing on whether anyone knows you.

So yes, read your cases this summer.

But also read the room.

Think about how you want to be understood before the profession decides that for you.

That might be the most valuable preparation you can do before your first day of law school.

Amanda Demanda is the founder of Amanda Demanda Injury Lawyers and a nationally recognized trial attorney with a focus on serious and catastrophic commercial truck accident litigation. She currently serves as President of the Miami-Dade Trial Lawyers Association. She has built one of the most visible plaintiff firms in the country, with offices in Miami, Tampa, Houston, Dallas, and throughout Florida and Texas, allowing her team to handle high-stakes cases across key transportation corridors. Known for blending courtroom skill with strategic insight, Amanda brings a people-first, safety-driven approach to complex trucking and personal injury cases, with a focus on accountability and real-world impact.

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