<p>I would like to shift the focus from talking about how bad the economy is, why one should or should not be a lawyer, and what schools one can get into to talking about how to excel in law school once you get there, stay away from all the useless material, and stay focused on what's crucial: final exams.</p>
<p>I know I have heard that grades are almost arbitrary, but I don't want to hear more of that.</p>
<p>I want to know what really counted come exam time, and what one didn't do that one wished one would have done first semester as a 1L with one's subsequent knowledge.</p>
<p>Don’t be psyched out by people who appear to understand everything, or the people who ask a lot of questions. They don’t necessarily understand the material correctly, despite appearances. Some of those people will end up at the bottom of the class.</p>
<p>Read 1L of a Ride. And I mean read it…don’t just skim the interesting parts. My kid went back after the first semester and read it again. He said it was a huge help.</p>
<p>If you can afford it, consider Legal Bootcamp. You’ll get advertising brochures after taking the LSAT. It’s a good introduction to the subjects you’ll cover in law school, the major cases in each subject, how to brief cases, etc. It will help you to hit the ground running (and no, I don’t work for them). My kid said that the classes were emptier and emptier as the week progressed. He sat through from beginning to end, and felt it helped him be at the top of his class as a 1L. (Interestingly, he said that the kids going to T5 clustered together and wouldn’t talk to the law students going to lower ranked schools.) </p>
<p>My kid also did not use his laptop to take notes in class. He said too many people were focused on typing everything the professor said, instead of listening. Eventually students started surfing the internet, checking email or doing other stuff. That doesn’t mean that he didn’t transcribe his notes later, or organize the material. Outlines are good. Relying on nutshells or similar supplemental materials can be dangerous. The professors know what’s in them, and don’t expect to see them regurgitated on exams.</p>
<p>Study the sample exams in the library if your school makes them available. Don’t wait until the last month of classes. They may disappear by then.</p>
<p>Getting to Maybe is worth reading. You can read some other stuff if you want but it probably won’t help you. Some people also like LEEWS. I tried it and found it mostly obvious, but it may make you feel better going into your first exam. </p>
<p>Do not go to any of those legal bootcamp things they try to sell you unless someone else is paying and you genuinely have nothing better to do. Note: playing video games is something better to do. They won’t help and may hurt. You have to learn the law as your professor teaches, not as someone else does. The material 1L isn’t all that hard anyways, so there really isn’t any need to try to learn it before the class that’s supposed to teach it to you. With that in mind, go take a look at an exam when you start the course. You won’t understand any of the material, but seeing if your professor likes policy questions or issue spotters or multiple choice may help you take better notes. </p>
<p>1L 1st semester I started doing practice exams a month until exams. I’d say this was moderately helpful in getting me prepared for exactly how an exam looks and goes. If you take this route you have to remember that you’re missing 1/3 of the material, so don’t feel bad if you score poorly. 2nd semester I outlined some exams but didn’t take any under exam conditions. My grades improved. The actual mechanics of taking exams are not hard to get quickly, what’s important is to quickly see and analyze the nuance. I find you can get that just as easily by outlining as by taking the full exam, but you should try them to see how you feel. </p>
<p>I made my own outlines and found it invaluable. Outlining is basically where I take all the disparate lessons and combine them into a cohesive whole in my head. I then rarely refer to my outline on the exam. I know other people who get old outlines and use them to similar effect. Do what you think will work for you. </p>
<p>Study groups: make one with people smarter than you. Do some study sessions on the tough topics and do some practice exams. Everyone will pick up on things the others miss, and you can learn a lot from it.</p>
<p>Most importantly, don’t panic. Everyone, no matter how smart or competent they appear, is in the same boat as you. Study your semester aimed at the exam and you should be fine. Don’t fall into the law school trap of thinking working a lot is working smart. Law school can easily fill every waking hour of your day, and you will quickly find people for whom it has. Don’t be one of them.</p>
<p>Agree about Getting to Maybe (good book), outlining, and not to panic. Study groups can be tricky as a 1L. I thought some of the students in my own study group were smarter than I was, and learned I was wrong after the first semester grades came out. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that someone is smarter just because they talk all the time. </p>
<p>I don’t agree with Demosthenes about legal bootcamp. Its purpose is not to teach Contracts, Criminal Law etc. They teach what to expect, how to brief cases, how to read cases (using the most well-known cases in each subject), how to write exams generally, etc. I looked at the materials, and thought they were excellent. More importantly, my kid found the experience to be very useful for his first semester. (The wide range of prospective law students who attend, including students from all of the T4, suggests that not everyone thinks this experience is useless.) There are lots of reviews pro & con out there from attendees.</p>
<p>On the other hand, I do agree that not everyone can afford the classes and you’re going to learn all of this stuff anyway. If you can’t afford the class, no biggie.</p>
<p>Interesting story about legal bootcamp. My kid met students from Yale, Harvard etc. Hadn’t heard from them for three years…but after he passed the bar this summer and started working as a lawyer, suddenly he’s getting contacted by them on Linked In and Facebook. (One even tried to use their brief acquaintance at boot camp to reach me for a job. I guess he discovered the connection on LinkedIn.)</p>
<p>Ultimately, you can collect advice from dozens of people and everyone will have different suggestions. There’s a fun DVD for prospective law students called All About Law School, which covers a lot of different subjects. Students at Harvard, U-Michigan, UCLA and other schools talk about different aspects of law school, such as outlines, exam strategies, gunners, etc. It was issued back in 2004 or 2005, but you might find it entertaining if you can find a copy for a buck or two. Not much changes.</p>
<p>Study groups should be with people smarter than you, not with people better on exams. For one thing, there’s no way to know that 1L since you haven’t taken any exams yet. For another, who cares how good they are? The point isn’t to absorb their ability to apply law to facts, the point is to see the holes in your reasoning or the triggering facts that they caught and you didn’t so you know to be on the lookout next time. </p>
<p>The fact that people have attended Legal Bootcamp doesn’t make it a good idea. Plenty of people attend Cooley too, that doesn’t somehow make it a good investment. The question is not “do prospective law students think this will be helpful,” the question is “on exams, will my experience at Legal Bootcamp be helpful, and will it be sufficiently helpful to justify the cost.” The entrance expectations are meaningless, only the results count. I doubt greatly that any one-week course could prepare you such that you would see any real return on an exam. I doubt further that any return would exceed the cost of both unlearning any material they give you that conflicts with how your professor wants to see it, and the generally high monetary cost of attendance. There’s no need to take my word for it though, just pop over to TLS and read any of the dozens of threads and the hundreds of reviews and replies on legal bootcamps.</p>
<p>Yeah, or talk to someone who actually attended. For OP, TLS is known for having very snarky, know-it-all posters. There is also some good information there, but put on your battle gear before visiting.</p>
<p>(Sorry - Posted before I finished writing.) Yeah, or talk to someone who actually attended. For OP, TLS is known for having very snarky, know-it-all posters. When I browsed the site, the incivility made me sad for the future of the profession (assuming that being employed as lowly associates or clerks won’t eventually knock the arrogance out of the posters). However, there is also some great information there and obviously not everyone is obnoxious. S got some good advice there. Just put on your battle gear before visiting.</p>
<p>I still think study groups can be tricky as a 1L. It can be useful to review the material with others, but a study group can also adversely affect someone’s grades if participants waste the time focusing on the wrong issues, get caught up in arguing for the sake of arguing, rely on shared outlines instead of doing their own, induce panic because individuals appear to be “getting” the material faster, etc. </p>
<p>A study group might work for OP. Or not. Law students have been forming them for as long as I can remember, so they must bring value to the process for many law students.</p>
<p>In my experience it isn’t so much that TLS is uncivil, it’s that it doesn’t bother to sugarcoat the truth. That can be very bracing when moving from the rather fluffy world of undergrad advisers, parents and TV selling the dream of law school into the reality that law school is a deeply Darwinian process that has a very good chance to chew you up and spit you out. At my T14, I know a substantial number of people that whiffed OCI and now are looking at dropping out - and these are smart, capable people. Law school is a very big step and people should go into it eyes open. </p>
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<p>This is a fair point, but I think it speaks more to “manage your group well” than “don’t form a group.” This is one reason I suggested OP form a group instead of joining one. </p>
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<p>Lol, if you can find those things out you can try it that way, but you definitely don’t want to be that guy that goes around still talking about the LSAT. I did it based on subjective impression. Worked pretty well too, since everyone finished top 1/3, one of us was #1 in the class, and everyone CALIed at least one class. It’s not a perfect system, but I formed the group about 2 weeks in and it lasted the whole year.</p>
<p>At your comment about being “one of them.” I don’t mistake hard work for smart work, but I do work hard. I work every hour of my day almost every day because I enjoy that lifestyle. I am very ambitious. I’m not boasting, but that is just how I am wired. I don’t like to rest, and never have. When I don’t have something to work on, I am not as happy and I feel like I’m not doing something worthwhile. Again, this isn’t a sickness. I’ve been counseled by psychological centers and career mentors and they say that is my number one personality characteristic. I’m just wired that way. So maybe some of the law students you saw were just different than you, and happily worked every hour of the day because it made them smile. It makes me smile. Maybe I don’t literally smile, but inside it is making me happy, and I wouldn’t be happy otherwise. I don’t like free time. Just consider that different perspective. Everyone is wired differently.</p>
<p>A large chunk of attaining success 1L year comes from recognizing that law school is not an extension of undergrad.</p>
<p>I was pretty surprised when I saw a good number of people at my law school doing “networking” at bars 3-4 times a week, goof around in one of those "study groups: where people do everything but study, play in one of hundreds of those student organizations, or spend too much time dealing with those ridiculous high-school level relationship break-up melodrama. All of that is nice, except you will dearly pay with your grades.</p>
<p>During my 1L year, I did nothing but study. I basically lived in a library. I studied 3-4 times harder during 1L year, compared to any point of my college career. </p>
<p>Also - doing practice exams once a month and going over my answers with a professor - in terms of how the professor would frame the answers to the potential hypothetical questions - were helpful. </p>
<p>A lot of people that screwed around 1L year seem to be completely screwed now, still without anything lined up as 2L’s.</p>
<p>Truthfully, assuming you are paying sticker or close to sticker price to attend law school, it wouldn’t be a terrible decision to drop out if you strike out at OCI.</p>
<p>After Biglaw ship has sailed, you are looking at 55-60k a year job best case scenario, with 200k law school debt. Not exactly ideal situation to be in.</p>
<p>I don’t know that I’d advise staying in the library all day, but I think it’s a rare person who succeeds in law school without working tremendously harder than they did in college.</p>
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<p>I’d probably advise a good mass mailing campaign first, but otherwise this is generally the counsel I’ve given. In this economy, even from a top school law school is a very dangerous proposition. I think a lot of 0Ls aren’t prepared for just how brutal it gets.</p>
<p>Many law school students seem to not realize that the “luster” of T-14 credentials quickly dissipates with any legal employers outside of Biglaw and select clerkships.</p>
<p>Basically, I would argue that if your grades don’t make the cut-off for Biglaw after 1L year, your odds of getting completely screwed over are so high, even coming out of a T14 law school, that staying in school paying 60-70k a year is no where close to worth it.</p>
<p>Mass mail campaign should ideally be launched, before OCI, not after OCI and when most large firms have wrapped up recruiting.</p>
<p>In this economy, I wouldn’t pay sticker price to attend any law school outside of top 6. A sticker price at lower T-14 seems to be a very risky choice.</p>
<p>Due to paramount importance of 1L grades in legal hiring, I would argue that anyone who takes life seriously gives all (s)he’s got during 1L, to get the best possible grades one can achieve.</p>
<p>I don’t know, I had just as much success in my pre-OCI mass mail as my post-OCI mass mail. A LOT of firms were slow on hiring and my willingness to hold my offers and push on the mass mailing got me interviews with firms I don’t think I’d have been able to otherwise get. </p>
<p>I do agree about putting it all in 1L, but I think taking some time to relax to prevent burnout is highly valuable. 1L takes several months, and it’s very hard to perform well at the end of terms during which you’ve been burning the candle at both ends.</p>
<p>Pretty much. It moved earlier and earlier as employers competed with each other. They only look at 1L because they don’t really care much. It’s not as though law school actually prepares you to practice law. Plus 1L is standardized and none of the other years are, so it provides a good filter (or as good as any other they have).</p>