Brannon Denning is offering advice for entering first-year law students over at Instapundit, so I thought I would weigh in with a few thoughts as well. Here are two tidbits of my own:
1. Understand that it is normal to feel lost. The first year of law school uses an immersion approach; professors start treating you like you’re in the legal profession from day one. It takes a while to get the hang of it, and in the meantime it’s only normal to feel a bit lost. I know I felt pretty much at sea for much of the first semester; I felt like I was working really hard but I didn’t really understand what was going on. (Which, come to think of it, was basically true.) If you feel this way, too, don’t think you’re weird. Most people have that same reaction. Fortunately, your first exams are pretty far off; you’ll have a good chunk of time to get the hang of things.
2. Go to your professors’ office hours and ask lots of questions. This is related to point one. You’re going to be confused, and the best way to figure things out is to go to your professor’s office hours and pelt your professor with questions. Don’t worry about asking a dumb question: if there is ever a time in your life to ask a dumb question, it is during your first semester of law school during a professor’s office hours when no one else is around. Your professor can probably set you straight on something that will avoid lots of headaches down the road.
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As long as people are giving advice for 1Ls, I thought I’d take a moment to plug ‘The Goofus and Gallant Guide to Law School’, which can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B10bp0UYEPA
(warning: contains some bad language)
The zen of law school is that there is no law–there are only issues.
My advice to the incoming 1Ls at this point is to do everything possible now NOT related to law. Get your apartment heat turned on, get your car battery changed for the winter ahead, go to the dentist, buy some new clothes, pay off some credit cards or arrange for mail to be forwarded, etc. Do all the simply things of life that (you will soon find) are not that simple after you start school.
And whatever you do–don’t buy your textbooks and read cases. Half of my professors in 1L told me on day 1 “skip the first 50 pages and then read this dissent and this concurrence in the next 20″.
Basically, by the time finals come (the only thing that matters for your grade, usually) you’ll find that the cases and material you study in the next few weeks to be basically little more than (at most) a sentence in your essays. You could spend HOURS now (because you don’t know what sentence / issue the professor wants you to take out of the case) or spend MINUTES / SECONDS later (in a few months) to distill the same information.
However, in three months, if you have to change the battery in your car, or go to the dentist, it will take the same amount of hours as it does today, but then you will be trying to do it with the ominous finals hanging over your head.
Time management is a very important part of law school. Use it well.
Good luck to the 1Ls.
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Lemme give some more tips:
(1) Make your own outlines. This is the best way to digest the material. It will really help you figure out how everything fits together.
(2) Ask profs questions after class. Profs stick around for 10-15 mins after class, and you can usually get a quick question in if you try. This is much quicker than going to office hours.
(3) Put in the work. Everyone in law school is smart (including you; otherwise you wouldn’t have gotten in). What sets the great students apart from the others is that great students work hard. Great students start outlining early, and spend a ton of time on it. Most everyone I know on law review worked about 60 hours a week; students who didn’t make it worked 40 hours or less. Trust me, the extra work makes a BIG difference.
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I would add that it is imperative to work on your typing skills if they are weak. You can know the doctrine inside and out, but if you can’t type fast enough on a four-hour exam, you’re in very serious trouble.
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Students mind as well learn, and accept, quickly, that, sad as this may be, or not; in law school, and, in many parts of law, form, and structure, are as important as substance. Indeed, if not, at times, more important.
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