Amount of Reading in Law School Forum

[rbgrocio]

[quakeroats]

Could you be more specific?

[rbgrocio]

Could you be more specific?

I was referring to the previous post...

[Pip]

Going to be graduating in Dec. and won't be in law school until fall 2011. Wanted to know how much reading is typically assigned in law school (esp first year) so I can keep up and not struggle when I start. Please specify in pages (or words), and not how long it takes you. If you also wouldn't mind saying around where you're school ranks, I think it'd be interesting to see if there is a difference there. Thanks.

What you are assigned and what you actually have to read are two different things.

Go to any law school book store and grab any case law book. Now break it down figure that the worst case scenario will be reading that book during a semester... though more often than not the professors cherry pick the parts they want you to read and it wont always be the whole book. That's the amount you will be "expected" to read.

Now what you choose to read can vary greatly from what is "expected". Some people choose to buy the Emanuel guide to whatever class they are taking, read that and don't even bother wasting their money on the case book... Just make sure the class is one where that is do able. Some classes are run on the case method and you can't get away with doing it like that but some are more lecture driven and this method works fine for those where being called on in class isn't an issue.

[Pizon]

Broadly speaking, my first semester assignments broke down like this:

Contracts: 20-30 pgs/night
Civ pro: 15-20 pgs/night
Crim: 10-15 pgs/night
LRW:

So, worst-case scenario, you're looking at 50-75 pages of pretty dense reading per night, plus whatever supplements you end up finding helpful. Rather than spend 2-3 hours a night (about what most people probably put in), I found it convenient to use the weekends to put in 5-6 hour days and get the week's reading done, so I could spend the weeks just taking a quick glance at a canned brief book and calling it a day.

That's definitely not as bad as the horror stories I've heard from a couple of dropouts that I've met. One has even gone to say that all of the 1L reading he endured cause permanent eye damage. I laughed because he was dead serious.

dropouts are not a reliable source. The tend to exaggerate things to justify their dropping out

Maybe, but people who don't drop out tend to exaggerate things to make their dicks seem bigger.

[reverendt]

To answer the OP's question, you can expect 20-35 pages per class per meeting. So, if Torts meets twice a week, you can expect about 40-70 pages for the week. In all, depending on the number of classes you are taking, you will likely be reading between 200-300 pages per week.

This is probably about right....some classes assigned a little more.
btw I'm at a T2. (I don't think the reading will vary much by school).

[JustBelieve]

Going to be graduating in Dec. and won't be in law school until fall 2011. Wanted to know how much reading is typically assigned in law school (esp first year) so I can keep up and not struggle when I start. Please specify in pages (or words), and not how long it takes you. If you also wouldn't mind saying around where you're school ranks, I think it'd be interesting to see if there is a difference there. Thanks.

It depends. I'm starting law school myself next week and through orientation we have been told it could be anywhere up to 300 pages a night. However, most of the time you will be briefing cases and analyzing problems in opposition to simply reading.

Good luck to you.

[jayn3]

This may give you a good idea of what you're in for: http://duncankennedy.net/documents/Free ... nology.pdf

I read the first two paragraphs, stopped, and thought "wow, this is one of the most pretentious things I've ever read." Scroll down...D.K. is a professor at Harvard Law...what am I getting myself into?

this really wouldn't be too hard to read if the first sentence didn't make me skeptical of his ability to construct a gramatically correct English sentence.

This paper attempts to describe the process of legal reasoning as I imagine I might do it
if I were a judge assigned a case that initially seemed to present a conflict between "the
law" and "how-I-want-to-come-out."

[sgtgrumbles]

Could you be more specific?

I thought I was the only one with a DFW avatar.

[kalvano]

we have been told it could be anywhere up to 300 pages a night.

Um, what?

[thorntll]

Broadly speaking, my first semester assignments broke down like this:

Contracts: 20-30 pgs/night
Civ pro: 15-20 pgs/night
Crim: 10-15 pgs/night
LRW:

So, worst-case scenario, you're looking at 50-75 pages of pretty dense reading per night, plus whatever supplements you end up finding helpful. Rather than spend 2-3 hours a night (about what most people probably put in), I found it convenient to use the weekends to put in 5-6 hour days and get the week's reading done, so I could spend the weeks just taking a quick glance at a canned brief book and calling it a day.

That's definitely not as bad as the horror stories I've heard from a couple of dropouts that I've met. One has even gone to say that all of the 1L reading he endured cause permanent eye damage. I laughed because he was dead serious.

I don't know, man. I've been wanting to get laser eye surgery, and my optometrist was like, "Trust me, I've seen this before. Wait until after law school."

[jayn3]

Broadly speaking, my first semester assignments broke down like this:

Contracts: 20-30 pgs/night
Civ pro: 15-20 pgs/night
Crim: 10-15 pgs/night
LRW:

So, worst-case scenario, you're looking at 50-75 pages of pretty dense reading per night, plus whatever supplements you end up finding helpful. Rather than spend 2-3 hours a night (about what most people probably put in), I found it convenient to use the weekends to put in 5-6 hour days and get the week's reading done, so I could spend the weeks just taking a quick glance at a canned brief book and calling it a day.

That's definitely not as bad as the horror stories I've heard from a couple of dropouts that I've met. One has even gone to say that all of the 1L reading he endured cause permanent eye damage. I laughed because he was dead serious.

I don't know, man. I've been wanting to get laser eye surgery, and my optometrist was like, "Trust me, I've seen this before. Wait until after law school."

lol. he's probably only saying that because of the whole "you can go blind" thing.

[dhb44]

Legal Cases aren't like anything else you read in Undergrad. Its most akin to dense philosophy. More Cryptic and Dense than your average College-level reading.

What if you were an English major and read pretty much everything?

Just wondering, since it seems this site leans heavily towards econ / engineering type majors. I read a ton, and I'm used to close, analytical reading.

No... casebooks are a creature of their own. I can read 25 pages of anything else in an hour. It takes me an hour to read 10 pages from a casebook.

I can read about 100 pages an hour and remember what I read, and I'm used to oddly-phrased things (lots of Shakespeare / Chaucer / medieval lit).

I'm hoping that will help me somewhat.

lol. You will not get even closed to 40 pages an hour in law school.... and 100 pages of anything in an hour? I guess if it has 28 point font and one 10 words per page... I really don't believe you can read 100 pages of shakespeare in an hour.

Yeah i don't care who u are or what u say, that's bullshit!

[King Dong]

impressive revival

[kalvano]

I was well over 40 pages an hour in law school, so suck it.

[rnoodles]

This is quite possibly the greatest thing I have read in a while. Thank you, kalvano.

[frasier]

I was well over 40 pages an hour in law school, so suck it.

hahah this is great

[joon]

I was well over 40 pages an hour in law school, so suck it.

hahah this is great

delivers after 5 years

[Glasseyes]

zombie thread lives. nice to see the evolution of some long time posters across the years.

for anyone discovering this thread and assuming you'll have 10-25 pages per night, I'll gently point out that my 1L experience was far, far worse than that. could have just been my school, or my unfortunate section, but we had anywhere from 60-70 pages per night for crim pro. we read the casebook cover to cover, skipping only a few pages, and it was a closed book exam, meaning we were expected to have memorized the whole damn thing. most other classes weren't quite that bad, but 35-45 per night per class was pretty standard. Several classes did 70+ on more than one occasion. an especially cruel moment came in conlaw, where we had 2 days to read 190 pages. maybe 5 or 10 kids actually did it, and i was not one of them.

and yes, i came to law school with perfect vision; ended 1L with a fancy new prescription having absolutely destroyed my eyesight with 8-12 hour reading sessions 7 days a week. apparently this is common. supposedly the key, which i learned about midway through 2nd semester, is to take eyestrain breaks every 20 minutes. look up from your book or screen, focus on something far away and count to 30. your eyes will resist focusing, but make them do it anyway.

law school = endless party

[rnoodles]

School? Rank range would be fine too if you don't want to say.

[Glasseyes]

School? Rank range would be fine too if you don't want to say.

GULC. I was warned coming in that the workload was stupid, but I underestimated the crush. Spring semester was extra fun when they jumped it up to 17 cred - fall seemed easy in hindsight at 14 creds.

[rnoodles]

School? Rank range would be fine too if you don't want to say.

GULC. I was warned coming in that the workload was stupid, but I underestimated the crush. Spring semester was extra fun when they jumped it up to 17 cred - fall seemed easy in hindsight at 14 creds.

My God man. Definitely hope it all worked out in the end for you though cause that workload you described before just sounds cruel.

[Glasseyes]

School? Rank range would be fine too if you don't want to say.

GULC. I was warned coming in that the workload was stupid, but I underestimated the crush. Spring semester was extra fun when they jumped it up to 17 cred - fall seemed easy in hindsight at 14 creds.

My God man. Definitely hope it all worked out in the end for you though cause that workload you described before just sounds cruel.

Eh, you get through it, and everyone suffers together. We'll see how OCI plays out in 3 weeks.

[davidhunterlawfirm]

There can be quite a bit of reading. but even more important than the number of pages, it is also very different type of reading than many people are used to prior to law school.

For more info, yes, I am going to spam a law firm, because that's absolutely where you should go to learn about reading in law school, DUH.