Starting a new school year, so many students are eager to learn and try everything to make themselves a successful law student. However, for some students, significant adjustments to the learning processes they developed in their previous education settings can disrupt legal learning to their detriment. This can be true for some neurodivergent law students.

The world is made with neurotypical people in mind—much like it is for able-bodied persons. As a response to this, neurodivergent individuals (i.e., those whose brains work differently because of conditions such as attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autism spectrum disorder (autism), or those with anxiety)[1] often develop conscious and unconscious processes to adapt themselves to the world.

Bringing it back to legal education, neurodivergent law students likely developed learning processes in undergrad that helped make them successful. However, upon entering law school and hearing how to “best read and brief cases” or how to “outline well,” neurodivergent law students may think they need to completely change their process, but that is an incorrect assumption. Learning as a neurodivergent law student requires a certain amount of adaptation to traditional legal pedagogical tools while also remaining true to the previously developed processes that led to their success.[2]

For example, as an (underdiagnosed) neurodivergent undergraduate student, I created “study guides” for each of my undergraduate exams. These covered the necessary vocabulary, the information discussed in class or in slides, and the connections that tied these together. These turned into case-heavy outlines my first year of law school, and I learned to adapt over the next year to focus more on the law rather than the details of cases--mostly through trial and error on exams.

This story is not unique to me. I have found that other neurodivergent students I work with in academic and bar success have also developed their own learning processes. Some prefer long paragraphs that helps them to map out the language before having to write it out on an exam, so we adapt outlining to process the law and case examples in this way. Other students have preferred more concise or visual formats like PowerPoints and charts, so we adapt their learning strategies to match the processes they used previously. This has come up most often in learning to outline, which is of course how a student processes the law to better understand it for test day.

The processes neurodivergent law students have developed may already be strong and support their learning needs, but the content may need additional support. For example, they may need to learn to switch from details to the big pictures of the law (e.g., pivot from case details to key rule takeaways) or to build in more connections between concepts. For other neurodivergent law students who try to completely convert to “tried and true” law school methods, they may face challenges with understanding how to use the new tool when it is not how they prefer to learn. So, instead of constraining those students to change their study process to match legal learning methods, work with them to adapt their previous processes to match their new learning goals.

Below are two ways you can support neurodivergent law students as they adjust to learning the law:

1. If you work in the classroom, before you start teaching “how to” perform a specific study task, poll the students: “What worked well for you in undergrad?” Create a discussion around the topic and allow students to share the positive ways they previously learned. Then as you teach new methods specific to law school, ask students for adaptations to their previous learning processes that will now support their legal education goals. This will support not only your neurodivergent law students, but also likely some of your neurotypical law students.

2. If you work individually with a student who discloses to you that they are neurodivergent, ask them to show you how they are trying to process the law (e.g., a case brief, their notes, their outline). As they do, probe them with questions about how this is similar or different to what they did as an undergraduate student. If they are veering significantly from what they used to do  (and facing challenge as a result), ask them if there is a reason, and if they are changing just because that’s how it was taught at Orientation or in a skills course. Then, work with them to merge the processes. Some neurodivergent law students may not have had to study much (or at all) in undergrad, so this is also a good way to determine how to best support their learning as they try true studying for the first time.

As more adults discover that they are neurodivergent, legal educators can continue to familiarize themselves with neurodiversity and better support students struggling to adapt their processes to legal education. Neurodivergent students know what helps them to be successful because they understand themselves more than you (or even they) may know.

(Erica M. Lux)

[1] Neurodivergent, Cleveland Clinic, https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/symptoms/23154-neurodivergent (last visited Sept. 3, 2025).

[2] Hailey Hillsman, Succeed in Law School as a Neurodivergent Student, Thomson Reuters Law School Survival Guide, https://lawschool.thomsonreuters.com/survival-guide/neurodiversity-resources/ (last visited Sept. 3, 2025) (discussing how neurodivergent law students can try new study methods but should also trust their study methods because they have been in school long enough to know what works for them).