If I could do my first semester over again... Forum

[LazinessPerSe]

Same:
-Never read/brief cases from casebook (used online briefs)
-Plenty of practice exams
-Write out E&E answers like they were mini-exams
-Ignore/avoid almost everyone else like a social recluse because 1L drama is distracting
-Weekly outline updates
-Keep a piece of paper on my wall that read "As to transfer"

Different:
-Cut down on library hours -> staying until 11pm nightly for 2 weeks wasn't impressing anyone and Torts didn't require reading Dobbs' hornbook
-Spend more time on my LRW Memo/take it more seriously
-Enjoy the area more/take more time off law school.

[eerie_erie]

1L drama is distracting but so is loneliness. If I could do my 1L first semester again, I would join at least one club so I could make some friends and possibly meet upperclassmen as well. (2L here now.) Also, for people reading this, a lot of past TLSers also said to exercise more. This I wholeheartedly agree with.

[jcccc]

I'm gonna tag/necro this, just cause it's kinda helpful.

[RodneyRuxin]

I read this thread before 1L, so I'll help out.


Things I'd do differently:
1) Keep my promise to myself to exercise
2) focus on the idiosyncratic preferences professors have when it comes to exams
3) Remember it's okay to take off some time for myself.
4) Less emphasis on reading cases.
5) Begin reading for classes the morning earlier--and it gives a lot of time for outlining/LRW work in the afternoon.
6) Worry less about everything. (Never helps and makes things unnecessarily stressful).
7) Work more on LRW before the weekend before it's due (all-nighters )

[BeenDidThat]

Get old outlines for all classes.

Fill in a few notes on old outlines.

Tell other 1Ls to stop fucking lying about how much they study.

Crush that shit.

Profit.

[RodneyRuxin]

Get old outlines for all classes.

Fill in a few notes on old outlines.

Tell other 1Ls to stop fucking lying about how much they study.

Crush that shit.

Profit.

+1 to all of this

[conwaystern]

1. Never read from the book.
2. Practice exams. Like crazy. Issue, Rule, Apply Facts, Conclude. Ad nauseum.
3. Drink moar.

[alkti3]

Future 1Ls, if you are reading, I think the important thing is to use what we talk about to come up with ideas of what works for you.

I think this point should be re-iterated since it was last said last year. And on that note, I'm gonna go against the grain here and say I wish I had not fallen into the conventional wisdom of "supplements all day/save time and borrow old outline." I know plenty of people who used that method and did fantastically but it wasn't for me: I followed it first semester and ended up slightly above median; I forwent all supplements the next semester, read/skimmed the book assignment right before class and just jotted down something to help trigger facts of a case (i.e. "bar fight case") in case I got called on that day, and carefully made my own outlines using notes I took in class about the cases and things I noticed my professors liked to emphasize. I ended up with an A in every class. Also, I didn't write briefs either semester.

Anyways point is, to each their own. I realize what worked for me could have been total luck since I know very few people who didn't rely on supplements to some extent (if not completely), but who knows. Personally I think without the strain of feeling like I should be spending all my spare time doing chapter after chapter of E&E's, practice tests throughout the school year, or whatever, I was much more comfortable with down time second semester, much more relaxed, and therefore avoided burnout going into the final stretch of reading week. Plus I had saved all my practice tests for the end and doing them was a lot less painful that time around (taking practice tests is one piece of conventional wisdom I would definitely NOT forgo) and I think that helped a lot in the end.

[Ohiobumpkin]

I'll try to help out.

1. Not spend so much time perfecting my outline and reading every assignment.
2. Take more practice exams at least one to two months earlier than I did before exams. (one month before)
3. Not waste my time with study groups.
4. Use supplements more. Seriously, do not listen to professors who say to not use supplements. Skim the reading assignments, highlight the holding/reasoning, and read over the section of a good supplement that covers the given legal doctrine.
5. Talk more to 2Ls and 3Ls who had my professors and did well.
6. Stress out WAY less.

[Nova]

Here are some general tips I just wrote for friends. YMMV. HTH

1. Dont stess about cold calls. They are no big deal. Dont waste your time over preparing for class so you look good on the cold call. No one is actually paying attention to what you say. Try to keep your eye on the prize, which is the final exam.

2. Dont over contribute in class. No one likes that person. Theres a lot of material to get through, and usually when students comment or ask questions, it gets the lecture off track. The worst questions are hypothetics ("What if X..."). If the prof wanted to talk about a particular hypothetical, they will bring it up themself. Dont ask questions in the last 5 minutes of class, let the professor wrap everything up.

3. Find friends to study with, even if all you do is sit next to them in silence in the library. Reading and outlining all day can get really lonely really fast if youre on your own.

4. Its a competition. Almost everyone will be friendly, and at the very least civil, but at the end of the day everyone is competeing for the A. This is why having a close group of friends is so important. Kind of like survivor. People arent going to be freely handing out their outlines. Thats their work product; their playbook. No one wants to give their competition their playbook. It can get cliquey. Youll want to find friends that you can mutually benefit from. I had two friends in my section who I shared everything with(outlines, practice tests, notes, model answers). We would talk about the assignments in depth,answer eachothers questions, challange each other to do better, and encourage each other to keep working. We were each others best resources, and all definitely did better becasue of how much we were able to help each other.

5. Everyone is going to be smart. Its kind of amazing actually; to be in a room with so many smart people. Some curves are very tight. For most people, to do well, theyll have to work really hard and be really efficent with their time. There are only so many hours in the day. There will be people who study 12 hours a day. Studying 70+ hours a week isnt necessary, but in order to out perform people that do, youll have to be super efficient.

6. Read ahead. its makes everything less daunting when you dont have to read for the next day, but instead you choose to read to stay ahead. Plus, youll reinforce the laws more, becasue youll read it, brief it, let it sink in, and then review it quickly again before class. I actually read and outlined all of property class by the end of week 4. This was a huge relief, which gave me time to reinforce the lessons several more times over than everyone else.

7. Read the lesson in a supplement after you read the lesson in the case book. If it wasnt in the casebook or lecture, ignore it. These are the ones I would recommend:

Torts: Emanuels

Contracts:Emanuels

Con Law: Chemerinsky

Civil Procedure: Glannons

8. Find out what kind of final youre going to have immediately and tailor your studying and preperation accordingly. Is it a 3 hour exam? 4 hour? 8 hour take home? Is it all essays? How many essays? what does a model answer look like for their exam? What scores points on their exam?

9. Do practice tests. They are not fun, but it is the only way you will get better at articulating the law and applying law to fact in a sophistocated manner. Dont wait till 2 weeks before the exam to start practice testing. As soon as you finish a unit (for example, intentional torts) you should be able to practice writing essays on the topic.

EXAM BANKS:

http://lawmedia.pepperdine.edu/exam/examlookup.php
--LinkRemoved-- ****MY FAVORITE
http://www.law.umaryland.edu/marshall/services/exams/

http://www.law.columbia.edu/faculty/fac ... /Old_exams

http://www.law.columbia.edu/faculty/fac ... o/Oldexams


10. Outline as you go. Once you finish a unit, go back over it, pick out whats important, and outline it.

11. Make attack outlines for easy access to the law.

12. Read getting to maybe and the leews primer immediately if you have not. These give you a foundation for how to write essays and how to extract the most important lessons from lectures/casebooks/supplements.

13. Prewrite answers to exam questions. I am not talking about trying to predict answers before the exam and prewriting reasoning. What I mean is writing out the [sub]elements into sentences that are ready for application.


Everyone in your class is going to know the elements of Negligence are duty, breach, cause, and damages. The key to most torts exams is to spit it out faster than everyone else so you can sue more people over more issues. For example, here is my negligence template, which i repeated probably 20 times over the course of 4 hours. Remember that you are not trying to write prose, your trying to be efficient and apply as much law to fact as possible:

For each bullet, I would also argue the opposite, such as for the first bullet below, "D would argue he did not have a duty to act with reasonable care becasue X wasnt foreseeable"

Duty
• D had a duty to act with reasonable care to P because he is a foreseeable person, evidenced by X
• D had a heightened duty of X because.
Breach
• D did not act with reasonable care because a reasonably prudent person would not have X, but rather Z.
• The utility of Ds acts were high/low because X.
• It was a foreseeable risk of injury because
• Applying BPL, P would argue the probability of loss, chance X, would outweigh the burden to prevent X
• D would argue that the burden of X would be greater than the probability of loss, X, because.
• There was (not) RIL because
• It was (not) neg per se because

Prox Cause
• There was actual causation because but for [conduct] the [damage] wouldn’t have occurred
• [Injury] was probable consequence of X because
• [Injury] was naturally foreseeable consequence of X because
• [Injury] was uninterrupted because X
• D would argue the harm is out of scope because
• D would argue X

Damages
• Because the breach of duty is the the prox cause of Ps damages , they should they win their suit, they would be entitled to X

14. use some sort of organizing system for you notes, whether it be onenote or the equivielnt for mac. It saves a lot of time.

15. Enjoy yourself! For some 1L year will be hell. However, 1L year can be a very rewarding experiance if you let be.

For fun: http://ponyuplaw.tumblr.com/

16. Use TLS forums. lots of good insight. Here is a collection of guides http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 3&t=123092

17. look at online case briefs and outlines to compare your extracted law to theirs.

http://www.boalt.org/outlines/outlines.html#civpro

http://www.4lawschool.com/casebrief.htm

http://www.onelbriefs.com/

http://www.lawnix.com/

http://www.invispress.com/law/

http://www.ilrg.com/students/outlines/ ***REALLY GOOD CASE BOOK SPECIFIC

http://legalthree.com/law-school-outlines/

http://lawschool.mikeshecket.com/

[TheThriller]

How would a 0L go about getting old outlines? Is there an online bank for each school or do we have to ask 2L/3Ls?

[Nova]

Sometimes clubs have outline banks.

I got mine from 2Ls and 3Ls and from my 1L friends who got them from other 2Ls and 3Ls.

[ShitLawOrBust]

i'd drop out the first week and get my student loans back before I was ahead of myself. go back to UG and cop a STEM major

[hephaestus]

Sometimes clubs have outline banks.

I got mine from 2Ls and 3Ls and from my 1L friends who got them from other 2Ls and 3Ls.

This. Also if your school assigns mentors ask them if they have any worth sharing.

[ShitLawOrBust]

i'd drop out the first week and get my student loans back before I was ahead of myself. go back to UG and cop a STEM major

THIS

/thread

[alicrimson]

How would a 0L go about getting old outlines? Is there an online bank for each school or do we have to ask 2L/3Ls?

Ask 2L/3Ls that you know who did well. I got my old outlines from a girl who graduated 4th in the class. She also contacted her other smart friends who had outlines for profs that she didn't have. Take a lot at the law review masthead and who booked what on the book award list. I did this, a couple friends of mine did this, and it has worked out. You'd be surprised how many individuals in the top of the class don't make things for themselves. They refurbish old, proven outlines.

Granted, you are still going to have to do the work. My thoughts on pre-made outlines are that they are there to free-up your time. You don't have to make it anymore so now you can allocate that time to review the outline, practice answers, think about how things meld together and could apply in combos, and to read supplements.

Even though people will tell you that you are going to get C's if you don't make your own outline, they're not always correct. I've made two outlines in the entirety of law school (3L here), and I have never gotten close to a C. In fact, I now get those 1L/2L emails asking for my old outlines. The outline thing works. Also, I'm not very smart. I got destroyed on the LSAT, but I don't think you have to be very smart to do lawschool or even SA well. You just have to work harder and smarter than the other guys.

Good luck!

[RodneyRuxin]

1) JOIN SMART/NERDY CLUBS AND GET GOOD OUTLINES.

2) ????

3) PROFIT.

[AntiHuman]

I wouldn't go. I would go to medical school instead for obvious reasons.

[spleenworship]

My 2L advice:
(for any 2Ls coming to post about 1L)

Read the cases, quickly. Don't take notes. Do show up to class to listen to professor prefrences and what they stress is important. Read old outlines, supplements, CALI, and take 2-4 practice tests the two weeks before. Make own outline 1-2 days before using a structure provided by another person, but put in your own BLL and cases and whatnot.

I got the highest grades in my school last semester. (though I don't think the 3Ls cared very much)


Warning: this will not work for 1L and everyone, 1Ls and 2Ls - find out what works for you. My method may screw you, so think about it before you decide.

[northwood]

id leave and not look back

[guinness1547]

Can someone explain what exactly CALI is?

[TheFutureLawyer]

Can someone explain what exactly CALI is?

http://www.cali.org/

[moonman157]

Tag

[Gorki]

I'd drop out and at least TRY out working in ND oilfields. If I failed hard at it, would at least have had a rather interesting WE and coulda reapplied in the 2012 cycle for better placement.

[souzakid]

I'm gonna tag/necro this thread considering my 1L is about to start in a few weeks. Any 2/3Ls got some more solid tips for a naive 0L ?