Fellow ASPers – the familiar churn of the end-of-semester rush is upon us. We are seeing, hearing, and feeling the crush of student demand ahead of final exams – or perhaps we are artificially rushing to fill an engagement void that seems an ill-fitting claim before the storm. In either case, we almost reflexively rush to support our students in their days, hours, and minutes of greatest need. The door stays open, the meeting calendar expands to blowfish-size proportions, and the supplies of tissues and candy receive one more re-up.

At semester’s end, it can seem very selfish to center ourselves, and to preserve our boundaries rather than to artificially inflate our capacities. Yet this commitment to boundary maintenance has to be at its strongest when the demand is at its highest, and when the upper range of our students’ struggle is at its peak. As many wise ASPers have said over the years, this is like putting your oxygen mask on before helping others. (Which is an ironic thing for me to type 5 days before embarking on a 19-hour travel day across an ocean and a continent.)

My fellow blog contributors have more than set the stage this week with short, numbered lists of excellent advice. So I’ll try to do the same.

1. Further Codify Your Individual Meeting Protocol

If you’ve held out on a meeting scheduler – or new to ASP, and you missed how we kept that relic of pandemic-compelled remote learning for ourselves – create one. If you already have one, customize your landing page to reflect exactly when you’re available. Create a new meeting type to account for your time restrictions during this period – that yields data on how many requests you had that you should share with stakeholders. Put a sign on your door indicating your availability and including a QR code so they can easily schedule a meeting if no one is around to do so.

Have two out-of-offices messages cued up! The first is for the exam period indicating your reduced/limited availability (both to students and other non-student stakeholders). The second is for when exams are over, and you’re on break and/or entirely focused on February bar takers.

2. Better Returns on Investment: Change Drop-In/On-Call/Office Hours to Hall/Library Walks

Some of you may be constrained by an extremely big “Return to Office” culture.[1] But the truth of the hunkering down our students do means they very rarely stray from their preferred on-campus study spots (for those even still on campus). The on-call nature of just sitting in our offices prevents us from, say, engaging in something that requires deep work and also comes with semester’s end (reports, conference prep, work product assessment, advance planning for next semester or bar season).

So, let’s steal a page from our bar season playbook, and meet our students where they are literally and geographically at. In as short as a half-hour walk, we gain valuable insight in return: the mood on campus; the proportion of folks who prefer/need to be here to get their prep done versus off-premises; the responsiveness of our students to our presence. Our students appreciate the visible support. And we’ll need the walk to stave off all that terrible stuff that comes from being hunched over at a desk, looking at a screen, for far too long.

3. Triage: Who to See for What … Not “You, for Everything”

The substantive/skills divide becomes your biggest boundary patroller. Redirect a “teach me X, please” ambush to the doctrinal professor (not even the TAs – they have exams too); help your student re-frame how you can help them. Refer out anything your spidey senses are telling you is a larger quality of life issue to Student Life.[2] Make clear what answers you will/won’t answer. Include this triage policy, or links to it, in any weekly newsletter to students; share it with your doctrinal professors.

Have a reading/exam period checklist of self-remedies students should consult before seeing you. Require a study schedule as a condition of meeting. Re-direct the student to any accumulated resource bank, student portal page, or LMS page. This all encourages resourcefulness and self-assessment – exactly the skill that needs a leg-day-like boost, since they should be gorging on timed practice exams and sample answer review anyway.

4. Plan a Trip, A Pro Tip That Is Not a Joke

I recently talked to a friend of a bestie who wanted advice on moving, post-haste, to the country in which I currently reside.[3] I must’ve said at least five times during the video chat, and again in the follow-up e-mail, that he needed to book a scouting visit. Among other practical reasons for doing so, I reminded him that it would provide “needed inspiration and motivation when things will get challenging.” There is a terrible, terrible norm in American work culture – and in the legal profession in particular[4] – that taking a vacation is a self-centered affront to productivity, provider efficacy, and putting students first. And sadly, our employers almost unanimously make it clear they expect us on-call, year-round.[5]

But all that couldn’t be further from the truth. Taking care of you is taking care of everyone else. If we can, our goal should be to exhaust our vacation allotment every year. Not doing so intensifies the burnout effect – ask those whose jobs literally (not figuratively) are matters of life and death![6] Many of our present – and many of our now-former – colleagues in ASP can attest to that.

So now that I’ve scrambled your algorithm just by mentioning it, it’s up to you to do it. (Maybe … after booking your AASE travel.) Come back recharged, with fresh perspective on your plate’s challenges.

[1] There is mixed sentiment on the wisdom of this kind of mandate. See, e.g., Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, “The Real Reasons Companies Are Forcing You Back To The Office,” Forbes.com (Mar. 8, 2025), available at https://www.forbes.com/sites/tomaspremuzic/2025/02/28/the-real-reasons-companies-are-forcing-you-back-to-the-office (last visited Dec. 4, 2025). My current location makes obvious into which camp I fall.

[2] It’s only fair that if we preach the expertise model as support that we should be trusted in all things learning science and bar exam, that we use that same norm to direct student life issues to the experts our institutions hired in student affairs. Admittedly, this line isn’t as clear when the ASP educator is also a student affairs professional.

[3] Still waiting for a first ASP friend to come visit over here! We promise excellent lodging and even more excellent gastronomy.

[4] See, e.g., Jordan Rothman, “Lawyers Have A Harder Time Taking Vacation Than Other Professionals,” Above the Law (Nov. 14, 2025), available at https://abovethelaw.com/2025/11/lawyers-have-a-harder-time-taking-vacation-than-other-professionals  (last visited Dec. 4, 2025).

[5] Every year that I’ve done my presentation at NECASP for the national job posting data, I have not separate out how many openings specify the position is 9-10 months versus year-round; all of the postings check the latter box.

[6] Christine A. Sinsky, Mickey T. Trocke, Lotte N. Dyrbye, Hanhan Wang, Lindsey E. Carlasare, Colin P. West, Tait D. Shanafelt, “Vacation Days Taken, Work During Vacation, and Burnout Among U.S. Physicians”, JAMA Network Open, Vol. 7, No. 1 (Jan. 12, 2024), available at https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2813914 (last visited Dec. 4, 2025).

(Shane Dizon)