Best Law School advice ever.
Posted: Thu May 19, 2011 9:17 am
Ignore the other law students. (And ignore the people on this Board with the Go Harvard or Go Home attitude.).
Seriously.
I just finished my first year. It wasn't that bad. You will be fine. I was a nervous wreck my first semester, but I studied constantly and ended up placing high in my class. Really, it's not as bad as people will tell you...And for the snotty-posters on here who inspired me to write this: No. I do not go to a "bad" school.
So this leads to an obvious question I think: Why do people insist its the end of your life when really it's not actually THAT painful?
Well, think about it. You have a class of 200+ students, all of whom received good LSAT scores, had great grades in college, some have had "real" jobs (many have not). We're proud people. If we weren't egoists, we wouldn't have signed up in the first place. What i'm getting at is you are about to find yourself surrounded by more TYPE A PERSONALITIES than you have ever previously encountered in one small environment. This means, that for many of your classmates: (1) getting shut down in class will ruin their day (although I have to say: watching a woman prof. shut down one of my very vocal & obnoxious male classmates this year? tons of fun), (2) falling behind, even just a few classes, will surely ruin their week, and (3) "OMG! I got a B+ my life is over! What'd you get? What'd you get"?
Law school is high school all over again. Not only will you know EVERYONES business (bear this in mind if and when you decide to get involved with one of your classmates! LADIES: "Professional reputation" applies to us in a different way then to our male classmates. If you hook up and/or date around your class, people will talk about it (sadly) and people will remember it down the road! I know a couple girls in my class who have made this mistake (they don't realize it yet). I am not one to judge in this regard, but if I see one of a few selected names pop up on a job application or in some other fashion later in life.. I will remember.
Ignore the other law students b/c they LIE LIE LIE. For example, there were 3 As given out in one of my first semester classes. Yet, oddly enough, at least 10 people reported to me that they had received an A. Bullshit. All of you. Trust me, if anyone feels the need to tell you they "aced" something, this really means they got a B or below.
There's a lot of weird social drama that goes on. You'll find yourself wondering why that is. I personally think that it happens b/c when you put a bunch of over achievers in a highly competitive environment and many do not do as well as they would like, people start to feel inadequate. People will express feeling inadequate by asserting themselves in other strange situations.. it's not pretty. Rise above.
And here's the real secret.... ITS NOT ACTUALLY HARD! Nope. It's not. It's just a time-crunch, not rocket science. I promise that there is no individual topic within a course that is actually difficult, in isolation, to understand. (It's just the fact that they throw so much at you at once, which is a shame, b/c it's hard to enjoy something that is genuinely pretty interesting when you have to speed through it on to the next thing).
If you can commit yourself to doing all your reading/ briefing every case (not writing in the margins, I mean make a word documents) showing up to most of you classes (I am admittedly terrible with this part, but classes are recorded so...), take a few practice exams, invest in an "examples and explanations" supplement series (at least for Civ. Pro. is extremely helpful) and you will do well.
oh and when someone tells you "its not about memorization." True, apply-apply, but memorize your outline. Make Flashcards. This will save you time on exams, not to mention will reduce your anxiety when you don't have to flip frantically through an outline during your test.
DONT MAKE YOUR OWN OUTLINES!!!! You will hear sooo many different perspectives on this. My school provides an "outline bank" that is organized by class and professor. All of my first year classes were on the outline bank. Many of my classmates informed me this approach was "lazy" and "risky"... so... what I did was bring the pre-made outlines to class and surprise, surprise they all matched up perfectly with what the professor said..every single class. (after all, they say the same thing every year...). Despite the fact that I informed my classmates "hey these outlines are 100% accurate, stop spending 2 months trying to reinvent the wheel", they didn't listen. In fact, I would estimate about half of them STILL don't even know the bank exists. Find out if your school has one. If not, find older students that did well, bring their outlines to class and VERIFY the material before you trust it. (you may have to suck up to one of these students to do so. But hey, that's easy, all any good law student wants to talk about is him/herself, so usually: "do you have any advice for me" "what are you doing for a job. oh my, i'm so impressed" will work just fine.)
If you do well in law school, don't be one of those people that brags about it. It's not attractive, necessary, or nice. This isn't college. This is people's livelihoods, so keep your mouth shut. I did and at no point have I ever regretted not waiving my grades in my friends faces.
I don't know what really motivated this 9am rant. I'm really trying to be nice here. The bottom line is just breathe, you will get through it, and IGNORE THE BULLSHIT! If you show up to your first day prepared to take the vast majority of what you hear from other students with a giant grain of salt, then you have already won... good luck!
Seriously.
I just finished my first year. It wasn't that bad. You will be fine. I was a nervous wreck my first semester, but I studied constantly and ended up placing high in my class. Really, it's not as bad as people will tell you...And for the snotty-posters on here who inspired me to write this: No. I do not go to a "bad" school.
So this leads to an obvious question I think: Why do people insist its the end of your life when really it's not actually THAT painful?
Well, think about it. You have a class of 200+ students, all of whom received good LSAT scores, had great grades in college, some have had "real" jobs (many have not). We're proud people. If we weren't egoists, we wouldn't have signed up in the first place. What i'm getting at is you are about to find yourself surrounded by more TYPE A PERSONALITIES than you have ever previously encountered in one small environment. This means, that for many of your classmates: (1) getting shut down in class will ruin their day (although I have to say: watching a woman prof. shut down one of my very vocal & obnoxious male classmates this year? tons of fun), (2) falling behind, even just a few classes, will surely ruin their week, and (3) "OMG! I got a B+ my life is over! What'd you get? What'd you get"?
Law school is high school all over again. Not only will you know EVERYONES business (bear this in mind if and when you decide to get involved with one of your classmates! LADIES: "Professional reputation" applies to us in a different way then to our male classmates. If you hook up and/or date around your class, people will talk about it (sadly) and people will remember it down the road! I know a couple girls in my class who have made this mistake (they don't realize it yet). I am not one to judge in this regard, but if I see one of a few selected names pop up on a job application or in some other fashion later in life.. I will remember.
Ignore the other law students b/c they LIE LIE LIE. For example, there were 3 As given out in one of my first semester classes. Yet, oddly enough, at least 10 people reported to me that they had received an A. Bullshit. All of you. Trust me, if anyone feels the need to tell you they "aced" something, this really means they got a B or below.
There's a lot of weird social drama that goes on. You'll find yourself wondering why that is. I personally think that it happens b/c when you put a bunch of over achievers in a highly competitive environment and many do not do as well as they would like, people start to feel inadequate. People will express feeling inadequate by asserting themselves in other strange situations.. it's not pretty. Rise above.
And here's the real secret.... ITS NOT ACTUALLY HARD! Nope. It's not. It's just a time-crunch, not rocket science. I promise that there is no individual topic within a course that is actually difficult, in isolation, to understand. (It's just the fact that they throw so much at you at once, which is a shame, b/c it's hard to enjoy something that is genuinely pretty interesting when you have to speed through it on to the next thing).
If you can commit yourself to doing all your reading/ briefing every case (not writing in the margins, I mean make a word documents) showing up to most of you classes (I am admittedly terrible with this part, but classes are recorded so...), take a few practice exams, invest in an "examples and explanations" supplement series (at least for Civ. Pro. is extremely helpful) and you will do well.
oh and when someone tells you "its not about memorization." True, apply-apply, but memorize your outline. Make Flashcards. This will save you time on exams, not to mention will reduce your anxiety when you don't have to flip frantically through an outline during your test.
DONT MAKE YOUR OWN OUTLINES!!!! You will hear sooo many different perspectives on this. My school provides an "outline bank" that is organized by class and professor. All of my first year classes were on the outline bank. Many of my classmates informed me this approach was "lazy" and "risky"... so... what I did was bring the pre-made outlines to class and surprise, surprise they all matched up perfectly with what the professor said..every single class. (after all, they say the same thing every year...). Despite the fact that I informed my classmates "hey these outlines are 100% accurate, stop spending 2 months trying to reinvent the wheel", they didn't listen. In fact, I would estimate about half of them STILL don't even know the bank exists. Find out if your school has one. If not, find older students that did well, bring their outlines to class and VERIFY the material before you trust it. (you may have to suck up to one of these students to do so. But hey, that's easy, all any good law student wants to talk about is him/herself, so usually: "do you have any advice for me" "what are you doing for a job. oh my, i'm so impressed" will work just fine.)
If you do well in law school, don't be one of those people that brags about it. It's not attractive, necessary, or nice. This isn't college. This is people's livelihoods, so keep your mouth shut. I did and at no point have I ever regretted not waiving my grades in my friends faces.
I don't know what really motivated this 9am rant. I'm really trying to be nice here. The bottom line is just breathe, you will get through it, and IGNORE THE BULLSHIT! If you show up to your first day prepared to take the vast majority of what you hear from other students with a giant grain of salt, then you have already won... good luck!
