One approach to 1L success from someone ranked #1. Forum

[dailygrind]

Lol hell no. Law school doesn't work that way. Disciplines like physics, engineering, chemistry etc. work that way. In those disciplines some people are able to comprehend the subject and some aren't. That's just the way it is. In law everyone in the classroom understands the material. The way some people get higher grades is that they 1. Work their ass off to learn every nuance and every argument available. They research the professors tastes etc.2. They type extremely fast and 3. They know exactly what it is that the professor wants. 4. They write well. Too much of what is needed to do well on a law school exam is related to effort for you to just show up to class and then the exam and ace it. I know several people at the very very top of the class here at my top 10--ALL of them work INCREDIBLY HARD. And frankly it's common knowledge that everyone on the law review here works stunningly hard, frankly I underestimated the work ethic that people could have before I got here. I've never seen anything like it--it's unreal--especially the law review students. A lot of people think that they can work hard before they come to law school (myself included) but there's a certain level of work ethic that most people just cannot will themselves to (basically to the level of the OP).

At my school, everyone has plenty of time to finish their exams. Maybe it's different at other schools, but typing speed is vastly overrated.

And I disagree in the strongest way with your assertion that everyone in the room understands the material. There are many people in my class who can do nothing more than regurgitate what they read, but if you change the facts they fall apart. Some of these people get good grades by working extremely hard, and some of these people fall apart on exams.

I do agree that a lot of people work very hard, but as I said earlier, being in the top 10% isn't necessarily about insanely hard work...

Agreed. There's no way that that assertion is correct. There've been classes I've done well in where even I didn't fully understand the material - I just understood it better than other people. There've also been classes where I didn't do well, and I'm positive it's because I didn't have a handle on all of the material.

Sidenote, I'm at the same school as Bruce Wayne, and for the most part I think people are time pressured. Typing speed is awesome to have. I did some rough math on my exams, and at ~80 wpm I spend about an hour on each exam just typing. Granted, I multitask a bit and think as I type, but I think it's a choke point that could net me an increased 10-15 minutes if I improved it.

No comment on the hard work aspect. I don't know the grades or study habits of enough of my classmates to have a strong opinion on that, but I suspect that it's possible to put in an "average" amount of time and do very well, so long as one is disciplined (when they study, they actually study 100%), and studies smart.

[Chupavida]

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[NarwhalPunter]

We didn't work INCREDIBLY HARD, unless your understanding of what constitutes hard work is based on the "NarwhalPunter gas station attendant" scale of relative effort.

Speaking of straw man arguments...

Look, I agree with a lot of what you said in terms of doing well. It doesn't take 75+ hours a week for someone to do well if they work smart.

But here's an honest question: How many people at your school actually put in the time/effort to do what you described? At my school, I would guess that less than 15% of the class had sniffed a practice exam more than three weeks before finals. A third of them fuck off on gchat all class and have shit notes. Hardly anyone actually goes to office hours (more than once or twice).

While doing these activities won't guarantee top grades, I think they're pretty much required to get them. And I'd bet that less than a quarter of the class meets that threshold.

[Chupavida]

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[BruceWayne]

.....

[Wholigan]

Can you point our attention to a poster who said some people can just read cases and go to class and be at the top of their class? Because you keep trying to disprove that theory, but I don't think anyone is trying to prove it.

What some have said, myself included, is that we have been able to achieve high performance with a moderate amount of effort - moderate meaning in comparison to other law students. There is a big difference between an average amount of effort in law school and OP's regimen. Perhaps we worked smarter, not harder, or whatever. My own words were twisted so that someone replied "Putting in 55-60 hours a week in the month before finals is still harder work than 98% of the population puts in on anything." I never said I put in 55-60 hours a week. In fact I didn't, although of course I outlined and studied. But when nearly everyone in law school outlines and studies before finals, I don't know that doing the same can be considered "incredibly hard work."



tl;dr

My WHOLE point is that there is this idea pushed around on here that there are people who ace exams this way.... You didn't just go to class read cases and then take exams and ace them--which is what many on here claim people at the top of the class do.

Can you show me who claims this?

[Chupavida]

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[Holly Golightly]

Eh, as someone who has had a real job, being drunk for 3/4 of the semester and then doing 12+ hour days for 3 weeks is not exactly what I would consider "hard work."

Have fun in biglawl if you think it is.

[09042014]

Special thanks to y'all for making this thread suck.

1L advice threads always suck because it is asking how to be the best running back in the NFL.

[Flips88]

Special thanks to y'all for making this thread suck.

1L advice threads always suck because it is asking how to be the best running back in the NFL.

Run with reckless disregard for your well being and try to recover as many of your numerous fumbles as you can so people don't criticize you too much.

[hijodehombre]

Special thanks to y'all for making this thread suck.

1L advice threads always suck because it is asking how to be the best running back in the NFL.

Good point. Not everyone can be Emmit Smi... er, I mean Barry Sanders.

[MyPseudonym]

Look, this advice is spot on. Everyone who says they did very well, near the top of their class, and didn't do all these things...great, but all you are really saying is that you weren't number 1. There's a HUGE difference between what it takes to do well in law school and what it takes to be the BEST. OP has given you a blueprint for success. First off, most people just aren't willing to put in the time required to have that success, no matter what they say.

A lot of people can get by with varying amounts of effort and fit nicely into the top 5-10%. However, OP's plan isn't the best recipe for that. If your goal is to do well and that's enough, there are a myriad of options to choose from, many of which will allow you to have a lot more fun and relaxation. But OP's is a recipe for being number 1. Whether most of those here want to admit it or not, there is a monumental difference between being number 1 and being number 4, or number 9. Until a person who is number 1 in his or her class (and this board probably has a fair number of them) can step up and say they did it without working extremely hard, that they did what all of those who are "comfortably near the top of the class" did, then there really is no point in bringing it up.

(I personally think that a lot of the reason that people dismiss long hours and 0L prep and the type of discipline that OP showed as unnecessary is because they want to think that the rules don't apply to them. In addition, if they are not willing to do the additional work, and are being told that it is the path to ultimate success, then the only way they can justify not doing the work is if it is dismissed as useless advice. They have generally succeeded at most things in life, and the plan for law school is no different. Very few people actually push themselves to the limit in terms of what they can accomplish, because it requires the kind of discipline and work ethic that is often lacking. This is even more true of intelligent people, as things have always naturally been easier to grasp. The real question is not can you do well without taking the OP's advice, but how much better could you do if you did?)

At the end of the day, my point is simple. For those who are looking for advice to do well in law school and succeed, look at this as one method and look at others as well, and find whatever fits you best. For those for whom anything less than number 1 will be a failure, then this is the only advice you should follow.

[2011Cycle]

Look, this advice is spot on. Everyone who says they did very well, near the top of their class, and didn't do all these things...great, but all you are really saying is that you weren't number 1. There's a HUGE difference between what it takes to do well in law school and what it takes to be the BEST. OP has given you a blueprint for success. First off, most people just aren't willing to put in the time required to have that success, no matter what they say.

A lot of people can get by with varying amounts of effort and fit nicely into the top 5-10%. However, OP's plan isn't the best recipe for that. If your goal is to do well and that's enough, there are a myriad of options to choose from, many of which will allow you to have a lot more fun and relaxation. But OP's is a recipe for being number 1. Whether most of those here want to admit it or not, there is a monumental difference between being number 1 and being number 4, or number 9. Until a person who is number 1 in his or her class (and this board probably has a fair number of them) can step up and say they did it without working extremely hard, that they did what all of those who are "comfortably near the top of the class" did, then there really is no point in bringing it up.

(I personally think that a lot of the reason that people dismiss long hours and 0L prep and the type of discipline that OP showed as unnecessary is because they want to think that the rules don't apply to them. In addition, if they are not willing to do the additional work, and are being told that it is the path to ultimate success, then the only way they can justify not doing the work is if it is dismissed as useless advice. They have generally succeeded at most things in life, and the plan for law school is no different. Very few people actually push themselves to the limit in terms of what they can accomplish, because it requires the kind of discipline and work ethic that is often lacking. This is even more true of intelligent people, as things have always naturally been easier to grasp. The real question is not can you do well without taking the OP's advice, but how much better could you do if you did?)

At the end of the day, my point is simple. For those who are looking for advice to do well in law school and succeed, look at this as one method and look at others as well, and find whatever fits you best. For those for whom anything less than number 1 will be a failure, then this is the only advice you should follow.

+1000

[thecilent]

Special thanks to y'all for making this thread suck.

1L advice threads always suck because it is asking how to be the best running back in the NFL.

Run with reckless disregard for your well being and try to recover as many of your numerous fumbles as you can so people don't criticize you too much.

this is 180 advice for RBs

[Chupavida]

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[Borhas]

Until a person who is number 1 in his or her class (and this board probably has a fair number of them) can step up and say they did it without working extremely hard, that they did what all of those who are "comfortably near the top of the class" did, then there really is no point in bringing it up.

dude, someone did that in this thread, he got #1 at a T14... he created an alt to post for the purpose of this thread, but people can probably figure out who he is.

[Wholigan]

At the end of the day, my point is simple. For those who are looking for advice to do well in law school and succeed, look at this as one method and look at others as well, and find whatever fits you best. For those for whom anything less than number 1 will be a failure, then this is the only advice you should follow.

There is something seriously wrong with anyone who would consider being ranked #2 at any T1 law school a failure. There is no meaningful difference except ability to feed your own ego.

[Holly Golightly]

At the end of the day, my point is simple. For those who are looking for advice to do well in law school and succeed, look at this as one method and look at others as well, and find whatever fits you best. For those for whom anything less than number 1 will be a failure, then this is the only advice you should follow.

There is something seriously wrong with anyone who would consider being ranked #2 at any T1 law school a failure. There is no meaningful difference except ability to feed your own ego.

TLS is full of self-important douches, what do you expect?

[ObviouslyAnAlt]

Look, this advice is spot on. Everyone who says they did very well, near the top of their class, and didn't do all these things...great, but all you are really saying is that you weren't number 1. There's a HUGE difference between what it takes to do well in law school and what it takes to be the BEST.

I was #1 in my class 1L year, at a school with a higher U.S. News & World Report rank than the OP (for what little it's worth). I did not do 0L prep before law school. I had an LSAT score that put me in the bottom 25% of the entering class. I worked hard in law school, but I stand by my earlier point that what the OP did is simply not necessary to be number one, and I absolutely refute the bullshit you peddled in your response MyPseudonym.

I read every case, and took notes in class. Afterward I made an outline for every course, read some parts of some hornbooks (read less than one per class). I spent a large amount of time thinking about exam strategy, and prepared for exams from day one rather than just trying to out-study everyone. I took one or two practice exams for each course.

That amount of work is a lot. That's fair. I admit that. I did not 'slack off.' I ALSO didn't put in NEARLY the amount of effort that the OP did, and my LSAT (after repeated efforts) suggests that I wasn't exactly a natural genius either. I can't draw broad conclusions from my results in law school except that I think preparing for exams from day 1 provides disproportionately strong returns compared to every other method of studying and that it certainly isn't necessary to work the way the OP did to do well in law school.

It isn't even necessary if you want to be number one. Hard work is important, but at some point it's just spinning your wheels.

[crossingforHYS]

Look, this advice is spot on. Everyone who says they did very well, near the top of their class, and didn't do all these things...great, but all you are really saying is that you weren't number 1. There's a HUGE difference between what it takes to do well in law school and what it takes to be the BEST.

I was #1 in my class 1L year, at a school with a higher U.S. News & World Report rank than the OP (for what little it's worth). I did not do 0L prep before law school. I had an LSAT score that put me in the bottom 25% of the entering class. I worked hard in law school, but I stand by my earlier point that what the OP did is simply not necessary to be number one, and I absolutely refute the bullshit you peddled in your response MyPseudonym.

I read every case, and took notes in class. Afterward I made an outline for every course, read some parts of some hornbooks (read less than one per class). I spent a large amount of time thinking about exam strategy, and prepared for exams from day one rather than just trying to out-study everyone. I took one or two practice exams for each course.

That amount of work is a lot. That's fair. I admit that. I did not 'slack off.' I ALSO didn't put in NEARLY the amount of effort that the OP did, and my LSAT (after repeated efforts) suggests that I wasn't exactly a natural genius either. I can't draw broad conclusions from my results in law school except that I think preparing for exams from day 1 provides disproportionately strong returns compared to every other method of studying and that it certainly isn't necessary to work the way the OP did to do well in law school.

It isn't even necessary if you want to be number one. Hard work is important, but at some point it's just spinning your wheels.

out of cur. how did you prepare for exams from day one?

[mscarn23]

I guess it's worth throwing a little more fuel onto the fire, since it seems there are so many... passionate... opinions on this subject.

In my original post I mentioned something along these lines- it's very possible for people to do really well without doing as much work as I did. If I'd decided against taking the money at my current school, and had gone with one of the lower T14 options I had last year, someone who didn't work as hard as me WOULD have been number 1 at my school (I know the person who- at least last semester- was ranked #2, and he worked very hard- but not nearly as hard as I did).

If your end goal is to do really well in school, and you happen to be intelligent and good at taking law school exams (though I've no clue how you'd be aware of the latter going into first semester), then ignore my advice and you'll probably be fine. Maybe- like the poster who finished #1 at a T14 without doing this much work, or the poster I recently saw in the transfer forum that finished #1 at UCLA- you'll end up finishing first without breaking your back the way I did. Maybe, like some people have (perhaps rightly) suggested I would have finished first without going "full retard," or whatever. It wasn't blind luck that propelled either of the other two posters into first place, and it wasn't will alone that propelled me to the top. It was a combination of varying influences, and I acknowledge that.

BUT... Taking into account the margin by which I finished first, my 0L credentials, and the way that the fates smiled upon me this past year (i.e. no family members dying before finals, no nasty illness to battle, etc.), I think it's more than braggadocio to say that I like my odds of finishing ahead of either of those two students if we'd somehow been pitted head-to-head. I could be wrong, and it's very possible that I will end up transferring, and spend winter break licking my wounds at some other school- but I doubt it. I mentioned in my original post that if you're happy just doing really well, then you don't have to do as much work as I did. Maybe you'll end up finishing #1 at the end of the year, and if you do it will be an awesome surprise (though probably not a staggering one). If it doesn't, well, top 5% is still pretty baller, right? Without knowing anything else about the #1 who posted briefly in this thread, I think (s)he would probably agree that there would have been no shame if (s)he'd finishing second...

That wasn't my approach- it wasn't my mindset. I went into my current situation having passed on T14 options, and wanting to do everything in my power to make a jump into the T6 (and more honestly into the T3). I didn't want to finish in the top 5% or the top 5. I wanted to finish # 1...

Look- I'm 30 years old. I was a businessman. I'm not afraid of failure or risk. If someone was smarter than me, if they tested better, if they were my better in some way that I couldn't overcome- I could live with that. There is always going to be someone smarter, and if I got beaten by such a person, I wouldn't cry about it. But being outworked... Well, that's something I had control over, and something that I couldn't forgive myself for. The guy/gal who was #1 and didn't work like a madman would have been happy at number 2, or 5, or 10, or else (s)he would've gone all out, and not left anything on the table. You can finish first without doing what I did, but if you put into your mind that you HAVE to finish first, then killing yourself becomes necessary.

And that, I think, is the subtle difference between me and someone who might have just happened into first place. Putting in the extra hours might not have been the difference between my finishing first or second, and finishing first versus second might not make a bit of difference to my transfer cycle... Transferring might not mean anything in five, or ten, or thirty years. But it might. All of it might. And that 'might' was worth my time, because there are very few things that you really have any say over by the time you get all the way to law school. You can't control how smart you are, how good looking you are, how well you interview, whether you're able to attract business to your firm, whether your practice area happens to take off- but you can control how hard you're willing to work.

Take a look at 95/100 "what are my chances" threads on this website, and what's going to be the advice given to OP? Everyone reading this knows the answer.

RETAKE!!!

3.9 GPA, 169, what are my odds?

RETAKE!! Don't settle! Don't waste your GPA!! Spend the next 5 months locked down with old exams, because the LSAT is the one thing you can control at this point! It could mean thousands of dollars! It could be the difference between the lower T14 and the T6, or with a few extra points the difference between NYU and Harvard! You do want Harvard don't you?

Well by the time you're admitted, deposited, and enrolled in a school, the only thing you can control is how much time you put into studying isn't it?

I guess what it comes down to is that if you won't be haunted by finishing second when you could have taken # 1, then my advice isn't necessary. If you're cool with Cornell when a few extra months of LSAT prep would've gotten you Columbia, then the popular advice to RETAKE isn't credited either. But if you NEED to finish #1, will it be easier to live with second because I (or Xeoh, or arrow, or whoever) was smarter than you, or because we worked harder? Answer that question and you'll answer the question of whether my brand of "madness" is really necessary...

[thecilent]

I guess it's worth throwing a little more fuel onto the fire, since it seems there are so many... passionate... opinions on this subject.

In my original post I mentioned something along these lines- it's very possible for people to do really well without doing as much work as I did. If I'd decided against taking the money at my current school, and had gone with one of the lower T14 options I had last year, someone who didn't work as hard as me WOULD have been number 1 at my school (I know the person who- at least last semester- was ranked #2, and he worked very hard- but not nearly as hard as I did).

If your end goal is to do really well in school, and you happen to be intelligent and good at taking law school exams (though I've no clue how you'd be aware of the latter going into first semester), then ignore my advice and you'll probably be fine. Maybe- like the poster who finished #1 at a T14 without doing this much work, or the poster I recently saw in the transfer forum that finished #1 at UCLA- you'll end up finishing first without breaking your back the way I did. Maybe, like some people have (perhaps rightly) suggested I would have finished first without going "full retard," or whatever. It wasn't blind luck that propelled either of the other two posters into first place, and it wasn't will alone that propelled me to the top. It was a combination of varying influences, and I acknowledge that.

BUT... Taking into account the margin by which I finished first, my 0L credentials, and the way that the fates smiled upon me this past year (i.e. no family members dying before finals, no nasty illness to battle, etc.), I think it's more than braggadocio to say that I like my odds of finishing ahead of either of those two students if we'd somehow been pitted head-to-head. I could be wrong, and it's very possible that I will end up transferring, and spend winter break licking my wounds at some other school- but I doubt it. I mentioned in my original post that if you're happy just doing really well, then you don't have to do as much work as I did. Maybe you'll end up finishing #1 at the end of the year, and if you do it will be an awesome surprise (though probably not a staggering one). If it doesn't, well, top 5% is still pretty baller, right? Without knowing anything else about the #1 who posted briefly in this thread, I think (s)he would probably agree that there would have been no shame if (s)he'd finishing second...

That wasn't my approach- it wasn't my mindset. I went into my current situation having passed on T14 options, and wanting to do everything in my power to make a jump into the T6 (and more honestly into the T3). I didn't want to finish in the top 5% or the top 5. I wanted to finish # 1...

Look- I'm 30 years old. I was a businessman. I'm not afraid of failure or risk. If someone was smarter than me, if they tested better, if they were my better in some way that I couldn't overcome- I could live with that. There is always going to be someone smarter, and if I got beaten by such a person, I wouldn't cry about it. But being outworked... Well, that's something I had control over, and something that I couldn't forgive myself for. The guy/gal who was #1 and didn't work like a madman would have been happy at number 2, or 5, or 10, or else (s)he would've gone all out, and not left anything on the table. You can finish first without doing what I did, but if you put into your mind that you HAVE to finish first, then killing yourself becomes necessary.

And that, I think, is the subtle difference between me and someone who might have just happened into first place. Putting in the extra hours might not have been the difference between my finishing first or second, and finishing first versus second might not make a bit of difference to my transfer cycle... Transferring might not mean anything in five, or ten, or thirty years. But it might. All of it might. And that 'might' was worth my time, because there are very few things that you really have any say over by the time you get all the way to law school. You can't control how smart you are, how good looking you are, how well you interview, whether you're able to attract business to your firm, whether your practice area happens to take off- but you can control how hard you're willing to work.

Take a look at 95/100 "what are my chances" threads on this website, and what's going to be the advice given to OP? Everyone reading this knows the answer.

RETAKE!!!

3.9 GPA, 169, what are my odds?

RETAKE!! Don't settle! Don't waste your GPA!! Spend the next 5 months locked down with old exams, because the LSAT is the one thing you can control at this point! It could mean thousands of dollars! It could be the difference between the lower T14 and the T6, or with a few extra points the difference between NYU and Harvard! You do want Harvard don't you?

Well by the time you're admitted, deposited, and enrolled in a school, the only thing you can control is how much time you put into studying isn't it?

I guess what it comes down to is that if you won't be haunted by finishing second when you could have taken # 1, then my advice isn't necessary. If you're cool with Cornell when a few extra months of LSAT prep would've gotten you Columbia, then the popular advice to RETAKE isn't credited either. But if you NEED to finish #1, will it be easier to live with second because I (or Xeoh, or arrow, or whoever) was smarter than you, or because we worked harder? Answer that question and you'll answer the question of whether my brand of "madness" is really necessary...

Lol at this

[TatteredDignity]

he just said the dang thing...

[Verity]

Lol at this

Lol at "lol at this" dummies. Automaton.

If your end goal is to do really well in school, and you happen to be intelligent and good at taking law school exams (though I've no clue how you'd be aware of the latter going into first semester), then ignore my advice and you'll probably be fine.

The bolded hits the nail on the head. All these weirdos are arguing against a ridiculous (and actually uncontested) point. The issue is that YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT IT TAKES FOR YOU TO DO WELL. You have no idea if you can take a law school exam well. The only thing you can do is try like your entire career depends on it (and it does).

BTW, I'm really glad to see so many people who are determined not to gun hard-hard 1L. There's enough competition as it is.

[somethingdemure]

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