Still reading everything? Forum

[zeth006]

Who here is still reading everything for classes?

I have 3 core classes on Tuesdays with one of them being two hours. This means that Monday nights leave next to no time to be doing practice questions or tests for finals.

Would there be any harm in saving time by reading canned briefs every now and then? Would I be hurting myself in the long run?

[chicagolaw2013]

I'm not. Hell to the naw. Memo = taking over my LIFE.

[BarbellDreams]

Our professors are assigning much less work because they say they know the stress of outlining and memo writing so I am still reading everything for the most part, skimming some sections though.

[zeth006]

Our professors are assigning much less work because they say they know the stress of outlining and memo writing so I am still reading everything for the most part, skimming some sections though.

I'll take the middle route. Get the cases' main points, don't get lost in the details, read the squibs carefully when it's BLL or some minority rule.

For crim, I may have to stop reading the cases when there's a super good brief available and read the squibs.

[beach_terror]

Our professors are assigning much less work because they say they know the stress of outlining and memo writing so I am still reading everything for the most part, skimming some sections though.

Ours have been assigning more. It's fucking wonderful.

[ToTransferOrNot]

Flow chart:

Have you been in law school for longer than two weeks? -> Yes -> Are you still even attempting to do all of the reading or outline cases -> Yes -> You're doing it wrong

[JazzOne]

Flow chart:

Have you been in law school for longer than two weeks? -> Yes -> Are you still even attempting to do all of the reading or outline cases -> Yes -> You're doing it wrong

[patrickd139]

Just wanted to throw out there that I generally do the readings. Outlining's for suckers though.

[BarbellDreams]

I only know of one person who doesnt do an outline for the final but I stopped briefing after the first month and feel gulty for wasting that first month briefing. (Minus Civ Pro. Not sure how other professors teach it but our professor is insane on small details of cases so you HAVE TO brief Civ Pro.)

[savagedm]

If any case requires more thinking than one read through then I skip it and wait for class to explain it. I dont have the time to waste on that shit anymore. We got past the meat n' potatoes of the concepts and now I'm focused on finding the nuances on exams.... not in fucking Adickes v Kress.

[zeth006]

Flow chart:

Have you been in law school for longer than two weeks? -> Yes -> Are you still even attempting to do all of the reading or outline cases -> Yes -> You're doing it wrong

Damn...

[JG Hall]

I do (almost) all of the readings, but don't go to class. Works for me.

[TTH]

Our professors are assigning much less work because they say they know the stress of outlining and memo writing so I am still reading everything for the most part, skimming some sections though.

Ours have been assigning more. It's fucking wonderful.

Ditto. The way our semester is structured, we have one early final (K's midterm). Well, our torts prof, who generally assigns a lot of reading anyhow, got a little behind the syllabus and decided to catch up this week. Our final is Monday.


FFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUU

[TCScrutinizer]

Man, some of you guys are lazy. I still do all of the reading, sometimes a couple days in advance, and I book brief everything using different colors for each kind of information I need.

It doesn't take that long, and it's not a waste of time.

Reading is the easy part of law school. It's motivating yourself to edit and rewrite your memo for the fifth time that's hard.

[stocksly33]

I only did the complete readings for the first few weeks.

It's about the best allocation of your time to class readings, supps, outlining, hypos, and PTs. Most people can't do all of that... So what helps the most to help you do best on the exam? For me, I can get everything out of class readings by using an old student's outline, supps, and lecture... and in less time. So it frees up time for hypos, PTs, outlining, and more supps.

[blerg]

Man, some of you guys are lazy. I still do all of the reading, sometimes a couple days in advance, and I book brief everything using different colors for each kind of information I need.

It doesn't take that long, and it's not a waste of time.

Reading is the easy part of law school. It's motivating yourself to edit and rewrite your memo for the fifth time that's hard.

I'd rather write everyone's memo than read the casebook.

[09042014]

Man, some of you guys are lazy. I still do all of the reading, sometimes a couple days in advance, and I book brief everything using different colors for each kind of information I need.

It doesn't take that long, and it's not a waste of time.

Reading is the easy part of law school. It's motivating yourself to edit and rewrite your memo for the fifth time that's hard.

I'd rather write everyone's memo than read the casebook.

Offer accepted.

[ToTransferOrNot]

Man, some of you guys are lazy. I still do all of the reading, sometimes a couple days in advance, and I book brief everything using different colors for each kind of information I need.

It doesn't take that long, and it's not a waste of time.

Reading is the easy part of law school. It's motivating yourself to edit and rewrite your memo for the fifth time that's hard.

1L, right?

FYI, there's only one kind of information you need from cases - the holding.

[TCScrutinizer]

I only did the complete readings for the first few weeks.

It's about the best allocation of your time to class readings, supps, outlining, hypos, and PTs. Most people can't do all of that... So what helps the most to help you do best on the exam? For me, I can get everything out of class readings by using an old student's outline, supps, and lecture... and in less time. So it frees up time for hypos, PTs, outlining, and more supps.

I simply don't trust outlines written by anyone else... I've seen a lot of wrong, dumb crap written in other peoples' outlines. Supps are useful.

I dunno, color me skeptical that you guys are all spending ten hours a day prepping for exams but you're too busy to do an hour and a half worth of reading per night. But hey, I guess we all learn in different ways.

[MrKappus]

1L, right?

FYI, there's only one kind of information you need from cases - the holding.

Your way worked for you...that doesn't mean it's the only way, so stop acting like it is.

[TCScrutinizer]

Man, some of you guys are lazy. I still do all of the reading, sometimes a couple days in advance, and I book brief everything using different colors for each kind of information I need.

It doesn't take that long, and it's not a waste of time.

Reading is the easy part of law school. It's motivating yourself to edit and rewrite your memo for the fifth time that's hard.

1L, right?

FYI, there's only one kind of information you need from cases - the holding.

Sure. Actually, for a lot of cases, you don't need even need to know the holding. You just need to understand what the prevailing rule of law is, the primary reasons it is held that way, and what the strongest counter-arguments or alternative holdings are. The cases are just snapshots plucked from the larger body of law in order to give you an idea of what the big picture is and the prevailing reasons it is that way. Or, alternately, they are teaching points designed to get you to realize something that not all 1Ls are cynical or sophisticated enough to realize--for example, courts can pigheadedly apply stupid law, courts can shit on the expectations of parties when it suits them, courts can lie about the facts of the case when it buttresses their agenda, etc.

[ToTransferOrNot]

Man, some of you guys are lazy. I still do all of the reading, sometimes a couple days in advance, and I book brief everything using different colors for each kind of information I need.

It doesn't take that long, and it's not a waste of time.

Reading is the easy part of law school. It's motivating yourself to edit and rewrite your memo for the fifth time that's hard.

1L, right?

FYI, there's only one kind of information you need from cases - the holding.

Sure. Actually, for a lot of cases, you don't need even need to know the holding. You just need to understand what the prevailing rule of law is, the primary reasons it is held that way, and what the strongest counter-arguments or alternative holdings are. The cases are just snapshots plucked from the larger body of law in order to give you an idea of what the big picture is and the prevailing reasons it is that way. Or, alternately, they are teaching points designed to get you to realize something that not all 1Ls are cynical or sophisticated enough to realize--for example, courts can pigheadedly apply stupid law, courts can shit on the expectations of parties when it suits them, courts can lie about the facts of the case when it buttresses their agenda, etc.

the bolded points may get you like... 1% on a final exam. Just sayin. Unless you have a policy question, but under those circumstances, you just spew back whatever the prof ranted about re: policy.

Edit: And in the time you took to type about that stuff, test-taking automaton (i.e., "cynical and unsophisticated 1Ls") have gotten 5% hitting all sorts of BLL micro-issues that you won't have time to write about.

[TCScrutinizer]

Man, some of you guys are lazy. I still do all of the reading, sometimes a couple days in advance, and I book brief everything using different colors for each kind of information I need.

It doesn't take that long, and it's not a waste of time.

Reading is the easy part of law school. It's motivating yourself to edit and rewrite your memo for the fifth time that's hard.

1L, right?

FYI, there's only one kind of information you need from cases - the holding.

Sure. Actually, for a lot of cases, you don't need even need to know the holding. You just need to understand what the prevailing rule of law is, the primary reasons it is held that way, and what the strongest counter-arguments or alternative holdings are. The cases are just snapshots plucked from the larger body of law in order to give you an idea of what the big picture is and the prevailing reasons it is that way. Or, alternately, they are teaching points designed to get you to realize something that not all 1Ls are cynical or sophisticated enough to realize--for example, courts can pigheadedly apply stupid law, courts can shit on the expectations of parties when it suits them, courts can lie about the facts of the case when it buttresses their agenda, etc.

the bolded points may get you like... 1% on a final exam. Just sayin. Unless you have a policy question, but under those circumstances, you just spew back whatever the prof ranted about re: policy.

Edit: And in the time you took to type about that stuff, test-taking automaton (i.e., "cynical and unsophisticated 1Ls") have gotten 5% hitting all sorts of BLL micro-issues that you won't have time to write about.

I'm a big picture guy. Knowing the bullshit about why really helps me to remember the BLL and lay out all the sides of the issue.

[TCScrutinizer]

Though I suppose one might quibble with the "big picture guy" claim when I've already admitted to actually doing all of the reading.

[ToTransferOrNot]

Though I suppose one might quibble with the "big picture guy" claim when I've already admitted to actually doing all of the reading.

At least you admit it

Different strokes for different folks though. I know one or two top-5% types who still do nothing but the traditional law school game (read cases, outline, etc).