Top Law Schools

Hello, 1L from a Tier 2 about 6 weeks into the semester...wondering if anyone might be willing to share some advice regarding various approaches they've found helpful in terms of day to day syllabus assignments?

Specifically, I'm wondering if anyone has developed a routine/method/strategy geared toward taking each individual assignment to advance their readiness for test day, as opposed to preparation for class--in case cold called--the day the assignment will be discussed.

As a side, I do feel like briefing has been valuable for me in terms of getting hip to the manner in which law is discussed and analyzed, but I also feel like I am not being properly efficient..perhaps presumptuous, but I feel ready to move beyond the "101" approach.

Any advice or thoughts based on experience would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

Not sure if you should stop briefing, but maybe put a pause on that and instead try to understand each sentence that you read. I don't know what the other advice will be on here, but for my friends that have done well, they read and re-read until they comprehend things (or ask the professor for clarification). I made the mistake of going from one extreme to another--from briefing like crazy to just skimming. Don't do that. Hope this was somewhat helpful. Cold calling doesn't matter. What matters is that you try to understand the material as best as you can before class so you can absorb information during lectures.

Preparing for the exam is the only preparation you should be engaging in.

Cold calls don't matter. The sooner you realize that the better. Also, none of your classmates are really listening to what you are saying, so who cares if it sounds good.

Briefing is a time sink and yields few, if any, benefits come exam time. Yea, great, you know that Plaintiff A's favorite color was green in Who Gives a Shit v. Doesn't Matter. You need to understand and synthesize the material but this is better done through targeted reading of cases, casebriefs, supps, etc. A lot of people go wrong by thinking of law school as just some empty exercise of accumulating useless information, which is perpetuated by the dinosaur-like law academy, when they should be weaponizing the important information for the exam.

stillwater wrote:Preparing for the exam is the only preparation you should be engaging in.

Cold calls don't matter. The sooner you realize that the better. Also, none of your classmates are really listening to what you are saying, so who cares if it sounds good.

Briefing is a time sink and yields few, if any, benefits come exam time. Yea, great, you know that Plaintiff A's favorite color was green in Who Gives a Shit v. Doesn't Matter. You need to understand and synthesize the material but this is better done through targeted reading of cases, casebriefs, supps, etc. A lot of people go wrong by thinking of law school as just some empty exercise of accumulating useless information, which is perpetuated by the dinosaur-like law academy, when they should be weaponizing the important information for the exam.

Thanks for the input...this notion of "synthesizing" is thrown around quite a bit, but after a month and change of classes, it isn't all together obvious what that means (at least to me). Can you expand? Procedural advice? Anything helps! Thanks again.

eerie_erie wrote:Not sure if you should stop briefing, but maybe put a pause on that and instead try to understand each sentence that you read. I don't know what the other advice will be on here, but for my friends that have done well, they read and re-read until they comprehend things (or ask the professor for clarification). I made the mistake of going from one extreme to another--from briefing like crazy to just skimming. Don't do that. Hope this was somewhat helpful. Cold calling doesn't matter. What matters is that you try to understand the material as best as you can before class so you can absorb information during lectures.

Helpful for sure. But I'm of the same mind, being an ace in class isn't my concern/worry...I just want to be efficient and prepared come December!

Thanks again.

stillwater wrote: Briefing is a time sink and yields few, if any, benefits come exam time. Yea, great, you know that Plaintiff A's favorite color was green in Who Gives a Shit v. Doesn't Matter. You need to understand and synthesize the material but this is better done through targeted reading of cases, casebriefs, supps, etc. A lot of people go wrong by thinking of law school as just some empty exercise of accumulating useless information, which is perpetuated by the dinosaur-like law academy, when they should be weaponizing the important information for the exam.

love this advice. needs to be said to everyone in my class

If you can't explain why that case is there in two sentences then you don't understand it well enough to apply it. Unless your professor spends a day on it, you won't need to know more than 2 sentences.