All the tools you need for law school success
Congratulations on your admission to law school! Now that you are a first-year law student, many companies will be rushing to sell you all types of aids to make your first year of law school easier. Some of these aids are truly vital and some are unnecessary. You can save time and money by purchasing only what you need.
[Read more…] about Shopping List For First Year Law Students: What You Need And What You Don’t Need
Law school presents law students with a number of incredible intellectual challenges. You have to memorize a great quantity of information in various substantive areas of law in a relatively short time. You have to learn to use a lot of arcane technical jargon correctly. You have to master a new system of legal proof that is just as complicated as the system of geometrical proofs you learned in high school. The only difference is that you will get substantially less support in learning how to do a legal proof than you did when you were learning how to do a geometrical proof.
The best way for law students to meet and overcome these challenges is to engage in “Deep Work.” Deep Work is the ability to focus exclusively for a long period of time on one particular intellectual task without distractions. Engaging in deep work means working with total uninterrupted concentration on whatever you are doing. It is the opposite of multi-tasking. Students who engage in deep work will be able to more quickly master complex information and produce superior results in less time. [Read more…] about Five Techniques For Using Deep Work To Excel In Law School
One of the things you can do to make the most of your second and third years of law school is to use your electives and other law school resources to figure out what type of lawyer you would like to be.
After the first year of law school, you will have the opportunity to choose your courses. You want to make sure that while you are in law school you take a course in every subject area that could potentially be tested on the bar exam in the jurisdiction in which you plan to practice law. In addition, there are certain courses you should take just because the legal concepts covered in these courses will come up in many different legal specializations. [Read more…] about Using Course Electives to Enhance Your Future Legal Career
The Multistate Professional Responsibility Exam (MPRE) is a two hour, 60 question multiple choice exam that tests your knowledge of professional conduct (ethical) standards required of attorneys. Almost all state jurisdictions require that you pass the MPRE before admitting you to the bar. Information on registration requirements, testing locations, general policies, and some study aids are available at the National Council of Bar Examiners website. Using the three strategies described below will ensure that you maximize your chances of passing the MPRE exam and also lay a good foundation for test-taking skills you will need to pass the bar: [Read more…] about Simple Strategies For Passing The Multistate Professional Responsibility Exam (MPRE)
I used to think that being a law student was the most time sucking activity one could possibly engage in. You can easily create a 48 hour day by going to class, reviewing your class notes, outlining your classes, studying your commercial outline, taking practice exams, and going to office hours to talk to professors about things you don’t understand.
I was wrong. Although going to law school is a major time suck, I have discovered that for me, most of my friends, and many law students, being on the internet is the most time sucking activity in their lives. After all, there is just so much to do on the internet. You can follow other people and see what they are doing. You can update your own status on your own social media site. The posting possibilities are endless. You can tweet, retweet, blog, comment, read other peoples’ comments, comment on other people’s comments, check your various news feeds, check the same news feeds 5 minutes later, post a picture, post a video, etc. etc. Before you know it, several hours are gone, and your time management strategy has suffered a major blow.
Few people (myself included) are willing or able to quit the internet entirely. However, if you follow the suggestions below, you can easily add several more hours to your day: [Read more…] about Three Ways To Create More Time In Your Day During Exam Season
Even if you are a first year law student, you are now far enough along in your legal education that you need to start outlining the law for your substantive courses and taking practice exams. Below are three tools to make sure that you are on track to have your outlines and practice exams done in time to be well prepared for your midterm and final exams:
[Read more…] about Organizational Tools for Outlining Legal Subject Areas