First Impressions of Law School

[StreetLaw]

Huntsman,

In addition to being an occasional SFer, I also run the leading law practice blog, Lawyerist.com. We have a fair amount of content on how to succeed in law school, which may be useful to you (and the other law students here).

I would especially refer you to our post on Winning the Law School Mind Game.

 

[jc138]

Originally Posted by Huntsman

Thanks. OK. Glad it seems a reasonable idea to you. I'll give it a shot then -- when, it seems, a third of my class is a paralegal and already just knows so much of this stuff, it is easy to feel very lost. A bachleor party in Vegas? And here we all thought you were the levelheaded sort.

Ok, I will. But I actually really enjoy engineering and working with engineers. They are my peeps. Hmmmm. I wonder if it will be different. None of my colleagues can go for 1L summer jobs -- they have real jobs they can't leave. I know that many hope to quit prior to their last summer to get a 3L internship with the hope of gaining a connection to a firm, and maybe then it will be less collegial, but I shall, uncharacteristically for me, hope from the side of the angels. ~ H
The first semester shake-out surprised me as well. I remember this girl booked half the classes, no one saw it coming.

Some unsolicited advice:

I saw in an earlier post that you are briefing cases. If that works for you great, but it does not for many people. It helps in the begining because it forces you to understand the particulars of cases, something that gets much, much easier with time. I used to take notes in the margins of cases -- I still do in practice as well. I underline key sentences, and bracket the holdings, important facts or where the cases distinguish themselves from other cases.

For me the commercial outlines and study manuals were excellent resources. I found that I needed the bigger picture, which I did not get out of the cases or classes.

After a month or so you should check in with the library to look for old exams. This will give you some idea of what will be expected of you. You will not know much when you first look at them, obviously. Don't get stressed by this.

Get a study group. You'll need people with fresh ideas to work through the practice exams. It's fun as well.

Start outlining the classes early. It sneaks up on you and is a pain to do. Again, because I needed the high-level view, outlining forced me to form it (much like briefing forces you to understand the minutiae).