Law school geniuses - Anyone know one personally? Forum

[spleenworship]

Do people have to be that douchey and pompous when they brag about being top-of-the-class slackers?? There's a way to talk about it tastefully...

Law school tends to attract douchey overachievers. TLS, which doesn't involve negative feedback from douchiness, is significantly worse.

If it helps, only one of the top 10% I know is douchey about it IRL. The rest are all cool people.


ETA: Met some 1st year med students the other day. After ten minutes of hanging with them I realized that the douche factor there was significantly higher than law school. Like seriously half of the ten or so I spent 20 minutes drinking with I realized I would take out back and work over with a baseball bat if I actually had to interact with them every day. Maybe that was just the douche group of med students though.

[jess]

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[DaftAndDirect]

Do people have to be that douchey and pompous when they brag about being top-of-the-class slackers?? There's a way to talk about it tastefully...

Law school tends to attract douchey overachievers. TLS, which doesn't involve negative feedback from douchiness, is significantly worse.

If it helps, only one of the top 10% I know is douchey about it IRL. The rest are all cool people.


ETA: Met some 1st year med students the other day. After ten minutes of hanging with them I realized that the douche factor there was significantly higher than law school. Like seriously half of the ten or so I spent 20 minutes drinking with I realized I would take out back and work over with a baseball bat if I actually had to interact with them every day. Maybe that was just the douche group of med students though.

My best friend is a douchey med student. Even worse, he tries to play it off like he's not douchey by decrying the douchiness of other med students. A closeted douche if you will.

Now that I think about it...best frenemy is probably a more fitting title. I feel you though. No worries, just make partner and wave the ca$h moneyz in their face next time you see them.

[spleenworship]

If it helps, only one of the top 10% I know is douchey about it IRL. The rest are all cool people.

This is how it is at my school. All of the people who did well are humble and cool about it.

Ironically, the people who brag about being smarter than everyone else are people who are outside the top 25%. And they still have the audacity to say "this exam will be a breeze" and "everyone in our class is so dumb! i'm excited to ace this semester."

I have a classmate who spent spring break drinking and vacationing. Didn't do any of the work assigned. This wouldn't be so bad except that person is already in the bottom third and sees no reason to change. They are convinced they'll Get a Job Through Networking. My thought is that while they might get a job that way, is it really going to be the one they want?

[spleenworship]

Now that I think about it...best frenemy is probably a more fitting title. I feel you though. No worries, just make partner and wave the ca$h moneyz in their face next time you see them.

Maybe I'll go into plaintiffs med mal and just $#% their #$% up in court. Then the money I wave will be theirs.

[NoleinNY]

I'm kind of insulted that this thread has gone without anyone mentioning me. As all of TLS (I thought!) knows, I made top 1% at a t14, after acing things at the t30 school I transferred from, without really studying at all or taking any notes during class. I read the casebook, made 8-page outlines a week or less before the exam, and that's it. I do read the casebook pretty carefully though. But I'm sure for other people mastering a really solid supplement works too. I imagine I could've gotten A's in con law from reading Chemerinsky, though my exam-writing style is really dependent on detail I get from the cases.

I remember something about you eating donuts afterward.

[Absurd]

Not sure how I became the bad guy here.

OP asked if there are people out there that got good grades without much effort. I said I did.

Some dude called me a liar and started being a dick. So I responded.

Not sure how that makes me a pompous douchebag. Anyone I went to LS with would laugh at the idea. But you folks can ascribe to me whatever traits you'd like if it helps you sleep better at night.

[Reprisal]

Not sure how I became the bad guy here.

OP asked if there are people out there that got good grades without much effort. I said I did.

Some dude called me a liar and started being a dick. So I responded.

Not sure how that makes me a pompous douchebag. Anyone I went to LS with would laugh at the idea. But you folks can ascribe to me whatever traits you'd like if it helps you sleep better at night.

Wow, I guess I really struck a nerve here.

I'm sorry you're stuck learning social cues the hard way, but that doesn't mean everyone is.
I'd send you pics of me exes, but I don't want to.

I won't apologize for being a buff coolbro while you struggle to keep up.

But good luck with the rest of your life as you continue to put in ten times the effort for half the recognition, and die a meaningless, unsung existence, saddled with regret and bitter at the world that convinced you that all that mattered was that you eased through an ABA mandated shithole.

Grow up.

[goodolgil]

I did this and finished top 5-10%ish, but I'm no genius (and note I did essentially the same thing 2L first semester, maybe with a little less studying and finished median). Law school studying quickly reaches diminishing returns because there simply isn't that much material you need to learn to do well. It's really about 2 things: "getting" the material you need to learn and being good at law school exams.

[Gamecubesupreme]

During 1L, for Legal Process I analyzed every case, attended every class and did every practice exam there is. Got a single fact pattern on the one area I wasn't completely comfortable with. Panicked and ended up with an C+.

The next semester, I did absolutely nothing for Property. Literally nothing. Like, I didn't even bother reading 90% of the cases. On the final, the fact pattern was about the one case that I did read. Got an A-.

My point is law school finals are just as much about luck as it is about skill. It is entirely possible for a total slacker to get incredibly lucky and receive A's because all the exams he took fit his style perfectly. Conversely, there must be some poor souls who worked 50+ hours a week and still ended up median because he/she got fucked by the finals.

So while people who fit TC's description might exist, I am not entirely ready to pronounce them as "genius" quite yet. They could be just incredibly lucky. I reserve the title "genius" for people like Justice Brandeis.

[Gamecubesupreme]

And personally, there are tons of people with better grades than me at my law school, but they all worked much harder.

There are also tons of people who slacked off more than me, but none of their GPA is better than mine.

Then again, I slacked off quite a bit already, so it is hard to slack off even more than me and still maintain a decent GPA.

[094320]

..

[portaprokoss]

I have a family member who 1) didn't take notes, 2) didn't read a case unless it sounded interesting in class, then he would go back and read it, 3) did no outlining or finals prep of any kind, and 3) completely checkout out of law school for the last 2 weeks of class and read Proust's In Search of Lost Time

. . . . SCOTUS clerk

[Blessedassurance]

I'm kind of insulted that this thread has gone without anyone mentioning me. As all of TLS (I thought!) knows, I made top 1% at a t14, after acing things at the t30 school I transferred from, without really studying at all or taking any notes during class. I read the casebook, made 8-page outlines a week or less before the exam, and that's it. I do read the casebook pretty carefully though. But I'm sure for other people mastering a really solid supplement works too. I imagine I could've gotten A's in con law from reading Chemerinsky, though my exam-writing style is really dependent on detail I get from the cases.

Can you comment on the validity of the assertion that good writing skills confer an advantage?

[sunynp]

This is awesome. He counts as genius and shaes us all.

However, now I'm trying to figure out who wrote the most-cited student written law review article.

I submit that this man is a genius and that anyone in law school who falls short of him is not: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Sargentich

Notably, Sargentich was one of a total of only six HLS students to receive the summa cum laude designation at Harvard Law during the over fifty years in which it was determined by a Grade Point Average threshold. While earning this distinction, Sargentich gained his first exposure to his future field of tort law in a course on the subject taught by longtime HLS Professor Charles Fried, who gave him an A+.[10] This performance was sandwiched between his experiences as a Marshall Scholar [11] at the University of Sussex in 1965 and as a member of Thurgood Marshall's inaugural class of Supreme Court Law Clerks in 1970-71.

He first gained acclaim in the legal profession for his student article, The First Amendment Overbreadth Doctrine (83 Harv. L. Rev. 844 ), which has been cited by over 210 scholarly works and over 150 cases making it the second most cited student legal article ever written.[12] The article has been widely acclaimed as brilliant and sufficient impetus for HLS's extremely rare award of tenure to Sargentich before he had published any works professionally.

Tenure from a student article. Baller.

[Resolve]

Yeah, I know people who can do this. I can't, but they are around.

not that many.....

[rayiner]

Does anyone know anyone who did really well (top 10%) without studying? I have only heard rumors about people who don't take notes, don't really do the readings, and only pay attention in class and have done really, really well (No GTM, LEEWS, supplemental reading either). Basically, they treat law school like those smart kids treated high school or college, depending only on class discussion-- and still excel.

Are they out there? <Alien/Space music>

I don't know anyone in the top 10% who doesn't at least gun hard the few weeks before finals. One way or another you have to learn the black letter law, and you don't learn that during class discussions. You either grind through the casebook or grind through a supplement.

[Seminole_305]

Things I've learned from law school...

1. If you write well, you will do well.
2. Study smart, not hard.
3. Apply law to fact. Apply law to fact.

Kids who are in the top 10% all write well. Than there is the next tier of people, like me, who write well when given time, but grammar is gone during finals.

Totally agree with the bold. I have done practice exams with some really smart friends. I usually think their answers are more "right" than mine (for example, thinking of narrow exceptions that are applicable that didn't pop into my mind), but they unanimously think my answer is better just because it is written more logically and coherently.

Top 10% here and I write like a retard.

You might be the guy in the top 10% who brute forces his way into As and B+s.

[dreakol]

Things I've learned from law school...

1. If you write well, you will do well.
2. Study smart, not hard.
3. Apply law to fact. Apply law to fact.

Kids who are in the top 10% all write well. Than there is the next tier of people, like me, who write well when given time, but grammar is gone during finals.

Totally agree with the bold. I have done practice exams with some really smart friends. I usually think their answers are more "right" than mine (for example, thinking of narrow exceptions that are applicable that didn't pop into my mind), but they unanimously think my answer is better just because it is written more logically and coherently.

Top 10% here and I write like a retard.

You might be the guy in the top 10% who brute forces his way into As and B+s.

lolololololol

[gdane]

There's a kid in my class that thinks he's a genius. Every word that comes out of his mouth is some super sophisticated sounding word and he seems to ask pointless questions just to get into arguments with professors. He also has a way of making very simple answers sound super complex and complicated. He's taken it upon himself to be the section tutor. He has a very annoying nasily voice. He's also fat.

For some reason though, he's generally worshipped in my section.

[TTTLS]

There's a kid in my class that thinks he's a genius. Every word that comes out of his mouth is some super sophisticated sounding word and he seems to ask pointless questions just to get into arguments with professors. He also has a way of making very simple answers sound super complex and complicated. He's taken it upon himself to be the section tutor. He has a very annoying nasily voice. He's also fat.

For some reason though, he's generally worshipped in my section.

There's a word for this, though it escapes me now...

[bartleby]

There's a kid in my class that thinks he's a genius. Every word that comes out of his mouth is some super sophisticated sounding word and he seems to ask pointless questions just to get into arguments with professors. He also has a way of making very simple answers sound super complex and complicated. He's taken it upon himself to be the section tutor. He has a very annoying nasily voice. He's also fat.

For some reason though, he's generally worshipped in my section.

There's a word for this, though it escapes me now...

gunner? or the other "g" sounding word...jealoussss

[Always Credited]

This begs the metaphysical question, is it possible to truly know one's self?




/philosoraptor

[ilovesf]

There's a kid in my class that thinks he's a genius. Every word that comes out of his mouth is some super sophisticated sounding word and he seems to ask pointless questions just to get into arguments with professors. He also has a way of making very simple answers sound super complex and complicated. He's taken it upon himself to be the section tutor. He has a very annoying nasily voice. He's also fat.

For some reason though, he's generally worshipped in my section.

There's a word for this, though it escapes me now...

gunner? or the other "g" sounding word...jealoussss

Gunners aren't usually worshiped though. Ours certainly aren't.

[TTTLS]

I usually stress out about everything, contemplate killself everyday, and bust my ass on my outlines, thinking I'm doomed to die impoverished and unprestigious. I end up getting okay grades doing this, so I think this is how I'll keep going about my law school career.