a couple weeks of reading and briefing cases and found that that guy's approach makes a lot more sense? So far I'm a believer, but we'll see if I rue this day come exam time.

I was actually just re-reading it earlier today. I needed some reassurance to go against the mainstream and not feel like I needed to do briefs and write down every word a prof says in class. I too hope it pays off four months from now.

I tried to do it but I got lost; I blame the fact that I'm only a week in so I don't even know what I'm doing in the first place.

I read Arrow's about T2 success and I think his (her?) tips are excellent.

Tip that I'm trying to work off of = do all reading on weekend in advance.

Along with paying attention to rules and not facts, I think those are the main things for me.

I spoke with Arrow for a bit. I hereby confirm that the boy is a freaking genius, and I plan to follow his advice.

How has that worked for you? Do you just go over the reading again during the following week? Seems like a good way to burn out.

I dunno, I (apparently) had swine flu the first week, so I fell behind a little bit and had to play some catch-up the Sunday before the second week. I stayed in, had some coffee, read, briefed...it was pretty relaxing actually. What I'm ideally going to do is have the reading done in advance and organize my notes during the week and try and focus on possible test scenarios at that point...maybe go to some office hours, student org. meetings, things like that as well. The downside is that I'll have to wake up a little earlier on the weekend, but there seems to enough upside in terms of flexibility and preparedness to be worth it.

Oh my goodness, I hope you're feeling better!

I confess that I've been reading the E&Es, and highlighting instead of briefing. I need to buy hornbooks as well. I have the legalines keyed to each casebook, and they've been invaluable.

Cram the day before the final.

I should probably have finished my article.....


OS- I like your highlighting style.

Heh...yeah I need to up my supplement game. I have a couple of the E&E's though, so that's a start.


Edit...How are the legalines anyway? Useful much?

If you attended a New York school, I'd loan you mine. Goddamn it, why are we all scattered to the four corners of the earth?

Have you gotten any of your professors' old exams yet? I really need to do that.

Thanks, lol. What are you writing?

I was doing a first year success, had about 5 pages done out of the 9 I think it would have taken . I thought about a transfer one as well.

Hah...yeah one of the professors gave us two...the examples were great....Spongebob and the Lord of the Rings were mentioned

I'd like to form a contract with Frodo, lol.

We took a practice test already, but ours was take home and did not involve any fictional characters.

It'll be really cool to read that when you get finished. I'm going to send Ken my interview with our dean of admissions once he approves it.

I feel like I should be working the E&E's more. I love reading concise hornbooks because they are so well written and make the law so plain to me. This makes me feel like I am prepared, but it is no substitute for the E&E's and working hypos/thinking through exam scenarios.

At least this is what I have been thinking lately. Who knows really.

Haha...yeah I got some great professors (I think...I don't really know that I know this for sure yet....) so I imagine this stuff will continue.

Well shit maybe this weekend I will get working on it again. IIRC I went about organizing mine a bit different than Arrow. Also, it is just another view on how to do well.

i'm pretty much doing what president is doing...i need to get those supplements, but due the fact that ALL our books this year were new editions...I'm struggling a bit on the money part.

i was not pleased when i saw the cost of new books.

Did you get your seat deposit back? $500 in books became $100 after I had that money refunded to me.

we didn't have seat deposits.

books cost about 750-800, and i havent bought all my books yet...

I think the anti-briefing bias can be overstated somewhat on TLS. Yes, a big secret is that the facts of each case and the minutiae will not in any way prepare you for the final. Some people miss this and spend a semester in the trees while missing the forest.

But that doesn't mean briefing HURTS, or that thinking about the facts of the case somehow impair your ability to do well on exams. Basically, the advantage to not briefing is buying yourself time to do OTHER work (early outlining, consulting supplements, and hypos/exams come to mind). So if you drop briefing without picking up a commensurate amount of OTHER work, your actually hurting yourself - briefing might not be efficient, but you'll certainly glean more doing it than you will without anything but a single reading of the case.

Now, having time to do those things would seem mission-critical, but it's not like abandoning briefing is a panacea all on its own.

I did re-read Success in Law School but don't plan to adopt it really. I do plan to use supplements some, but not to the extent he did. I don't brief either. And I don't write in the book, neither highlighter nor margin notes. My method is:

1) Read & take thorough notes in OneNote, including my own thoughts, hypos, opinions.
2) Take thorough class notes in OneNote separately.

*In reading & class notes I don't include obviously irrelevant things, but if I'm in doubt I err on the side of caution.

3) After each class, make a summary page which includes only those things from my reading and class notes that are generally relevant to the subject and are meant to be true "takeaways" (as opposed to just incidental stuff about the particular cases). Bare-bones rules.

I could just do #3, but I am the kind of person who benefits from boiling things down gradually, which 1 & 2 help me do. Obviously though, I won't really know if what I'm doing "works" until grades come in.