Going To Law School

My first day of class I didn't quite understand. Everything the professor talked about was the shit I made notes of when I did the 100 pages of reading. I stared at the wall for about 2 hours.

Just wait.

just wait . . . until you get to business associations

because it is boring and stupid! i got an A though *puffs chest*

Business Associations was alternatively called "Agency, and All Her Bastard Offspring" by my classmates and I.

I, too, got an A. While reading ILX, no doubt.

burt it sounds like youre just too smart for law school!

Ok, is there any point in joining the ABA "Student Division" right now? And is there any other careerist shit I ought to be working on yet other than just doing well in law school?

no. and no.

Right: No and no. Focus on law school. If you have time left over, enjoy your life. It will help you in school.

Seriously correct. Focus on getting the best grades you can right now. First year is all about the numbers.

All the legal fraternities and ABA-related stuff are nice and all, but you're paying a lot of money to get a job, and the most direct route is scoring well during your first year. The other stuff can wait until second semester second year and third year.

Be lucky you're married, dude; I was just asked out by two girls today! :{ Both in my section and legal writing section, so I'm not sure I really want to go there. This is definitely the time to focus on work.

Oh yeah, and if you still read this ilx0r felicity, you were dead right.

oh that is so unlucky

???

subtle stanton

Totally a judgment call, dude. If the girl seems cool, and you're cool, and the occasionaly hook-up wouldn't cause unnecessary intra-section tension, it could be a good thing come exam time.

But, if it will add stress or awkwardness to the already too-crazy life you're embarking on, or you think it might at all, don't do it.

It appears to me that the only way to actually learn any of this law material is to spend hours and hours of your own free time doing work that is not required by class. I just spent 2 hours outlining the litigation process so I could understand what the hell is going on in Elements of Law.

There is no such thing as work "required by class"

Well, you know, the stuff on the syllabus.

So far the hardest seeming thing about law school for me is that pretty much everyone I've talked to sounds like they're smart, generally get the material and work very hard. I'd like to think I'm smart too, and I've been working hard too, but the fact is that we're graded on a curve and I'm not sure if i have anything that gives me an edge over most of them. OTOH there are a fair number of dumbfounded-looking mouth-breathers and people who make totally off-mark comments in every class.

Yesssssss, that makes me so scared. It seems like there are a bunch of people who have these amazing answers in class, and I'm like "what the hell are you talking about? I'm scccrewwwed!" Hence working extra hours tonight.

Also going back to school after being out for years has been a real transition. I'm going to live, eat, and breathe this law stuff from now on..

I was just looking through Glannon for stuff for my Civ. Pro class but it wasn't that helpful. I was having some trouble on the finer points of subject matter jurisdiction as taken from the constitution and various cases but Glannon really only seemed to outline the basics, which I more or less get.

I haven't started classes yet (we had two early Elements classes last week), so Civ Pro, torts, etc. are a MySteRy to me. I just want to make sure those damned braniacs don't kick my ass to down to median.

-to

So far the hardest seeming thing about law school for me is that pretty much everyone I've talked to sounds like they're smart, generally get the material and work very hard. I'd like to think I'm smart too, and I've been working hard too, but the fact is that we're graded on a curve and I'm not sure if i have anything that gives me an edge over most of them

Mostly true. Don't worry about it. Focusing on what others know -- or seem to know -- will cleave up your confidence. Just study the subject matter and how to take the all-important end-of-semester exam.

Yes, the end of semester exam ... how soon should you start studying for it?

I'm guessing the details of the litigation process will come to you over time as you read cases and examples. I happened to pick up a lot of it from my job and it will probably become more second nature to you as you get to see it in action.

I'd study just the materials as they're presented for the moment. I guess I started looking over everything about mid-semester, building momentum into our "dead week," where there were no classes and the students prepared for the final exams.

But it isn't too early to start analyzing the way the professors test their students. Many professors have old tests available. They will give you valuable insight into what the teacher is probing, and what issues are important to him or her.

(xp)

(To be fair, from time-to-time throughout the semester, I did go back in my study aids (e.g., Gilberts) and casually review earlier materials, just to see how they all related to each other).

Oh, two more things. First, be wary of study groups. Some are helpful, supportive environments. Others are incubators for paranoid, depression, mistrust and angst. Worse still, some people are in study groups less to review and master the material and more to scare others in the group, or prove that they're smarter or more knowledgeable than others in the group.

Second, don't worry about who sounds smartest in class. Some of the people at the top of my graduating class almost never spoke in class, or sounded nervous or hesitant or unsteady when they did speak. And some of the most articulate and confident speakers in the class were mediocre students. You never know, so it's unhelpful to worry about it.

So would you say it's more important to find the most decent and nurturing people rather than necessarily the smartest to study with?

Yeah, I'd say so. In fact, I think some of the highest ranking members of my graduating class didn't participate in study groups, at all.

I stopped participating in study groups during my first year. I kept studying with friends, informally and infrequently, during my second and third years, but even those experiences didn't seem very useful, in retrospect.

I got together to study with someone today and it just ended up being 3 hours of flirting and talking about the differences between the West Coast and East Coast. I think taking time to be social is probably more useful than actually studying anything.

i like daniel, esq.'s advice for study strategies

reading these recent posts makes me so glad i'm finished law school! good luck you guys, it's going to be hard work. There are some fun bits and lots of really fascinating bits but oh my goodness it was hard.

BUT being a lawyer is great!

Seeing how smart and hard working everyone at school is, it makes me regret this decision a little. "Making top 15%" seemed a little easier on paper.

all you can do is be your best and try and enjoy what you're doing, and don't take too much notice of what everyone else is up to. i wasn't one of the people piping up in class with lots of words of wisdom mind you, but that's the way i approached it (also the approach i try to take to the rest of the stuff in life) and almost by default i got awesome marks and thusly an awesome job.

I hated speaking in class, BTW/FWIW, despite being on my HS and college debate teams.

i hate it too because i fear people are thinking what i think: "why doesn't this asshole shut his/her mouth?" it makes me very nervous and i can never say what i mean. the worst was i took "gender and the law" as a fluff course last year and it was so catty and obnoxious most of the time that i never wanted to say anything despite, i think, knowing what i was talking about.

also i never study with other people. first year they harp on study groups too much and make you feel like you absolutely must have one or you're doing it wrong. i really prefer to work things out on my own, and that has worked fine.

yep i was often reluctant to speak up in class too. but a lot of my lecturers were fond of putting people on the spot, so i always did all of my reading before class and was prepared to answer those sorts of questions. i used to try and make myself answer one question each class too, which gave me more confidence in my conclusions than i would have had otherwise. also it helps you to get to know the lecturers, which i found to be a great help in the long run too.

i found my study group to be indispensable. we'd actually figure a lot of shit out by screaming at each other for hours. it was a very abusive environment, but it worked! we all made law review. we were handsome, too.

If it has not become apparent from all of these posts, the name of the game in law school is exam time. Everything you do should be focused on exam time. Even now.

Which means - read everything so that you think you understand it. I found Gilbert's/Glannons/Examples and Explanations to be helpful as checks for understanding.

Keep organized and up-to-date. DO NOT FALL BEHIND.

Don't take it any more seriously than you feel it necessary in order to meet the first two. More often than not, the stress in law school comes from not understanding what the point of it all is. The point is to (a) kick ass on exams and (b) get a job with those kick ass scores. It will frequently take you a few times to get something - and that's the way it is supposed to be.

For what its worth, plese feel free to fire off questions of any type to me via this forum. I know I was very thankful for the guiding light of some already graduated persons my first year.

I used study groups for some classes, but not for a lot - maybe one every other semester. The model described by cutty is probably the best: everyone does the reading on everything, and shows up, ready to argue. The splitting of duties model will end up biting you in the ass in the end - you are the only one who gets to take the exams.

ughhhh. I'm on top of all my work and readings and basically understand everything, but the class thing messes me up. I mean, I understand everything the professor talks about, but then when he asks questions, and classmates answer with these crazy wackadoo things and the professor's like, "right, exactly!" I'm like, "I have no idea what the hell is going on??!"

I mean it's like, where the hell are these people coming up with these things? Am I doing something wrong? Am I not making the right connections?

Remember: Some people who sound good in class will be mediocre students; some people who never speak or sound awkward in class will be top-notch students. Don't worry about who sounds good in class. It's all the exam.

Did you start regular classes yet Stanton? One thing I've noticed so far -- when the prof asks a general, political sciencey question about the general role of the courts, checks and balances, democracy, etc. lots of people think they have smart things to say. Once you get into an actual case, most people shut the fuck up.

My first class was today. Nobody ever asks questions regarding the solid material in the case ... it's always these associative things, and that confuses the hell out of me. Everything the professor says I totally get, and our briefs basically match up (he'll tell us his as guidance), but some of these students who go off on class make me never want to speak.

Today in civ pro the professor mentioned an example case from the text about enforcement of child support -- the point of the example had to do with standing to sue and redressability, not child support, but of course the next four people to talk all gave opinions on how to enforce child support payment that actually had nothing to do with the topic at hand.

I think since some professors include class participation as part of their grade, students will just say whatever the hell they can. Do you have the class Elements of Law? I'm having trouble understanding what the point of that class is. Everything we're covering in that we're concentrating on in every other class.

No, we just have Civ Pro, Torts, Crim and Legal Writing. There is a lot of material that gets covered in more than one class in the beginning, but mostly just stuff about the court system, binding vs. persuasive authority, etc. -- obviously once we get past that there won't be much overlap.

At least one of my professors has said she will consider "quality, not quantity" in participation.

I think since some professors include class participation as part of their grade

I always thought this was nonsense when Professors said class participation influenced grades.

We've got Elements (for the first half, with exam, and Contracts the second half), Civ Pro, Torts, and Legal Writing. I've done Civ Pro work already and that stuff makes sense... Elements of Law, no idea what the hell that class is about.