How Do You Study Early in the Semester? Forum

[iamgeorgebush]

1L here (obviously).

Most of the advice I've received has been to wait until midway through the semester to start outlining, which I imagine will take up a lot of my time.

What do you do before then? I've been doing all the reading (and reading closely), but I want to spend more time on school than that. I've flipped through some hornbooks, but they seem only marginally helpful. I've thought about writing responses to the E&E examples and then checking them against the explanations.

[silvermanbar]

I'd advise writing the outline as you read cases in class, rather than waiting till the middle of the semester. Each case will add to the knowledge you have in any given subject. It's probably best though to pick a day at the end of each week and condense what you've learned throughout the week, then add one week's worth of material to your existing outline. Seeing the material come together throughout the semester will make it far easier when it comes time at the end of the semester to study for finals.

Sean

self-promoting link used to be here

[jbagelboy]

Study? Early in the semester? Whut?

Kidding. You're at CLS right? Everyone learns and absorbs material differently, but if you have questions about a particular class or study style, feel free to PM or email. I read cases, went to most classes and took good notes, and attended most TA sessions. There's no need to take on "more" school right now than that, although I recall the urge to do so. Once you get a feel for the overall structure of the course in late october you can bring your notes into an outline and begin adding to that outline directly. And by thanksgiving at that pace you'll have a solid outline and be ready to start taking practice exams, which I recommend reviewing with a 4-6 person study group of chill people who won't put you on edge/make you insecure.

Hope to see you around

[Tiago Splitter]

One of the tough things about law school is that you hear it's going to be so impossible and you are ready to gun from the get-go and when school starts there really isn't that much to do. Just relax, do the assigned reading, go to class and pay attention. Any studying you do now is going to be far less effective than studying you do in November, and if you grind too hard now you may run out of gas before the finish line. I understand the urge to do more but trust us when we say that there isn't anything else you should be doing.

[RCinDNA]

I'd advise writing the outline as you read cases in class, rather than waiting till the middle of the semester. Each case will add to the knowledge you have in any given subject. It's probably best though to pick a day at the end of each week and condense what you've learned throughout the week, then add one week's worth of material to your existing outline. Seeing the material come together throughout the semester will make it far easier when it comes time at the end of the semester to study for finals.

Sean

self-promoting link used to be here

That's what I did. I still ended up revising my outline up until test day, but I was just fine-tuning and re-reviewing at that point.

[doctoroflaw91]

I'd advise writing the outline as you read cases in class, rather than waiting till the middle of the semester. Each case will add to the knowledge you have in any given subject. It's probably best though to pick a day at the end of each week and condense what you've learned throughout the week, then add one week's worth of material to your existing outline. Seeing the material come together throughout the semester will make it far easier when it comes time at the end of the semester to study for finals.

Sean

self-promoting link used to be here

That's what I did. I still ended up revising my outline up until test day, but I was just fine-tuning and re-reviewing at that point.

I can credit this method as well. I did this for all of my classes, and I'm still doing it as a 2L. I took old outlines and supplements, did my readings during the week, and spent the weekends reviewing and fine-tuning outlines. By the time you reach exam time, you already know it.

[NotMyRealName09]

I didn't start outlining until after thanksgiving and ended up as top of my class first semester. I just mention it to note that there is no right way. I read everything, listened and took notes, participated. But I didn't start to formally really pull it all together until later.

I suggest that in your first one to two months of law school, you don't know shit about law even though you've been at it 24-7. So if you make an outline after two weeks, you won't know what the fuck you're talking about, and what good is the outline of a rookie? If you wait until at least mid-way through the semester to start outlining (thanksgiving) you'll be better able to articulate legal ideas in writing. It will be a better tool for you in the end.

You have to consider, are you a marathon runner or sprinter? For me, I took all thanksgiving, relaxed and recharged, did nothing law school related, and then went crazy the Monday I returned. I completed outlines a day or so before my exams. I learned my pace was about 4 complete 12-16 hour days per 3 credits taken.

The single-most-important-thing you need in the end is a one page handwritten outline you can produce from memory containing each and every element of each and every cause of action. You immediately write it when the exam begins. As I walked in each exam I'd be silently reciting dirty poems I made up to memorize the first letter of each line in my outline, and it took me 10-15 minutes to jot it all down. It was detailed, every element listed. I practiced writing them out over and over and over for half the day before the exam, make sure they all look the same and memorized exactly where everything had to be on the page. This helped if I couldn't quite remember something - I'd see a blank on the page and remember what had to be written there.

You have that handwritten outline in your face (and actually understand the concepts because you made your outline), it's as good as a cheat sheet.

[A. Nony Mouse]

I think, too, that your classes will do more applying-law-to-facts as the semester goes on. Your profs are probably still making sure you've all figured out how to read cases and are pulling the right stuff out of the assignments. I agree that you could look at the questions in the E&E for practice/examples, but I wouldn't worry too much about it this early.

[Jack_Sheridan]

My law school experience has been fairly good..no regrets at all May be because I don't find any trouble in early studies.. God luck

[UnicornHunter]

My law school experience has been fairly good..no regrets at all May be because I don't find any trouble in early studies.. God luck

[hous]

If you don't have any other obligations (work, family...) I suggest you wait til the last quarter of the semester. Take this from experience, you will get burned out if you try to learn it all as you go.

[sighsigh]

Tbh I don't even understand the concept of outlining. All I plan on doing is taking my notes in different MS Word documents and cutting and pasting them all to a single document (and then adding a table of contents). I gather that people might refer to outlining as making your notes more organized and filtering out the bits irrelevant to preforming on the exam before you put them all in one document. But I'd have to question why your notes have an unorganized format or contain irrelevant stuff in the first place.

Of course it's understandable that first-semester 1Ls don't know how to create streamlined notes from the beginning, but starting second semester 1L or 2L they should be able to, I'd think. And that would make outlining unnecessary (at least as a long, drawn-out process).

[thesealocust]

There isn't much to do early in the semester. You can start outlining if you're feeling ambitious, flip through parts of supplements to see what matches your courses. I dunno, drink a lot and get to know people? By mid-October extensive outlining and practice questions are probably a good idea.

[patogordo]

Tbh I don't even understand the concept of outlining. All I plan on doing is taking my notes in different MS Word documents and cutting and pasting them all to a single document (and then adding a table of contents). I gather that people might refer to outlining as making your notes more organized and filtering out the bits irrelevant to preforming on the exam before you put them all in one document. But I'd have to question why your notes have an unorganized format or contain irrelevant stuff in the first place.

Of course it's understandable that first-semester 1Ls don't know how to create streamlined notes from the beginning, but starting second semester 1L or 2L they should be able to, I'd think. And that would make outlining unnecessary (at least as a long, drawn-out process).

to get it down to a reasonable size so you can memorize it and/or consult it quickly during the exam.