My Two Cents About Law School Success...
Posted: Mon Jan 17, 2011 2:44 pm
((Please pardon any misspellings. I didn’t take the time to proofread…))
I know others have done this, but I thought I would share how I prepared for law school. I will cover (1) what I did as a 0L; (2) what I did during the semester; (3) my strategy for OCI. I am halfway through 2L year, and while I’m not the absolute top of my class, I am easily within the top 10% at Cornell. I will be working for a V10 firm this summer. Finally, this isn’t meant to be a definitive “do this and you’ll succeed” approach, it merely information that can be used with other similar posts to help develop a law school game plan.
This brings me to my two “rules” for law school success: (1) Have a game plan. (2) Be prepared to change the game plan once school starts. I think rule one is important because having a game plan means that you prepared and have some idea of what to expect before school starts. Rule two is important because you have to be able to adapt if reality doesn’t perfectly match your expectations. Without rambling any further, here is what I did.
0L “Plan”
I’m not big on doing a lot of class work as a 0L. While I don’t think it will hurt you, it will probably not benefit you. Instead, I think you are better off focusing on preparing for what exactly law school will be. I recommend reading law School Confidential, Getting to Maybe, and the sticky posts under this site’s “Forum for Law School Students.” As you read this material, or other “strategy” material (including my post and other posts like mine), don’t try to emulate it precisely, but think about the purposes behind what the authors are saying and start coming up with what your own personalized strategy.
Besides the strategy materials, I also recommend reading Scott Turow’s book “1L.” This is a scare-you-to-death narrative of law school. It will give you an idea of what to expect (though law school is not nearly as scary as he makes it sound), and I thought it was a fun read. The trick here is to know what to expect so you aren’t scared during your first year.
I also recommend Jonathan Harr’s “A Civil Action.” This is just a great read.
There are other similar books out there, and I think the trick is to read them, get an idea of what they say to do, develop your own ideas, and be in position to start making a plan.
My plan was basically in the form of a schedule, and I still do this before any semester. Once I had my class list, I made 7 tables in OneNote (which I HIGHLY recommend). Each table corresponded to a day of the week. In each table I put my class times. Then I added the time I would get up and the time I would go to bed. Then I started filling time slots throughout the day so I could spread out my preparation throughout the week. I slotted two hours of reading for each class. At the beginning you might need the entire two hours (or maybe even more), but as the semester went on, I started to get this down to 1-1.5 hours. I also scheduled all of my reading so that I was never an assignment ahead. In other words, I waited until after I had the present class before I would start reading for the next. This worked best for me because the present topics were always fresh in my head.
Once you have your schedule complete, you will notice that you actually have quite a bit of free time, especially if you utilize your weekends to do a few hours of work (1-2 classes). This time will usually remain free during the semester, or it might get taken up by writing, preparing for moot court, or any other random events that might come up. But, for now you have your typical weekly schedule. You can look at this and tweak it as necessary so that you don’t burn out. Maybe 40 hours is all you think you need a week, or 60, or 80… Anything more than 80, however, is probably setting you up for burn out. I stuck to about 50-60 hours myself.
Finally, I would HIGHLY recommend that you increase your typing speed as much as possible. If you don’t know how to touch type—LEARN. There are many online drills you can find using Google, there are games you can download, classes you can sign up for, whatever, but become as fast as you can. A hard truth of law school is that in many classes, the number of words you type on the exam (as long as they are on point) will determine your grade. Even if you’re in a class with word limits, a faster typing speed means you have more time to outline your answer.
1L Year
Stick to the schedule you made. Do the readings you are supposed to, on the days you are supposed to do them. You can make changes as needed, but make sure you always have the time to stay caught up. If you fall behind, you will probably never make the readings back up (not the end of the world if it happens once or twice, as supplements can fill in the gaps, but if you miss too much and you’ll be in trouble).
As for preparing for class, all I did was read the casebook. I read the cases, took reading notes of what I thought was important, and then struggled to grasp the importance in class. At first, the Professor always seemed way ahead of me, but I soon got better. I also think the struggle in class leads to active learning and “aha” moments, that cement the legal rules in your head better. If I ever felt like I got completely lost, then I turned to the supplements AFTER class to try and figure out what was going on. Furthermore, if you miss something, you will come across it again when you outline with your notes and supplements (discussed below).
As for class, go to every one. To avoid looking like a gunner, make sure you don’t answer all of the questions; here and there is ok, but if you feel like you are raising your hand to ANSWER questions all the time, you should sit back and let your classmates contribute. However, don’t let the fear of looking like a gunner prevent you from ASKING questions. Anything you are confused about is ok; and almost any question won’t be a dumb one. However, avoid the odd, drawn-out hypothetical that has little to no bearing on what is being learned…
As for outlining, I didn’t start until Thanksgiving. This is what worked for me, but everyone might be different. I liked waiting because when I got to exams, the material was all fresh in my head. If you decide to start earlier in the semester, I would look at the syllabus, find where there is a major break in material (e.g., in torts, the breaks between Intentional, Negligence, and Strict Liability). Once you finish one of these major sections, then start outlining.
When you’re outlining, remember that the goal is to use this on an exam. Don’t get bogged down in the details, but focus on the RULES that you can apply to new fact patterns. I think supplements are very useful when it comes to this. I like to take my notes, particularly what the professor said during class, and use them as a guide. Then I find the specific points in the supplement and condense everything into an analytical framework that can be used when that issue appears on an exam. My outlines are usually around 20 pages, though sometimes they reached into the 30’s.
When it comes to exams, the real trick is to know what to expect. Make sure you have taken a number of practice exams in the course. As far as examsmanship, Getting to Maybe really describes what you need to do. In short, you need to discuss both sides of every issue you find. Finally, you should write as much as you can, but it shouldn’t be a brain dump. Everything you put down should be on point.
OCI Tips
I’m going to keep this relatively short and outline my strategy. First, I did a lot of research using the NALP forms when deciding which firms to bid on, and how to order those bids. I found all the hard, objective evidence I was interested in, and ranked the firms according to that. At this point I would focus mainly on the objective characteristics, and not get too involved with quality of life and other such subjective characteristics. Trying to figure all of that out for hundreds of firms would take forever. Once I had all the firms ranked, I worked with career services to develop a proper bid strategy based on what GPA’s the firm had targeted in the past.
Once I knew my bids, preparing for the interviews isn’t very hard. I might glance at the website, however, I found this information to be hit or miss at best. At a few interviews I mentioned a fact I’d found from the website only to be met with blank expressions and a “oh, I didn’t know that” response. I found the 3-4 page Vault profiles (your school likely has an online subscription), Chambers Associates, and the NALP form to be the best sources of information. From these I would find 3-4 points for each firm, and then try to work them in during the interview if I could do so naturally.
Besides firm information, you also need to have talking points. You need past experiences that you can reference and use for examples during the interview. No matter what the question asked, if you have a bag of 4-5 experiences you can find one to fit the question. If you don’t have a lot of unique experience, try to get one. Volunteer somewhere this summer before law school that you can talk about. Try to get an interesting summer job after 1L. It can be almost anything, but it needs to be unique. This will help the interviewer remember you.
Dress the part. Make sure everything about you is polished. First impressions are the key here. If you look lawyerly, then the interviewer will be ready to listen to you. If you look like a kid still, then you will have to work harder.
Well, that’s all I can think of for now… I’m sure I left a lot of things out, so if you have any questions I will be answering them from time to time over the next few days.
Cheers.
I know others have done this, but I thought I would share how I prepared for law school. I will cover (1) what I did as a 0L; (2) what I did during the semester; (3) my strategy for OCI. I am halfway through 2L year, and while I’m not the absolute top of my class, I am easily within the top 10% at Cornell. I will be working for a V10 firm this summer. Finally, this isn’t meant to be a definitive “do this and you’ll succeed” approach, it merely information that can be used with other similar posts to help develop a law school game plan.
This brings me to my two “rules” for law school success: (1) Have a game plan. (2) Be prepared to change the game plan once school starts. I think rule one is important because having a game plan means that you prepared and have some idea of what to expect before school starts. Rule two is important because you have to be able to adapt if reality doesn’t perfectly match your expectations. Without rambling any further, here is what I did.
0L “Plan”
I’m not big on doing a lot of class work as a 0L. While I don’t think it will hurt you, it will probably not benefit you. Instead, I think you are better off focusing on preparing for what exactly law school will be. I recommend reading law School Confidential, Getting to Maybe, and the sticky posts under this site’s “Forum for Law School Students.” As you read this material, or other “strategy” material (including my post and other posts like mine), don’t try to emulate it precisely, but think about the purposes behind what the authors are saying and start coming up with what your own personalized strategy.
Besides the strategy materials, I also recommend reading Scott Turow’s book “1L.” This is a scare-you-to-death narrative of law school. It will give you an idea of what to expect (though law school is not nearly as scary as he makes it sound), and I thought it was a fun read. The trick here is to know what to expect so you aren’t scared during your first year.
I also recommend Jonathan Harr’s “A Civil Action.” This is just a great read.
There are other similar books out there, and I think the trick is to read them, get an idea of what they say to do, develop your own ideas, and be in position to start making a plan.
My plan was basically in the form of a schedule, and I still do this before any semester. Once I had my class list, I made 7 tables in OneNote (which I HIGHLY recommend). Each table corresponded to a day of the week. In each table I put my class times. Then I added the time I would get up and the time I would go to bed. Then I started filling time slots throughout the day so I could spread out my preparation throughout the week. I slotted two hours of reading for each class. At the beginning you might need the entire two hours (or maybe even more), but as the semester went on, I started to get this down to 1-1.5 hours. I also scheduled all of my reading so that I was never an assignment ahead. In other words, I waited until after I had the present class before I would start reading for the next. This worked best for me because the present topics were always fresh in my head.
Once you have your schedule complete, you will notice that you actually have quite a bit of free time, especially if you utilize your weekends to do a few hours of work (1-2 classes). This time will usually remain free during the semester, or it might get taken up by writing, preparing for moot court, or any other random events that might come up. But, for now you have your typical weekly schedule. You can look at this and tweak it as necessary so that you don’t burn out. Maybe 40 hours is all you think you need a week, or 60, or 80… Anything more than 80, however, is probably setting you up for burn out. I stuck to about 50-60 hours myself.
Finally, I would HIGHLY recommend that you increase your typing speed as much as possible. If you don’t know how to touch type—LEARN. There are many online drills you can find using Google, there are games you can download, classes you can sign up for, whatever, but become as fast as you can. A hard truth of law school is that in many classes, the number of words you type on the exam (as long as they are on point) will determine your grade. Even if you’re in a class with word limits, a faster typing speed means you have more time to outline your answer.
1L Year
Stick to the schedule you made. Do the readings you are supposed to, on the days you are supposed to do them. You can make changes as needed, but make sure you always have the time to stay caught up. If you fall behind, you will probably never make the readings back up (not the end of the world if it happens once or twice, as supplements can fill in the gaps, but if you miss too much and you’ll be in trouble).
As for preparing for class, all I did was read the casebook. I read the cases, took reading notes of what I thought was important, and then struggled to grasp the importance in class. At first, the Professor always seemed way ahead of me, but I soon got better. I also think the struggle in class leads to active learning and “aha” moments, that cement the legal rules in your head better. If I ever felt like I got completely lost, then I turned to the supplements AFTER class to try and figure out what was going on. Furthermore, if you miss something, you will come across it again when you outline with your notes and supplements (discussed below).
As for class, go to every one. To avoid looking like a gunner, make sure you don’t answer all of the questions; here and there is ok, but if you feel like you are raising your hand to ANSWER questions all the time, you should sit back and let your classmates contribute. However, don’t let the fear of looking like a gunner prevent you from ASKING questions. Anything you are confused about is ok; and almost any question won’t be a dumb one. However, avoid the odd, drawn-out hypothetical that has little to no bearing on what is being learned…
As for outlining, I didn’t start until Thanksgiving. This is what worked for me, but everyone might be different. I liked waiting because when I got to exams, the material was all fresh in my head. If you decide to start earlier in the semester, I would look at the syllabus, find where there is a major break in material (e.g., in torts, the breaks between Intentional, Negligence, and Strict Liability). Once you finish one of these major sections, then start outlining.
When you’re outlining, remember that the goal is to use this on an exam. Don’t get bogged down in the details, but focus on the RULES that you can apply to new fact patterns. I think supplements are very useful when it comes to this. I like to take my notes, particularly what the professor said during class, and use them as a guide. Then I find the specific points in the supplement and condense everything into an analytical framework that can be used when that issue appears on an exam. My outlines are usually around 20 pages, though sometimes they reached into the 30’s.
When it comes to exams, the real trick is to know what to expect. Make sure you have taken a number of practice exams in the course. As far as examsmanship, Getting to Maybe really describes what you need to do. In short, you need to discuss both sides of every issue you find. Finally, you should write as much as you can, but it shouldn’t be a brain dump. Everything you put down should be on point.
OCI Tips
I’m going to keep this relatively short and outline my strategy. First, I did a lot of research using the NALP forms when deciding which firms to bid on, and how to order those bids. I found all the hard, objective evidence I was interested in, and ranked the firms according to that. At this point I would focus mainly on the objective characteristics, and not get too involved with quality of life and other such subjective characteristics. Trying to figure all of that out for hundreds of firms would take forever. Once I had all the firms ranked, I worked with career services to develop a proper bid strategy based on what GPA’s the firm had targeted in the past.
Once I knew my bids, preparing for the interviews isn’t very hard. I might glance at the website, however, I found this information to be hit or miss at best. At a few interviews I mentioned a fact I’d found from the website only to be met with blank expressions and a “oh, I didn’t know that” response. I found the 3-4 page Vault profiles (your school likely has an online subscription), Chambers Associates, and the NALP form to be the best sources of information. From these I would find 3-4 points for each firm, and then try to work them in during the interview if I could do so naturally.
Besides firm information, you also need to have talking points. You need past experiences that you can reference and use for examples during the interview. No matter what the question asked, if you have a bag of 4-5 experiences you can find one to fit the question. If you don’t have a lot of unique experience, try to get one. Volunteer somewhere this summer before law school that you can talk about. Try to get an interesting summer job after 1L. It can be almost anything, but it needs to be unique. This will help the interviewer remember you.
Dress the part. Make sure everything about you is polished. First impressions are the key here. If you look lawyerly, then the interviewer will be ready to listen to you. If you look like a kid still, then you will have to work harder.
Well, that’s all I can think of for now… I’m sure I left a lot of things out, so if you have any questions I will be answering them from time to time over the next few days.
Cheers.
