Rising 1L summer Forum

[Young Marino]

Just wanted to know what everyone is doing in terms of preparing for the upcoming academic year. Any rising 2Ls care to comment on what you did leading up to 1L and how well if at all it worked for you? What about the fellow 0Ls? What are you guys doing from here to when school starts? I am currently reading "Law School Confidential" by Miller and "101 Things I Learned in Law School" by Martin and Frederick. Also been going through a few articles/guides on TLS and other sites on law school success. Other than that, just been working out everyday and spending time with my friends and family while going to bed early to get used to the see schedule. Anything else I should be doing?

[despina]

Search the forum -- there have been dozens of threads about this topic, including some in the last few weeks. Good luck!

[JVK]

I think you're in a fine place!

Rising 2L. I read Getting to Maybe , which I thought was fine but it's not like you need the book to learn the basic gist of it. If there's anything I wish I had done beforehand, it would've been to research some 1L summer employment opportunities a little more. There are a lot of great things out there that you might not be aware of, and you don't need to do much but give yourself a preview of what you might want to do. You'll get a 1L summer job - everyone will - but if you're able to send off your apps slightly sooner, it's one less thing you have to worry about by the time spring semester starts picking up. If you type slowly, work on your typing speed. I'd put "slowly" at less than 40 wpm or so.

One thing I want to echo, and it's been said in other 0L prep threads, but it keeps getting repeated and 0Ls still feel the urge to try: don't feel the need to do any substantive prep. It's hard to convince 0Ls to not think about reading E&E's or do everything they can to give themselves a leg up, but honest to God, it's fairly useless. I truly think that one hour spent studying the week before finals is as productive and efficient as 100 spent during the summer before law school. There's nothing hyperbolic about that.

The reason's that everybody knows the general black letter law by the time exams come, which is what the E&E's are best at teaching. Nobody leaves a Civil Procedure exam thinking, "Oh, damn, I forgot that diversity jurisdiction requires at least $75,000 in controversy." That may seem super interesting and new to you now, and it was for me too, once. But by the time the exam comes, everybody has that, everyone knows the general case holdings, and so on. You might think that trying to loosely familiarize yourself with stuff like that now might save you a couple hours of time you'd otherwise have to put in anyway, but that's not true either. You pick this stuff up on the fly as you read the cases you'll be reading anyway.

You distinguish yourself in law school exams by exploring the grey areas, toying with the fact pattern's subtleties, understanding exactly what your particular professor wants and then fleshing it out quickly and cohesively. You can't learn those things from an E&E and you couldn't get a leg up on them as a 0L if you tried.

The best things you can do for yourself early on are to wait until law school starts, then talk to upperclassmen about your professors, about your law school, and so on. An old outline for your teacher, if it's good, is worth five supplements. Candid feedback about the professor and how to approach studying/things in general are worth even more. You're doing everything right your 0L summer and I don't know if I'd add anything else.

[lawhopeful10]

http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 3&t=123092

That's a link to all the advice on how to do well in law school. In a lot of those posts they talk about their 0L prep. Just reading those threads will give you a leg up. I found those threads to be some of the most helpful / important advice I have read on this website. Good luck.

[foundingfather]

I think you're in a fine place!

Rising 2L. I read Getting to Maybe , which I thought was fine but it's not like you need the book to learn the basic gist of it. If there's anything I wish I had done beforehand, it would've been to research some 1L summer employment opportunities a little more. There are a lot of great things out there that you might not be aware of, and you don't need to do much but give yourself a preview of what you might want to do. You'll get a 1L summer job - everyone will - but if you're able to send off your apps slightly sooner, it's one less thing you have to worry about by the time spring semester starts picking up. If you type slowly, work on your typing speed. I'd put "slowly" at less than 40 wpm or so.

One thing I want to echo, and it's been said in other 0L prep threads, but it keeps getting repeated and 0Ls still feel the urge to try: don't feel the need to do any substantive prep. It's hard to convince 0Ls to not think about reading E&E's or do everything they can to give themselves a leg up, but honest to God, it's fairly useless. I truly think that one hour spent studying the week before finals is as productive and efficient as 100 spent during the summer before law school. There's nothing hyperbolic about that.

The reason's that everybody knows the general black letter law by the time exams come, which is what the E&E's are best at teaching. Nobody leaves a Civil Procedure exam thinking, "Oh, damn, I forgot that diversity jurisdiction requires at least $75,000 in controversy." That may seem super interesting and new to you now, and it was for me too, once. But by the time the exam comes, everybody has that, everyone knows the general case holdings, and so on. You might think that trying to loosely familiarize yourself with stuff like that now might save you a couple hours of time you'd otherwise have to put in anyway, but that's not true either. You pick this stuff up on the fly as you read the cases you'll be reading anyway.

You distinguish yourself in law school exams by exploring the grey areas, toying with the fact pattern's subtleties, understanding exactly what your particular professor wants and then fleshing it out quickly and cohesively. You can't learn those things from an E&E and you couldn't get a leg up on them as a 0L if you tried.

The best things you can do for yourself early on are to wait until law school starts, then talk to upperclassmen about your professors, about your law school, and so on. An old outline for your teacher, if it's good, is worth five supplements. Candid feedback about the professor and how to approach studying/things in general are worth even more. You're doing everything right your 0L summer and I don't know if I'd add anything else.

How would you suggest we go about working on our 1L summer employment as 0Ls?

[Young Marino]

I think you're in a fine place!

Rising 2L. I read Getting to Maybe , which I thought was fine but it's not like you need the book to learn the basic gist of it. If there's anything I wish I had done beforehand, it would've been to research some 1L summer employment opportunities a little more. There are a lot of great things out there that you might not be aware of, and you don't need to do much but give yourself a preview of what you might want to do. You'll get a 1L summer job - everyone will - but if you're able to send off your apps slightly sooner, it's one less thing you have to worry about by the time spring semester starts picking up. If you type slowly, work on your typing speed. I'd put "slowly" at less than 40 wpm or so.

One thing I want to echo, and it's been said in other 0L prep threads, but it keeps getting repeated and 0Ls still feel the urge to try: don't feel the need to do any substantive prep. It's hard to convince 0Ls to not think about reading E&E's or do everything they can to give themselves a leg up, but honest to God, it's fairly useless. I truly think that one hour spent studying the week before finals is as productive and efficient as 100 spent during the summer before law school. There's nothing hyperbolic about that.

The reason's that everybody knows the general black letter law by the time exams come, which is what the E&E's are best at teaching. Nobody leaves a Civil Procedure exam thinking, "Oh, damn, I forgot that diversity jurisdiction requires at least $75,000 in controversy." That may seem super interesting and new to you now, and it was for me too, once. But by the time the exam comes, everybody has that, everyone knows the general case holdings, and so on. You might think that trying to loosely familiarize yourself with stuff like that now might save you a couple hours of time you'd otherwise have to put in anyway, but that's not true either. You pick this stuff up on the fly as you read the cases you'll be reading anyway.

You distinguish yourself in law school exams by exploring the grey areas, toying with the fact pattern's subtleties, understanding exactly what your particular professor wants and then fleshing it out quickly and cohesively. You can't learn those things from an E&E and you couldn't get a leg up on them as a 0L if you tried.

The best things you can do for yourself early on are to wait until law school starts, then talk to upperclassmen about your professors, about your law school, and so on. An old outline for your teacher, if it's good, is worth five supplements. Candid feedback about the professor and how to approach studying/things in general are worth even more. You're doing everything right your 0L summer and I don't know if I'd add anything else.

How would you suggest we go about working on our 1L summer employment as 0Ls?

I did an internship with the local DA's office in my town. I'm having my mentor look over my resume soon. I've heard from multiple attorneys that the best thing to do now is just relax and do some light reading

[JVK]

How would you suggest we go about working on our 1L summer employment as 0Ls?

You don't need to actively work on cover letters or anything, it just might be helpful to see what kind of jobs are out there and narrow down what you might want to do. Don't limit yourself to DOJ divisions or the SEC, there're a lot of neat things out there.

This should be about as stressful as reading a light book. It's something you can surf the Internet for for 15-20 minutes while watching TV, and it's not something you need nor should do too much of, either.

[foundingfather]

How would you suggest we go about working on our 1L summer employment as 0Ls?

You don't need to actively work on cover letters or anything, it just might be helpful to see what kind of jobs are out there and narrow down what you might want to do. Don't limit yourself to DOJ divisions or the SEC, there're a lot of neat things out there.

This should be about as stressful as reading a light book. It's something you can surf the Internet for for 15-20 minutes while watching TV, and it's not something you need nor should do too much of, either.

What if I had a lot of time to kill at work

[jbagelboy]

I recommend not thinking about it too much. I just focused on finishing my analyst job in strong colors, taking nice vacations, and seeing all my friends from home as much as I could before moving across the country.

[Young Marino]

How would you suggest we go about working on our 1L summer employment as 0Ls?

You don't need to actively work on cover letters or anything, it just might be helpful to see what kind of jobs are out there and narrow down what you might want to do. Don't limit yourself to DOJ divisions or the SEC, there're a lot of neat things out there.

This should be about as stressful as reading a light book. It's something you can surf the Internet for for 15-20 minutes while watching TV, and it's not something you need nor should do too much of, either.

I've gotten this advice also. For the most part, you want to look at what type of law is prevalent in your reigon and how your school places in firms orpublic sector. For example, if you're school places most grads in firms of 2-10 attorneys/firms of 11-50 attorneys, you might want to look at what type of small law is in that area. So if Personal Injury/Family law dominates a reigon your interested in, you should be reading up on that practice area. On the contrary, if you're going to a tier 1 school that plaxes in firms of attorneys of 100+ you're probably looking at some sort of corporate law so in that case, you should read up on that. This is just the kind of advice I got from a lot of local prosecutors.