first day of law school

[nerdykarim]

anyone else starting law school this year?
this may be the toughest thing i've ever attempted. honestly, i have no idea what i've just gotten myself into.

any advice from the veterans?

 

[teddieriley]

^^a lot of debt (unless you got a full scholarship).

 

[Sprezzatura2010]

Congrats! Where are you headed?

Some of the 1L's who will be starting at my school have moved into my building, and I'm helping with orientation. I started last year. Here's some of the things I've told my mentee and the people in my building.

In your first year, concentrate on learning to read cases quickly, and get all of the extra study aids you can. You'll probably want to buy a few commercial outlines, and you'll definitely want to make friend with upperclassmen to get outlines from previous years. One study aid I do not think any 1L can afford to be without is Professor Freer's civpro tapes. I found the LEEWS study guide/exam prep helpful, but friends of mine who performed similarly well thought it a waste of time and money.

Learn to listen with one ear. Most of us found ourselves drifting in and out of class mentally, playing Scrabulous or reading perezhilton. But when something novel came out pretty much every snapped to attention.

Don't be one of those people who refuses to share notes. Everyone will hate you, and it won't make your performance come exam time any better.

Be prepared to sell your soul to the lousy two credits of your legal writing class...

Also, enjoy yourself. I don't think I've ever gone out more than the two weeks before finals. We'd study for 10-12 hours, go out for 3-4, rinse, and repeat. Helped us keep our sanity.

 

[nerdykarim]

Originally Posted by Sprezzatura2010

Congrats! Where are you headed?
...
In your first year, concentrate on learning to read cases quickly, and get all of the extra study aids you can. You'll probably want to buy a few commercial outlines, and you'll definitely want to make friend with upperclassmen to get outlines from previous years. One study aid I do not think any 1L can afford to be without is Professor Freer's civpro tapes. I found the LEEWS study guide/exam prep helpful, but friends of mine who performed similarly well thought it a waste of time and money.
I'm at the University of Georgia. Thanks for the heads up on these supplemental materials...this is great advice. A lot of this stuff feels really overwhleming right now; I'm hoping that some of the confusion will go away in a couple months.

Originally Posted by teddieriley

^^a lot of debt (unless you got a full scholarship).
I got a bit of a scholarship plus in-state tuition. Fortunately, I will come out of this with very little debt (which was a big part of the reason I chose UGA).

 

[Sprezzatura2010]

The first couple weeks of law school are pretty bewildering. I was shell shocked, and I have two master's degrees under my belt! It does get easier, especially once you figure out that you can read a case just like your LSAT class taught you to dissect the reading comp passages, by underlining and roadmapping instead of writing tedious briefs.

Georgia's a good law school, especially if you want to stay in the state. Lots of eye candy on North Campus and in the bars, as well. The campus bus system is pretty good, too.

 

[DNW]

The single most important advice I can give you--one that I wish somebody had given me when I started--is to stay from all the cliques that will emerge. You want to be removed from law school politics, and keep the bullshit from getting into your head. You will do better and come out saner. As a side note, don't let your classmates know how well or how poorly you're doing. The rumor mill in law school is 10x worse than in highschool, and law students are a nasty bunch.

Last note: stay away from the law school when you're studying for finals. People do go berzerk during that time, and it would only distract you from your own studying.

P.S. law chicks are all sluts. Enjoy.

 

[MikeO]

I wholeheartedly agree with both of these points (and maybe the last one too). I just staked out a "collaborative study room" in the library and did work/ignored everyone from about 7 to 4 or 5 everyday. When finals rolled around I just stayed home to study.

 

[Histrion]

Well, as a disclaimer, I did my law degree (LLB) in QuÃ

bec, where you don't need a first B.A. before opting for law. It is, however, much tougher from other programs offered in University aside from Medicine (where you also don't need a first B.A.), engineering and maybe a couple of others.

1. Someone said that the rumour mill in law school in terrible. This is true. And more than you can even think. Stay away from it, at all cost. The same person said that law school chicks are slut -- also accurate, but keep in mind that everyone in the law school will know about it. Don't do anything too stupid at your initiation: you will be "that guy" for the rest of law school. Not kidding.

2. Its not as hard as it looks like. Yes, the sheer number of assignments you'll get will freak you out. Yes, you'll hear stories about some crazy teachers, and they are often true. But its a level playing field. Just learn to discern the important from the irrelevant early on, you will save tons and tons of time. There's a heck of a lot of irrelevant stuff.

3. Have fun. You'll look back fondly on those years whether or not you truly like law, simply because there's a great feeling of achievement when you're done with it.

Best of luck!

 

[Hazad]

Your 1L year is really pretty basic. You will have more than enough time to get everything done every day including getting outlines started early for finals (or putting that off til thanksgiving break, either or). 2nd semester of 1L year will be more of the same only with more laziness from everyone now that you are all seasoned law veterans.

The trick during 1L year is not to spend all of your free time doing marsupialed ****. The bottom portion of my class are all basically clubbing undergrads who drink incessantly. If you can avoid this and spend your time doing more normal things (politics will be HUGE this year in law school, so watch CNN for instance) then you will have a more rewarding experience. Everyone I was friends with who became a lush put off everything all of the time and their grades captured this; those of us who did the opposite all made the top 50% with ease and most made the top 25% without trying too hard.

Then summer comes and unless you are in the top 5% (and it's still a crapshoot there), at a t14 school, or have some nepotism connection you won't be at a firm. But that's ok, do research assistant work and take classes, go abroad (many schools have these things over the summer, OSU has a DC program and an Oxford program for example), or work at some public interest thing for pennies. Very few people in my class ended up with 1L firm jobs and most who did were lucky enough to find firms with programs for minority students (however this may be an Ohio thing since most firms hire very few people compared to NYC for example). This is also due to the **** economy we currently have, so maybe it will be better in 2009 summer. Almost all of my 2L classmates in the top 30ish% have jobs lined up already so whether the bad summer was because we were 1Ls, the economy, or both I cannot say but many of us were mislead into thinking firm jobs were not so rare. Don't assume you will be making $3k a week at some huge Atlanta firm just because you are in the top 10%, just be thankful if you get the chance.

Then 2L year when you have law journal + appellate advocacy + moot court + seminars and/or clinical work + normal classes you will actually work. This is when life sucks and you wonder why the **** you are caring so much about what the Bluebook says about every detail, but it's good resume fodder. I can't comment on anything after this as I am currently doing another acc check for my law journal (loads of fun), but that should be enough to give you a quick overview of school.

All in all, law school is definitely more fun than undergrad. Class can be competitive and heated when debates arise in classes like Con Law (especially since DC v. Heller was the hot ticket last year), and you will be intellectually stimulated often. But don't assume you won't have free time, you might be shocked at how much you actually have if you can manage your time at even a sub-par level.

 

[needshoehelp]

It's not about who studies the most (although volume usually does not hurt). It's about who studies the smartest. Figure out what works best for you, and don't waste time on what after a few weeks you determine is unnecessary.

 

[JoelF]

Originally Posted by DarkNWorn

The single most important advice I can give you--one that I wish somebody had given me when I started--is to stay from all the cliques that will emerge. You want to be removed from law school politics, and keep the bullshit from getting into your head. You will do better and come out saner. As a side note, don't let your classmates know how well or how poorly you're doing. The rumor mill in law school is 10x worse than in highschool, and law students are a nasty bunch.

Last note: stay away from the law school when you're studying for finals. People do go berzerk during that time, and it would only distract you from your own studying.

P.S. law chicks are all sluts. Enjoy.

Originally Posted by needshoehelp

It's not about who studies the most (although volume usually does not hurt). It's about who studies the smartest. Figure out what works best for you, and don't waste time on what after a few weeks you determine is unnecessary.

Those two posts are excellent advice. With all the study groups outlining study aids etc. etc. everyone is looking for a magic bullet that does not exist. You just have to feel it out and find what works for you. Pracice exams are great, get issue spotting nailed, if you just get into that law school exam answer mode you can cruise. The biggest danger is freezing because you are psyched out, and the whole law school environment is geared to do just that.

What nailed Order of Coif for me was teaching my friend Karen every class before the test. She wasn't the brightest bulb but it sure helped me learn the stuff.

 

[crazyquik]

You also need to learn to take law school exams. That is something they don't teach you and is totally different than any essay exam you've ever taken.

To sum it up, for most professors in a 'traditional law school essay', you will throw everything you know against the wall.

You don't need to get cute with them like in high school. Just bare bones.
- The first issue is _______
- The rule is ______
- Applying the rule to the facts we have ________, however alternativly the court could find the opposite because ________, the conclusion to the issue is _______.
and then you move on to the next issue you spot.

Your essay should have a lot of "Well maybe it's this, but if it's not you could still use this. Or it could be this, but the judge might rule against you instead on the basis of this. Etc etc etc." Usually professors don't want you to tell them the 'right' answer, they want you to show them you know all the possible outcomes. Ultimately no one can predict what a judge will do. When a client walks into your office with a set of facts, you need to brainstorm as many things, different angles and approaches, etc, as you can. You can do the research later.

So instead of answering with one word (yes or no) you write several thousand words giving every available option you can imagine. In a traditional law school large essay question, there will be sooooo many issues and a set amount of time that it's impossible to spot and address them all. Professors told me "even an A essay will only spot 70-75% of the issues because there isn't enough time to address them all." If you think of some things the professor didn't, you might get an A+.

This is not unlike corporate defense work. A corporation comes to you with a lawsuit, you throw 30+ affirmative defenses against the plaintiff in your Answer, and you hope just one sticks.

 

[nerdykarim]

This is really useful advice, crazyquik, and exactly the kind of thing I was looking for. I don't have a lot of networking connections who have already experienced law school, so this kind of advice is especially useful. This whole thread has been really useful and I appreciate the time that everyone spent posting in it. I'm officially in my second week and I already feel much better--much more in control, really--about this endeavor.

 

[sho'nuff]

This is truly fascinating. Makes me want to go to law school myself. Sounds like a blast. I may be the only 36 year old there though.

 

[DNW]

Originally Posted by crazyquik

Your essay should have a lot of "Well maybe it's this, but if it's not you could still use this. Or it could be this, but the judge might rule against you instead on the basis of this. Etc etc etc." Usually professors don't want you to tell them the 'right' answer, they want you to show them you know all the possible outcomes. Ultimately no one can predict what a judge will do. When a client walks into your office with a set of facts, you need to brainstorm as many things, different angles and approaches, etc, as you can. You can do the research later. So instead of answering with one word (yes or no) you write several thousand words giving every available option you can imagine. In a traditional law school large essay question, there will be sooooo many issues and a set amount of time that it's impossible to spot and address them all. Professors told me "even an A essay will only spot 70-75% of the issues because there isn't enough time to address them all." If you think of some things the professor didn't, you might get an A+.
I somewhat disagree with this approach. How you will answer the exam depends on the professor. Before exam time, I usually try to ask the prof what kind of answers he expects for his exam. Most of my professors wanted the student to take a position and defend it, instead of giving them all the possible outcomes based on the fact pattern. In fact, I never had a professor who wanted all the possible outcomes to the case. I did, however, have the"what are the rights of the parties" type of questions a few times--which I absolutely hated because it's mostly an exercise in regurgitation and there's very little analysis required. (BTW, the Massachusetts bar examiners have a habit of asking this type of questions.) Ultimately, it depends on the professor. It never hurts to ask.