In my former life as a children's book publicist, the crazy time of year was the summer. The sweet spot in publishing is your Fall release list. Those were your heavy hitters, your big authors, biggest titles and the ones you bet the barn on. Which meant in marketing, that 6 months out, your job as a publicist was to book the media to convince people that when the book came out, that is what you wanted to buy for Christmas for all your friends and family. So while everybody else was soaking up the sun and sipping on Sangria, you were writing press releases, making media lists and looking at comps. It was only after the Christmas rush, normally around February, when we got to catch our breath.

The opposite is true in law school. I should have known after last February, as a law school hopeful, was filled with sending in last minute applications, filling out FAFSA and looking at housing. February, no matter where you are in the law school process seems to just be jam packed with things to do. All I have to say is thank goodness February is the shortest month of the year.

Naive 1.5L that I am, thought that after one semester under my belt, I would come back to have a better handle on the work. I had better time management, was getting faster at the reading and learning what I needed to pick out. All of this to me, equated into having more time this semester. This is all true, however what I didn't know was that this semester would come at me like a bat out of hell. (I lived in Tennessee, we say things like that. We also will "mash" a button on occasion).

We have already turned in our first brief and are in the clutches of the internship rush. I have sent my resume off the firms that send polite notes that say, "Miss Johnston, we have received your resume materials but regret to inform you that we have had all of our summer associate spots filled for months. However, please resend your materials to us in early August when we will start reviewing materials for Summer 2012."

What?!

And I thought I was a planner!

A couple of our professors warned us from the beginning their classes were front loaded. If you put the work in at the beginning, it will be well worth it at the end of the semester. So I'm just going to go ahead and call this Front Loaded February. The good news is, despite all the craziness between briefs, homework, internships and class, if you put the work in now, it will pay off later. And even though I'm new at this whole law thing, I'm going to go ahead and say that is probably true no matter where you are in your legal profession or education. If you buckle down and do the work now, you'll reap the benefits later.

So February, for the last 5 days of fun, and even March when you decide to join in on the madness, I'm ready.

Photo from We Heart It.