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PKSebben wrote:You have no idea how smart your classmates are ...

this is what surprised me the most about 1L. even the dumb kids are smart.

PKSebben wrote:I skimmed the E&E's before my first semester. I wish I would have spent the 1 hour I spent skimming drinking a beer. None of that crap matters. Seriously. You have no idea how smart your classmates are, and if you think that memorizing the E&E is going to assist you, you're in way over your head. Think about how crazy and neurotic you are. Think of a room full of 100 of you. Toss a metric ton of alcohol, a boatload of stress, and some good fashion high-school drama into a room that shake it up. Voila! Law School!

I was worried that it might just a boatload of stress. But if there's a metric shit ton of alcohol and some high school drama to boot, this might not be so bad.

this is what surprised me the most about 1L. even the dumb kids are smart.

This won't surprise me. Given the hurdles to admission i fully expect/fear it.

..

Unless this so-called "prep schedule" centers on drinking heavily, going on vacation, seeing lots of friends, getting fit, playing tons of xbox, gambling occasionally, and generally enjoying freedom, it is invalid.

I am definitely taking the "drink, enjoy life, play xbox, relax" route. I'll work as hard as anyone when classes start, but until then my life is mine.

What's all this talk about xbox?? I have a playstation... Is this going to put me at a disadvantage when I start looking for a paying summer associate job as a 1L????

yeah enjoy the summer before 1L. You will regret it later if you don't. I read Getting to Maybe at the beach over the summer, which was good, but don't feel compelled to either take notes or try to pre-learn the law. That's why you go to law school. If you are really worried, maybe refresh yourself on the basic judicial structure and whatnot (ie: courts, distinguishing between plaintiff/defendant, stupid but entirely important things).

the 1Ls have convinced me to do (nearly) absolutely nothing in the way of prep this summer

Speaking from personal experience, When I first started prepping, it was so confusing and annoying that I just ended up taking a week to chillax, and got back to it with a lot more energy and more resolved to understand the material. Once I am a 1L, I can't just take a whole week off to chill and play xbox and wii...

I'm not telling anybody what to do unlike everyone else here, but for me, I don't have the mad study skills to get back into the hardcore academic mode, in fact I never did, and prepping is, at least for me, as much about getting up my study skills and comprehension up to par as it is about getting a head start.

Also having a cousin who is a 2L at the same school telling you what to prep for and tutoring you also helps

.

TTT-LS wrote:

mrbuckfutter wrote:Speaking from personal experience, When I first started prepping, it was so confusing and annoying that I just ended up taking a week to chillax, and got back to it with a lot more energy and more resolved to understand the material. Once I am a 1L, I can't just take a whole week off to chill and play xbox and wii...

I'm not telling anybody what to do unlike everyone else here, but for me, I don't have the mad study skills to get back into the hardcore academic mode, in fact I never did, and prepping is, at least for me, as much about getting up my study skills and comprehension up to par as it is about getting a head start.

Also having a cousin who is a 2L telling you what to prep for also helps

FLAME?

You are the flame, 50% of all your posts have been all about telling 0Ls not to prep, broken record you are. We both know you are either prepping your ass off or wish you did.

mrbuckfutter wrote:

TTT-LS wrote: FLAME?

You are the flame, 50% of all your posts have been all about telling 0Ls not to prep, broken record you are. We both know you are either prepping your ass off or wish you did.

Flame.

-

Say so we all.

philo-sophia wrote:Anyone else doing the prescribed "3 month" prep schedule?

What is the 3 month prep schedule?

MissVirginia wrote:

philo-sophia wrote:Anyone else doing the prescribed "3 month" prep schedule?

What is the 3 month prep schedule?

Month 1 - Party Heavily
Month 2 - Read Federal Rules of Civil Procedure
Month 3 - Really Party Heavily because you have decided against going to law school

I just started reading PLSII, which I bought on the book list recommended by a thread somewhere in here written by the top student at Loyola 1L this last year. Honestly, I dont see how this stuff is difficult to get through if you start early (like a year early in my case) while not sacrificing copious amounts of drinking/drugs/sex/rock n' roll. Personally, I dont think it critical to go ape shit crazy over law school, but so far PLS is actually kind of entertaining because the level of cynicism this author has sounds like it's being spouting out by someone who got raped in the ass hard by his 1L. However, I am not a 1L so I do not claim to know what it's like, but I def. want to have at least some familiarity with the terms going into law school and I want to keep at least one part of my academic brain in tact-safe from alcoholic demolition-for that fateful year.

chris0805 wrote: 1L is NOT a sprint to see who gets their first. It's a Marathon.

I see it as more of a pole vault, whatever approach works to get you flying the highest at the very end should be the one you take. If that means starting a little further back (0L prepping) so be it.

savagedm wrote:I just started reading PLSII, which I bought on the book list recommended by a thread somewhere in here written by the top student at Loyola 1L this last year. Honestly, I dont see how this stuff is difficult to get through if you start early (like a year early in my case) while not sacrificing copious amounts of drinking/drugs/sex/rock n' roll. Personally, I dont think it critical to go ape shit crazy over law school, but so far PLS is actually kind of entertaining because the level of cynicism this author has sounds like it's being spouting out by someone who got raped in the ass hard by his 1L. However, I am not a 1L so I do not claim to know what it's like, but I def. want to have at least some familiarity with the terms going into law school and I want to keep at least one part of my academic brain in tact-safe from alcoholic demolition-for that fateful year.

why you bring dead thread back to life?

I can see both sides of this argument. On the one hand, you want to ensure that you will do well, and you're probably nervous as all get out about what law school is actually like. On the other hand, from here on out, you will only get a chance to party when there are three day weekends and winter/spring break.

That being said, I did do some prep before my class started, i.e. skimming the Crim E&E. From my experience, trying to learn the BLL and the "meaning" of things like battery is worthless. Why? Your professors will most likely have their own definitions, and they will most likely give you a very specific version of the BLL. That means 'learning' the definition of battery from a book is more than likely going to be putting the wrong concept in your head. If you define it in the way some book describes when you take the exam, you will probably lose points. Same goes for the BLL. You'll end up spending more time unlearning what you remember than you will really learning, and that will hurt you in the end.

With that out of the way, doing some prep, i.e. simply getting a feel for what's going on is probably worthwhile. You just shouldn't be trying to do anything substantive.

Another thing to note is that this will be more of a marathon than anything else. If you start now, you're starting your race early. You're putting extra stress (no matter how small) on yourself now. Some of your classmates, perhaps most, are not. They will be fresher when you actually start class AND they aren't going to have to unlearn anything. That means lots of extra energy that will keep them sustained.

All of those things being said, eff it all and enjoy the rest of your summer. Get laid by as many people as possible, because from here on out, its gonna be one hell of an incestuous ride. Play video games and get drunk with your friends, because the only people you're gonna be doing that with after class starts are people in your section. Have as much of a non-law related summer as possible because from here on out, most, if not all of the rest of your life will be dedicated to learning and practicing the law.

macattaq wrote:I can see both sides of this argument. On the one hand, you want to ensure that you will do well, and you're probably nervous as all get out about what law school is actually like. On the other hand, from here on out, you will only get a chance to party when there are three day weekends and winter/spring break.

That being said, I did do some prep before my class started, i.e. skimming the Crim E&E. From my experience, trying to learn the BLL and the "meaning" of things like battery is worthless. Why? Your professors will most likely have their own definitions, and they will most likely give you a very specific version of the BLL. That means 'learning' the definition of battery from a book is more than likely going to be putting the wrong concept in your head. If you define it in the way some book describes when you take the exam, you will probably lose points. Same goes for the BLL. You'll end up spending more time unlearning what you remember than you will really learning, and that will hurt you in the end.

With that out of the way, doing some prep, i.e. simply getting a feel for what's going on is probably worthwhile. You just shouldn't be trying to do anything substantive.

Another thing to note is that this will be more of a marathon than anything else. If you start now, you're starting your race early. You're putting extra stress (no matter how small) on yourself now. Some of your classmates, perhaps most, are not. They will be fresher when you actually start class AND they aren't going to have to unlearn anything. That means lots of extra energy that will keep them sustained.

All of those things being said, eff it all and enjoy the rest of your summer. Get laid by as many people as possible, because from here on out, its gonna be one hell of an incestuous ride. Play video games and get drunk with your friends, because the only people you're gonna be doing that with after class starts are people in your section. Have as much of a non-law related summer as possible because from here on out, most, if not all of the rest of your life will be dedicated to learning and practicing the law.

So instead of studying E&Es, I should be studying Dos Equis?

No, you should be reading the treatise on the evils of thread necromancy, you dolt

Lxw wrote:No, you should be reading the treatise on the evils of thread necromancy, you dolt

I have learned in years of experience on forums like this: if you resurrect an old post, people give you shit for it. If you start a new thread, people give you shit for taking up their precious space and not asking the question in the old post. It's a win-win!

So between Planet Law School and Law School Confidential, which one gives you a better perspective of law school, or are they both the same?

philo-sophia wrote:^^i agree. To those of you who say it's better to spend your summer just having fun, i see your point. It's a judgment call and you decided you value that more than what you think you'll get out of preparing. But to say prepping is a "complete waste of time" is an absolute absurdity.

Battery = contact that is intentional and [harmful or offensive]

Contact = physical or indirectly physical touch (through an implement such as a stick, throwing a rock, leaving a trap, secretly spiking someone’s drink, etc)

Intent = either action carried out for the purpose of causing the harmful contact or with substantial certainty that such contact will occur. Substantial Certainty constitutes Intent even if the consequence is not desired.

“Offensive” = “offends a reasonable person’s sense of personal dignity (Second Restatement). Reasonable person standard trumps intent in terms of deeming a contact as offensive (i.e. if the act was intended, it doesn’t matter if the defendant intended it to be offensive…reasonable person standard applies).

Does one need to show up this fall having already memorized that? Absolutely not. Does one's having memorized that, and the same sorts of black letter memorization for all sorts of other remedies guarantee that one will do well? Absolutely not.

But to say that it wouldn't be at all helpful to arrive having gotten some of the grunt work memorization out of the way (particularly given the time pressure once school starts), and having familiarized oneself with some of the language conventions and basic legal mechanics ahead of time, and to say that it would not be at all helpful to have begun thinking through some hypotheticals and comparing one's answers to ideal answers seems a bit far fetched.

Those may be helpful if you cover intentional torts; however, you may have a professor that only covers negligence. My tort's professor spent about 30 minutes on intentional torts the entire semester. The point - 0L prep may easily introduce you to things you do not need to know, which makes it a waste of time, can confuse you later, and encourage you to write unimportant things on the exam. In another instance, my Crim Law professor was all about Dressler, which has some blatantly different points than E&E - so reading over an E&E would be again worthless for the reasons above. At most, I would read GTM.

nycparalegal wrote:So between Planet Law School and Law School Confidential, which one gives you a better perspective of law school, or are they both the same?

Planet Law School is a waste of time, IMO. I didn't end up prepping prior to 1L, and I'm glad I didn't. Most of my professors were extremely particular and had different views than some of the supplements, so I think I would've actually screwed up my understanding by prepping a lot 0L. I liked Law School Confidential a lot, though, and I would suggest reading that. I personally used the multi-colored highlighting method, and found it to be very helpful.