0L-3L advice you regret taking? Forum

[keg411]

Consensus on here is that study groups are useless. I think that studying with others is the most useful thing you go can do during finals.

+1. So far the class where I studied on my own was my lowest finals grade. I always used to hate working in groups, but I love it in law school. I've learned a ton from my study group and it definitely has helped my grades for the better (Note: this is mostly for finals prep. Meeting during the year is kind of useless).

I'm also tired of the 0L prep argument. And I bet the people that are at the top of the class would have been there despite 0L prep. Grades are pretty much all about how good you are at writing an exam as compared with your peers (issue spotting, analysis, application). Unless you have closed book exams, you can bring the BLL in with you so there is really no reason to learn it ahead of time.

[iminlstrick]

Advice most regretted:

(1) Make your own outlines.

Maybe this works for a lot of students, but I found making a long outline a waste of time. Better for me: find old outlines that align with your professor or are from your prof's class; add notes from class not mentioned in outline directly into outline; add supplement/hornbook notes for a week's worth of classes into same outline; learn outline at end of term and pare down to a few pages of attack outline. MAKE YOUR OWN ATTACK OUTLINE b/c your review of the course will ONLY MAKE SENSE TO YOU. Study supplements as needed and don't be afraid to skim stuff in advance.

(2) Don't brief cases.

Okay, yes, briefing is time consuming, but for me, I learned the most from each class by briefing each and every case and then reviewing my briefs with the aid of a supplement keyed to my text. I'd insert the briefs in a separate, corresponding section to the above outline and then add professor's notes into the brief, bolding/underlining prof's preferences for analysis/general course themes and points, etc.

(3) Study in groups.

No. Too much time wasted coordinating busy law student schedules and managing your own stress let alone your peers. What did work for me was meeting with 1 or 2 people to only review exam answers to debate different analytical approaches, especially for issue spotters. That's it.

(4) Highlight stuff.

I'm not five years old nor need to spend time color coordinating my cases, underlining and margin notes with a pencil is fine. Never understood peeps who bring 10 highlighters to exams.

(5) Use same approach for each class.

No. Should be self explanatory. Professors/classes are different, be flexible.

First term -> median grades at T5 school by following peoples' advice to not read supplements, make own outlines, and not to brief.

This term --> As so far. *crossing fingers* As are beautiful things.

Top 5 school.

[phx]

Even with the curve it is a lot easier than my electrical engineering undergrad.

I like to hear that.

[ak13]

Even with the curve it is a lot easier than my electrical engineering undergrad.

I like to hear that.

+1

[09042014]

Even with the curve it is a lot easier than my electrical engineering undergrad.

I like to hear that.

+1

I do have to say though, that's its not as easy to guarantee you get good grades. In many engineering courses you could gun your way to a good grades. In law school you can't get study your way into any grade.

[ak13]

Even with the curve it is a lot easier than my electrical engineering undergrad.

I like to hear that.

+1

I do have to say though, that's its not as easy to guarantee you get good grades. In many engineering courses you could gun your way to a good grades. In law school you can't get study your way into any grade.

From what I've heard, law school isn't necessarily "easy", but it doesn't require such intense capacity needed to solve differential equations or find transfer functions (fuck me in the beard I hated vibrations class.) It (allegedly) involves plenty of time and the dedication to stay on top of EVERYTHING from the start rather than attempting to cram before the final. Doable.

[Borhas]

Even with the curve it is a lot easier than my electrical engineering undergrad.

I like to hear that.

+1

I do have to say though, that's its not as easy to guarantee you get good grades. In many engineering courses you could gun your way to a good grades. In law school you can't get study your way into any grade.

I think luck/style/random subjective factors from prof's also make it really hard to obtain consistent results. Difference between a B+ and an A- exams is probably not significant as far as quality... but a 3.7 looks awfully different than 3.3

[Tim0thy222]

Since everybody's talking about the 0L prep thing, I'd like to reframe the question a bit.

Everyone is seems to be arguing whether or not it is valuable to learn the law during the 0L summer. I tend to think I'll do a better job of learning the material if I go in fresh, and during my undergrad I found that it just wasted my time to try to learn material before a class started, so I'm waiting for the fall to actually start learning the law.

But what about LEEWS? GTM? Other exam prep? A lot of people seem to swear by these, but I wonder if the methods presented are going to be invariably applicable, and if they aren't I'm wondering how to adjust to when they don't apply.

Whatever I do regarding exam prep though, here's my real OL prep plan:

GET MY ASS IN SHAPE!
aka, good workout routine, good diet, good sleeping patterns.
I can't put a number on how many times my body was the enemy of mind as an undergrad.

[Cupidity]

OL prep plan:

GET MY ASS IN SHAPE!
aka, good workout routine, good diet, good sleeping patterns.
I can't put a number on how many times my body was the enemy of mind as an undergrad.

The only good prep-plan I have ever heard of.

[09042014]

Since everybody's talking about the 0L prep thing, I'd like to reframe the question a bit.

Everyone is seems to be arguing whether or not it is valuable to learn the law during the 0L summer. I tend to think I'll do a better job of learning the material if I go in fresh, and during my undergrad I found that it just wasted my time to try to learn material before a class started, so I'm waiting for the fall to actually start learning the law.

But what about LEEWS? GTM? Other exam prep? A lot of people seem to swear by these, but I wonder if the methods presented are going to be invariably applicable, and if they aren't I'm wondering how to adjust to when they don't apply.

Whatever I do regarding exam prep though, here's my real OL prep plan:

GET MY ASS IN SHAPE!
aka, good workout routine, good diet, good sleeping patterns.
I can't put a number on how many times my body was the enemy of mind as an undergrad.

IMO GTM is the most important thing to read all year. It's a short book, not at all like a supplement. You can read it in an afternoon. I read it on an airplane.

[Grizz]

These threads are just shitty collective jerkoff sessions. Different shit works for different people.

[keg411]

These threads are just shitty collective jerkoff sessions. Different shit works for different people.

Meh, I found reading this type of stuff last year helped me gauge what I was getting into and gave me some decent ideas about how I wanted to approach things. Plus, you need to learn to pull useful information out of noise all of the time in lawl skool .

[Mickey Quicknumbers]

These threads are just shitty collective jerkoff sessions. Different shit works for different people.

Meh, I found reading this type of stuff last year helped me gauge what I was getting into and gave me some decent ideas about how I wanted to approach things. Plus, you need to learn to pull useful information out of noise all of the time in lawl skool .

Test one: if you thought anything I've ever said on this site was useful information, you've got some practicing to do.

[YourCaptain]

I can tell you right now, that 0L prep would have hurt me in 2/4 of my first semester classes. The professors didn't want supplement bullshit, they had their own theory they taught.

Furthermore I don't see how this shit could possibly help. The material in law isn't that hard at all. It's the application that's hard, and knowing the material 4-5 months before the test just isn't helpful.

I've become convinced that most supplements are for people who really don't get the nuances they're taught.

In most of my exams my professors have frequently tested on topics with facts very similar to cases we studied or special issues not included in the general rule. SORRY BRAH THE E&E ISN'T GOING TO HELP YOU

[Borhas]

SORRY BRAH THE E&E ISN'T GOING TO HELP YOU

this is bad advice

[YourCaptain]

SORRY BRAH THE E&E ISN'T GOING TO HELP YOU

this is bad advice

it's ok if you need basic review and reinforcing concepts but it's not terribly helpful.

[Borhas]

SORRY BRAH THE E&E ISN'T GOING TO HELP YOU

this is bad advice

it's ok if you need basic review and reinforcing concepts but it's not terribly helpful.

what works for me: class for general principles/themes and nuances w/ supplements for rules and a structure for an attack outline

[placencia]

There are a myriad of ways to succeed, everyone is just giving their own opinions. To each their own. I think it's important to find a style that works for you, that you can maintain, and do it. Honestly, one of the top indicators of success that I have seen is life experience, which you can't get over the summer. I only know personally four people in the top 10 of the class (not percent, but top ten), and all of them have over 5 years of work experience.

I support those who say do as much 0L prep as possible, including the E & Es, because it gives you a very good overview of what you're going to learn. I've never found that studying a map before going on a trip is a bad idea. I see no chance that any intelligent person will let anything they learned from before law school trump what they learn while in law school. All it can do is give you a good idea of what's coming and a decent background of knowledge, because experience is always the best teacher.

There are people who do very well and don't use supplements at all, and some of them will even tell you they don't do much work outside of class, but what I think you will find is that they engage the material daily. Even if they aren't crafting outlines or doing extra work, they are having daily conversations about the law, they are having real arguments over the strengths and weaknesses of theories and cases. In effect, they are using the material in a way that will reinforce it in their minds.

Most people who get to law school just don't work efficiently. They may stay in the library all day long, but they spend a majority of that time chatting with others. So even though they may tell you they've done X or Y, or spent so many hours a day doing something, that may not be a helpful comparison. My point is that you can't give a blueprint for success all the time, but there are very few successful people in any area of life, and I think law school is included, who will say that preparing was harmful. It's kind of like Pascal's Wager, in that the loss from not preparing is far greater than the loss from preparing, assuming your choice was the wrong one. If you make the decision to go to law school and have decided to do just enough to get by, then you don't even need to be reading this thread. If you really want to do the best you possibly can, then it means you're going to have to work hard, and put in the time. And some of that work and time will end up being wasted and useless, and you will look back and realize you didn't need to do it from the beginning. But some of that time will be essential, and out of 100 pages of material you may get three or four valuable tidbits. If you're good enough to be in the top 10% of your class and do no prep and not work that hard, then imagine how well you could do if you actually DID the prep and the extra work.

You have to measure yourself against how well YOU can do...and then decide how much you want it.

[IronHBM]

I regret not finding out about taxguy until it was almost too late.

Exactly this.

After reading through his posts I regret not including that I won my 6th grade spelling bee on my applications. I think taxguy would agree that spelling bees are good softs.

[JusticeHarlan]

really studying up on the structure of law school exams, etc.

plz explain best resources for this. tyia

Besides GTM, this thread is pretty solid: http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 2&t=120673

[nickwar]

I'll second the "make your own outlines" advice. It's a complete waste of time for me. My outlines are garbage, they take a ton of time, and I never use them in tests.

For me, the ~10-15 hours it takes making an effective outline is enough for me to burn an entire course in my brain from stock outline.

[beach_terror]

I'll second the "make your own outlines" advice. It's a complete waste of time for me. My outlines are garbage, they take a ton of time, and I never use them in tests.

For me, the ~10-15 hours it takes making an effective outline is enough for me to burn an entire course in my brain from stock outline.

Just to add in here, second semester I bought outlines on outlinedepot to just double check my own for the two classes I could bring in outlines for. It was nice to check it against something (especially because one of my profs was visiting from another school)

[Tim0thy222]

I'm seeing a fair number of people suggesting that making your own outlines is a waste of time, and that it is better to use someone else's outlines instead.

Maybe this would be obvious to me if I wasn't a 0L, but how do you know that the outlines are good? Where do these outlines come from?

[Hadlendale]

A lot of people say not to make your own outline, but for me personally this was the best way of studying (t10%).

Think about it. If the best course of action is to get a 2L's outline who got an A in the particular class...don't you wonder how he got an A? Probably because he made that outline you are now studying. Making your own outline forces you to break down concepts into your own words. I find that writing something down in my own words and fully understanding it is a more efficient way of studying than reading someone else's definition 10x. Making your own outline also forces you to distinguish between what is important and what is not.

For property this last semester everyone told me not to do an outline and offered me their's. I got the A+ outline from the semester before. It was somewhat helpful, but for me personally it's hard to just read stuff in outline form and completely grasp it. As I started taking the practice exams I realized though that I really should outline this stuff because there was SO much to know and the outlines I had obtained didn't talk about things the way I wanted to. I ended up doing my own outline that was 12k+ words (I'm succinct, too) that took a long time. I ended up with one of four A's in the class (out of ~95 people). Making the exam outline was probably about 85% of my actual studying.

If you don't want to outline the class, at least make your own "exam" outline where you diagram issues and how to attack them on a test. This is especially helpful if your professor posts lots of past exam model answers that you can build this off of. My property test was a 4 hour issue spotter (all written) and I am positive that the way I outlined past exams and the class is what enabled me to do well.

More people probably told me to outline than not. I'm glad I took this advice.

You really have no way of knowing if an outline from a 2L is good. Even if that person got an A in the class, it doesn't necessarily mean that whatever they give you will cover everything you have to know. For example, I got many As as a 1L but a lot of my outlines were incomplete because I got lazy towards the end. They also had cues and word connections that perhaps only I understand.

Outlining is not hard and doesn't take that much time, it's just people tend to put it off until the end of the semester. If you begin outlining around week 4 and just do it for a couple hours/week per class you'll be golden come finals time.

EDIT: This may be just my "learning type" personality. I find that I learn stuff best when I write it out (I guess this is learning by "doing" as opposed to "seeing" or "hearing").

[northwood]

Those that went to their professors for advice on exams- did you go there before you took a practice exam, or after your first one so you could have them take a look at your writing style for their exam and then critique it? Did you do this for all of your professors, or just for one or 2?