Law School Gameplan Forum

[echooo23]

FWIW, I took a year off and I am ridiculously happy I did. The first time around, I applied to a bunch of T1 and T2 schools. Got in at many, but at sticker. Ended up deferring at the best one I got into. Retook LSAT. Re-applied the next year and got accepted to the T1 state school in the secondary market that I wanted to work in (that rejected me the year before). And got $$. Went there. Because I had a full year off, I had plenty of time to do 0L prep and get my head in the game and ready to go for law school. I smashed 1L and transferred to CLS. Landed biglaw.

No way this series of events would have worked out if I had gone straight through. I was pretty naive then.

Law school isn't going anywhere.

I'm a little over removed a year from UG so if I take another year off, I'm a year older and part of me wantsbto just take the plung now. But at the same time, we're talking thousands of dollars on the line here. FL Keys, here I come.

A year or two from UG is nothing. You're in the clear for at least a few more, especially if you end up at NU. From what I can see, and what I read here on TLS, a few years of work will do you some good at OCI. But, of course, that depends on where you see your life heading. Either way, don't let a year or so deter you. Put yourself in the best position for success, if possible.

[BigZuck]

Dan- if you want to be a public defender or DA in some random Florida town your grades almost certainly aren't going to matter. Seriously. Keep hustling, interning, whatever. That's how you'll get a job.

By all means, try in school. But class isn't going to matter nearly as much as getting to know attorneys and showing devotion to the cause.

How come you're not still interning there?

[Young Marino]

Dan- if you want to be a public defender or DA in some random Florida town your grades almost certainly aren't going to matter. Seriously. Keep hustling, interning, whatever. That's how you'll get a job.

By all means, try in school. But class isn't going to matter nearly as much as getting to know attorneys and showing devotion to the cause.

How come you're not still interning there?

I actually really miss it but I wanted to take the summer off before law school to do nothing but hit the thebeach and do a little traveling. My role in my division also shrunk because when the interns that re actually in law school came in, they took over most of my responsibilities. I went from working on cases and analyzing arguments over 8 months to doing bs office work for my last two weeks there. Not that I mind doing it but the learning kind of stopped. I can go back in the fall if I choose to do so and work part time at some stupid retail job while studying for the LSAT because what else am I supposed to do with a liberal arts degree? I did however make very solid connections. A yound ADA in one of the lower divisions is a very good friend now and my mentor is the cheif of that division and she has given me excellent advice about everything. We keep in contact regularly. I also email back and forth with THE DA from time to time and he made a comment the last day of my internship along the lines of "If we have the budget to hire a class by the time you graduate, the job is yours if you want it." But I don't want to bank on that because what if, like this year, they don't have the resources to hire an incoming class? That's kind of why I want to move to NYC. My family up there is very well connected (aunt runs her own 5 attorney practice, cousins work in mid-law) I feel like I can work those opportunities by going to Cardozo or NYLS but I'll still have my connections down in FL.

[LRGhost]

Dan- if you want to be a public defender or DA in some random Florida town your grades almost certainly aren't going to matter. Seriously. Keep hustling, interning, whatever. That's how you'll get a job.

By all means, try in school. But class isn't going to matter nearly as much as getting to know attorneys and showing devotion to the cause.

How come you're not still interning there?

I actually really miss it but I wanted to take the summer off before law school to do nothing but hit the thebeach and do a little traveling. My role in my division also shrunk because when the interns that re actually in law school came in, they took over most of my responsibilities. I went from working on cases and analyzing arguments over 8 months to doing bs office work for my last two weeks there. Not that I mind doing it but the learning kind of stopped. I can go back in the fall if I choose to do so and work part time at some stupid retail job while studying for the LSAT because what else am I supposed to do with a liberal arts degree? I did however make very solid connections. A yound ADA in one of the lower divisions is a very good friend now and my mentor is the cheif of that division and she has given me excellent advice about everything. We keep in contact regularly. I also email back and forth with THE DA from time to time and he made a comment the last day of my internship along the lines of "If we have the budget to hire a class by the time you graduate, the job is yours if you want it." But I don't want to bank on that because what if, like this year, they don't have the resources to hire an incoming class? That's kind of why I want to move to NYC. My family up there is very well connected (aunt runs her own 5 attorney practice, cousins work in mid-law) and I still have my connections down in FL.

Honestly man, you don't seem mature enough or ready for law school. I'd hold off a year and retake. I was happy that I did. Dan would be happy if you did too.

[Young Marino]

Dan- if you want to be a public defender or DA in some random Florida town your grades almost certainly aren't going to matter. Seriously. Keep hustling, interning, whatever. That's how you'll get a job.

By all means, try in school. But class isn't going to matter nearly as much as getting to know attorneys and showing devotion to the cause.

How come you're not still interning there?

I actually really miss it but I wanted to take the summer off before law school to do nothing but hit the thebeach and do a little traveling. My role in my division also shrunk because when the interns that re actually in law school came in, they took over most of my responsibilities. I went from working on cases and analyzing arguments over 8 months to doing bs office work for my last two weeks there. Not that I mind doing it but the learning kind of stopped. I can go back in the fall if I choose to do so and work part time at some stupid retail job while studying for the LSAT because what else am I supposed to do with a liberal arts degree? I did however make very solid connections. A yound ADA in one of the lower divisions is a very good friend now and my mentor is the cheif of that division and she has given me excellent advice about everything. We keep in contact regularly. I also email back and forth with THE DA from time to time and he made a comment the last day of my internship along the lines of "If we have the budget to hire a class by the time you graduate, the job is yours if you want it." But I don't want to bank on that because what if, like this year, they don't have the resources to hire an incoming class? That's kind of why I want to move to NYC. My family up there is very well connected (aunt runs her own 5 attorney practice, cousins work in mid-law) and I still have my connections down in FL.

Honestly man, you don't seem mature enough or ready for law school. I'd hold off a year and retake. I was happy that I did. Dan would be happy if you did too.

That was a sarcastic "what else am I supposed to do with a liberal arts degree?" line. Since junior year of high school, the plan has always been to go to law school

[Rahviveh]

Thanks so much for this. So would you say that applying a rule to a hypothetical set of facts that I made up is good practice for exam taking?

It's not great for two reasons. First, if you make up the facts, then you probably have some idea where things are going in the first place. The best option is always to find facts made up by your professor on old exams.

Second, there is immense time pressure on first year exams (seriously, you write something like 20-30 pages in 3 hours), and you can only overcome that time pressure if you have the rules down cold. So, while your studying needs to include some amount of practice in applying the rule to hypothetical facts, having the rules (and exceptions!) down is at least equally necessary (if not more so).

If you're really concerned, the book Getting to Maybe is good for helping you to organize your approach, but until you're in the class itself, it's basically going to be impossible to know what to study (because you don't know which rules the prof is harping on, and you can't see the prof's old fact patterns yet).

If you know your fall classes, I may be able to make a handful of specific recommendations (example: The Buffalo Creek Disaster actually describes all of the pretrial steps in civil litigation, and is also both relatively short and interesting, so it can serve as a primer if you're taking civil procedure), but beyond Getting to Maybe it's hard to make pre-law-school study recommendations because you really need to tailor your study habits to the professor (hence why getting old exams is important).

The more you explain it, the more I feel like I have experience applying BLL to a set of facts. When I was interning at my local DA's office, I constantly referred back to the state statutes to make sure the facts of the case lined up with the elements of the statute. As I got more comfortable with this I got to the point where I stopped reffering so much to the statutes and knew which ones to go with. I did this for the supervising attorney in my division and luckily, we had a lot of the same infractions being committed so I didn't need the West Law book as much the more time passed. I was told on multiple occasions that I have a "excellent" legal reasoning skills for someone who has never sat in a law school class. I know some of this may have been BS complementing for whatever reason but I'm hoping this experience can help me when it comes time to apply law to fact patterns.

legal reasoning isn't that difficult. legal reasoning is the bare minimum of what you need to do well on exams

[kaplanmorrel]

Definetly, these types of schools provide the ethical point of view lawyer and attoprney.

[tennactitans]

I'm considering that which is why I said "As of now". Thanks for your input jbagelboy you're one of the most helpful posters here. Do you mind answering the question I had on applying law to hypothetical facts to get ready for the exam?

I know I'm not jbagelboy (obviously), but I do think your Q went basically unanswered, and I'd like to help.

Here's what's going to happen. You'll have an assigned case to read which will involve a recitation of facts, a rule statement, and then reasoning to get to a conclusion. However, this will be followed by notes on other cases which reached different, perhaps even contradictory seeming conclusions with respect to particular aspects of the case, all of which comprise "exceptions." You will then be given a fake fact pattern and asked if the facts looks more like the rule, or more like the exception.

So, let me give you an example.

In torts, "False Imprisonment" has three elements: the defendant (1) intentionally (2) confines or restrains the plaintiff (3) within a bounded area. Thus, anyone who wants to prove false imprisonment in court, has to provide evidence of all three elements.

Now, you'll read a case where a husband is suing his ex-wife for false imprisonment following a nasty divorce. The wife was angry at the husband and got revenge by lying to a judge in order to get a restraining order against him. She succeeded, and a restraining order was issued based on her lies, preventing him from leaving the state of Illinois. Before trial, the wife's attorney will argue that (among other things) the case should be dismissed because "bounded area" usually refers to being locked in a room or a building, and not the entire state of Illinois. The court will explain that for various reasons (maybe the husband's job, maybe public policy, whatever else), the state of Illinois is still a "bounded area" and so the case will not be dismissed.

But then, in the notes following the case, you'll see a slightly different fact pattern from a different court decision. There, someone admitted to the US on a work visa was fired from their job while they were on a business trip in Taiwan. Because the visa terminated with the job, the employee could not return to the US from Taiwan, and was effectively trapped there. The employee then sues for false imprisonment, but the case is dismissed because "an entire country" (i.e. Taiwan) does not count as a "bounded area" for various reasons (again, public policy, foreign relations, whatever).

Now, you'll get to the final, and there will be a whole fake fact pattern, which includes an allegation of false imprisonment. For whatever reason, the confinement will be restricted to the Navajo Nation Land Reservation located on a parcel of land that straddles the Arizona-New Mexico border. You will need to argue whether this is more like being confined to Illinois (which supports false imprisonment) or Taiwan (which does not support false imprisonment). You will have to look at the reasoning the court used in the two cases, and reach a conclusion. You will not be graded on whether your conclusion is correct, but instead on the depth and strength of your reasoning.

Thus, this goes well beyond "black letter law" as the "rule" is just the three elements listed above, but to get full points you need to argue not only whether all three elements are met, but the nuances of each element.

Fake fact pattern is more analogous to the in-state restriction rather that the national because the governing law is federal, not international? Should I go to law school?

[A. Nony Mouse]

International law doesn't govern who gets a US visa, US law does.

[tennactitans]

International law doesn't govern who gets a US visa, US law does.

But the proposed imprisonment boundary is the American border.

[A. Nony Mouse]

International law doesn't govern who gets a US visa, US law does.

But the proposed imprisonment boundary is the American border.

Right, but that doesn't have anything to do with which law governs. US law prevents the person from entering because he doesn't have a US visa. It doesn't matter what law the person's subject to in Taiwan, he was raising a claim of false imprisonment under US law.

I guess you could say that it's more like the Illinois example because where the person is located is in the US rather than in a foreign country (similarity), but the person being allegedly imprisoned in Taiwan isn't a US citizen, so wasn't being imprisoned in a foreign country, so in both cases the person was imprisoned in their own country (so not really a difference between the two). Again, this isn't the same as saying international law governs because international law doesn't govern anything in the question. (Also, state law would govern in Illinois, not federal.)

Other (more important) twist: Indian nations are dependent sovereign nations. They have sovereign immunity and their own legal systems. So you can also argue that as a legal entity, the Navajo example is more like the Taiwan example than the Illinois example.

The point is not that there's a right/wrong answer you're supposed to find. The answer could go either way and you need to be able to identify all the different ways it could come out and why. Ultimately you'd need to come down on one side or the other (because of x, y, and z, restriction to Navajo IS false imprisonment). But which side you pick doesn't determine your grade, it's how you argue your way there. (Most of the time, anyway. Occasionally there are issues with a right/wrong answer, but they're part of the larger see-all-the-angles process.)

[tennactitans]

International law doesn't govern who gets a US visa, US law does.

But the proposed imprisonment boundary is the American border.

Right, but that doesn't have anything to do with which law governs. US law prevents the person from entering because he doesn't have a US visa. It doesn't matter what law the person's subject to in Taiwan, he was raising a claim of false imprisonment under US law.

I guess you could say that it's more like the Illinois example because where the person is located is in the US rather than in a foreign country (similarity), but the person being allegedly imprisoned in Taiwan isn't a US citizen, so wasn't being imprisoned in a foreign country, so in both cases the person was imprisoned in their own country (so not really a difference between the two). Again, this isn't the same as saying international law governs because international law doesn't govern anything in the question. (Also, state law would govern in Illinois, not federal.)

Other (more important) twist: Indian nations are dependent sovereign nations. They have sovereign immunity and their own legal systems. So you can also argue that as a legal entity, the Navajo example is more like the Taiwan example than the Illinois example.

The point is not that there's a right/wrong answer you're supposed to find. The answer could go either way and you need to be able to identify all the different ways it could come out and why. Ultimately you'd need to come down on one side or the other (because of x, y, and z, restriction to Navajo IS false imprisonment). But which side you pick doesn't determine your grade, it's how you argue your way there. (Most of the time, anyway. Occasionally there are issues with a right/wrong answer, but they're part of the larger see-all-the-angles process.)

Schooled. No LS for me. I appreciate the effort in your response.

[showbox17]

This is stuff you really don't have to worry about yet. You'll figure this stuff out your first week in class.

This and all other advise not to prepare for law school before 1L is a mistaken position too often taken on TLS. While much of the advise given on TLS regarding how to approach classes during the semester is golden I will challenge the "0L summer vacation" at the expense of ridicule. Take or leave my advice it landed me transfer from a T2 to T1 and over the years I have mentored other TLSers to do the same at law schools in the LA region.

First, let me admit that I prepared over the summer because I had a guide (a law school tutor). Perhaps much of the reason 0L's on TLS are advised against summer prep is because most people do not hire or tutor or because of the expense of law school cannot afford to. For me it was an investment. I was attending a T2 and knew that the only way I could land a top job in big law, negotiate more scholarship or transfer to a T1 would be to take an approach that others (like those on TLS) thought was unnecessary. Because I wanted an extraordinary result I took extraordinary action. Despite the expense it was justified later when over my 2L summer I made over $30,000 over a few short summer months from my summer associate position in Big Law. A position I only earned because of the GPA I earned from having started to learn the "black letter law" (the rules of law) and legal policy over the summer and in advance of law school semester.

This is what my tutor did with me over the summer. With his guidance I narrowed down what the classes would be that I would take in the fall semester. By narrowing this down I was able to not cover content for those classes that would not begin until Spring. This way I was focusing on courses I would begin in the fall. During late June and July we covered Contracts, then Civ Pro, half of Property and then Torts. He explained the relevant rules of law, how they operated, how they were tested on an, and how all of the rules of law fit together in an exam context. This way when I got to class I already knew what most of the legal terms meant and why they mattered and related to one another. Talk to anyone who has been to law school before and they will tell you that in the first semester figuring out that much doesn't happen until the end of November and sometimes not even then. But learning the content is only half the battle because the content is only the rules and theory. Application is what matters.

In law school application means exam taking. I did a lot of that and I started earlier than most of my peers. One exam in each class determines your class standing and unless you have other connections your class standing determines the scope of career opportunities you will enjoy (personality and networking should not be ignored either but grades open the door for a good networker). While my tutor taught me the black letter law and legal policies he also gave me practice exams. These were fact patterns or stories about a situation where at the end you are given what is referred to as the "call of the question". The call of the question is what your essay is supposed to analyze and ultimately answer. By cross pollenating the black letter law explanations with exam questions, I developed important exam writing skills including how to organize and approach an exam response. This approach assured that I was not only blindly learning doctrinal rules of law but that I was also learning how to apply the theory to the real practice of writing an exam. The difference is sort of like the disparity between reading a drivers ed and book versus learning how to drive. Reading the book helps but there is no better experience than getting behind the wheel. Again, anyone who has been to law school will tell you that having known exactly how to write an exam before law school even starts would be a major benefit.


By the time class started I was a beast (so to speak). A lot of my class mates were hearing this information for the first time and typing on their lap tops like they were court reporters. I was able to absorb what was going on in class and really think about it instead of freaking out because I had such a big picture understanding of the material plus I knew quite a bit of the details. You see in law school the professor slowly unveils information and week after week things get more and more complicated. I did not have to wait for the law school professor to unveil anything because my tutor had already explained the areas of law to me so I knew where things were going. Basically I was that annoying person who had already seen the movie. Fortunately for my class mates I never let on because my tutor had already advised me that the little my peers thought I knew the better. Since I had already "seen the movie", however, there was an added benefit as well. I was able to pick up on subtle points that went over my class mates head because they were so busy trying to understand what was being taught that they did not have the perspective to see higher level concepts since they were still in the basics that I had covered over the summer.

One of the common myths about starting over the summer is that you will be disadvantaged because "every professor is different". That is like not learning the basics of cooking first because you are going to study with Martha Stewart and she has her own way of doing things. There are still universal concepts to cooking that if you were aware of you would excel far more in Martha's class. There are still basic principles that if you knew prior, even if Martha had a different perspective you would better understand her position on a unique approach of hers because you understood the framework she was building on. In fact most unique theories your professor has relates to or is a building on central principles that they are developing and evolving. A good tutor know this and prepares the student for their professor. Thus, students who make this point have a poor understanding of how legal academia is but the advancement of new ideas standing on the shoulders of older ideas. The other reason that this is a myth is that if you have a good tutor they will be familiar with the differing legal theories and indicate to you or flag these areas as they teach you the law. So many times I sat in class and recalled "oh yeah, my tutor told me that my Professor might teach things this way." This is why you work with someone with experience. Another thing a good tutor will do is use past outlines to help their student anticipate their professors unique take on the law. Once I found out who my professors were my tutor got several past outlines, combed through them and created a policy approach specifically for each course. Because of this, in class I often knew what the professor would use as a policy example before he or she started.

The best part about having a good tutor is that I was finished with the black letter law and my outline by the end of September or early October (an outline is the culmination of case briefs and class notes that is organized in a way that attempts to make sense of various moving parts of the rules of law, cases and legal theories and policies). Of course as the semester continued I constantly polished my outline, edited it and added key points from my professor and from class. However, the substantial body of the outline was done by the end of September. For the next two months I built exam skills. The rest of the class did not know enough law to build exam skills this early because they had started two months later than me learning the law. While they were prepping for class I was gaining exam experience. By the end of October my tutor had me sitting for exams and during the month of November I was taking exams under time conditions. If you talk to others that have been to law school they will tell you that most people don't take practice exams until the end of November and those people are rare because it is so easy to fall behind in law school because of the demands of legal research and writing that most people are just trying to finish up their outline before the exam.

The final benefit of working with a tutor has to do with exam feedback. If you are an avid reader of TLS advice you will notice that some of the top performers urge those who want to be successful to take practice exams. But the key to a practice exam is getting good feed back. Most students end u getting feed back from their class mates in a study group (blind leading the blind). If you are lucky and your professor has sample answers you will find that they are only so helpful. My tutor actually read my exam and gave me detailed responses that helped me develop my specific writing approach and structure. Because I had started so early I was able to go to each of my professors and have them look at an example of an exam that I had edited after my tutors comments. Because I was writing exams so early I was able to meet with my professor before the mad dash of my peers who only come to office hours in the final two weeks before exam. When I was in office hours having my exam reviewed none of my peers know or understand enough of the rules of law and how they worked to write an exam. I also looked like a prize student to my professors because it appeared like I took their class very seriously (this really helped when I needed a letter of recommendation to transfer).

I could say a lot more about the pros and cons of working with a tutor but this is becoming obnoxiously long as it is. If you would like to know more please PM me.

Working with a tutor is not for everyone and an experienced tutor is hard to find. Having one was pricey but the security paid off. I have a great job in Big Law and did well in law school from first semester tip graduation. Most people did not do what I did but most people did not reap the results I did either. In the end the services more than paid for them elves many times over.

Shema, check my PM Please!