Spring is an exciting time for law school applicants. Admissions results have been trickling in over the winter and, by now you have probably heard back from most of the schools on your list: either acceptance, rejection, or waitlist. For the schools who admitted you, the tables have turned: they are now trying to impress you and convince you to choose them over other schools. As part of this, during March and April most law schools open their doors to accepted students, providing the chance to meet professors and current students, attend classes, and tour the campus. [Read more…] about How to Take Advantage of Admitted Student Days
About Julia Gourary
Tips for Handwriting Your Law School Notes
Here at the Law School Toolbox, we’re strong proponents of handwriting your law school notes. Sticking to pen and paper when you have the option to use a laptop might seem old-fashioned, but going old-school with your note-taking has a host of benefits, including increased retention and comprehension. Though taking notes on a laptop might seem more efficient, it has its costs in higher potential for distraction and lower comprehension.
If you’re used to typing your notes, handwriting might feel strange at first. But I urge you give it a try. I was inspired to handwrite all my notes first semester, and I discovered that I really liked it, despite the overwhelming majority of my peers using laptops. If you decide to give it a go, use these tips to help you reap the benefits of handwritten notes while keeping your records organized, efficient, and legible. [Read more…] about Tips for Handwriting Your Law School Notes
5 Ways a Law School Resume is Different from a College Resume
As the 1L summer job search gets into full swing, it’s time to make sure your resume is up to date and ready to send out to employers. If you’ve only recently transitioned from college into law school, you might be wondering if you can just take your old resume from college, stick on the name of your law school and some extracurriculars you’ve joined, and call it a day. Unfortunately, that probably won’t work. Law school, unlike most colleges, is a professional school, so your resume should reflect the profession you’ll soon be entering.
There are a variety of key differences between law school and college resumes, from content to formatting, so it’s worth spending a little extra time to make your resume law school-appropriate before sending out those summer job applications. Read on to find out five important ways a law school resume differs from a college resume. [Read more…] about 5 Ways a Law School Resume is Different from a College Resume
Five Law School “Rules” I Broke My First Semester
There are certain maxims of how to do law school that seem to have been passed down from generations of students through the ages. It can be scary to break what seem like ironclad conventions: why forge your own path if you can follow the well-trodden one?
I’m here to tell you that I did not follow many of these conventions of law school during my first semester, and I came out the other side. That’s not to say I broke them just for the sake of breaking them. Instead, I evaluated whether or not I thought they made sense for me, even tried out some of them, and then chose another way. If you’re considering breaking the mold, take a look at these five law school “rules” I broke and some alternatives to consider. [Read more…] about Five Law School “Rules” I Broke My First Semester
How to Survive Exam Stress: Setting Boundaries with Classmates
In law school, the shadow of final exams starts looming around early November. A general feeling of tenseness enters the atmosphere, and the law library begins filling up with people hunched over laptops and casebooks, wielding multicolored highlighters like weapons. People start talking about outlining, whether making their own from scratch or using other students’ from outline banks as a guide. Your classmates may start meeting for hours in study groups, bragging about the pristinely-formatted 100-page CivPro outline they just finished or the ten practice exams they’ve already taken.
It’s hard not to buy into the exam stress culture when it is so pervasive—with your grade dependent on one test, the exam becomes the be-all-and-end-all in everyone’s minds, so it makes sense that exam prep becomes a huge topic of conversation. But these discussions not only tend to be circular and unproductive, but also, even with those you consider friends, may be heightening your stress level. So what to do when you want to spend time with your classmates, but don’t want the accompanying anxiety spike from discussing exams? Setting boundaries is vital for your personal wellbeing not only in law school, but also in life, so it’s a great skill to practice now.
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How to Prepare for the 1L Summer Job Search
You only have two summers to build your legal resume before you graduate law school, so each one counts. You can use the summer after your first year of law school to hone your legal research and writing skills, try out a practice area you’re interested in, get a chance to do public interest work before going into the private sector, and more. 1L students generally spend their summer doing one of the following: working in the public sector (i.e. for a public interest organization or the government), interning for a judge, working in-house for a corporation’s legal department, acting as a professor’s research assistant, or working at a law firm.
Employers are not allowed to start recruiting until December 1 (and some don’t start recruiting until after winter break), so it might seem like there’s nothing for you to do until then. Not true! While it is important to focus on your studies first semester, it’s also vital to take some time to prepare for the summer job search. When the time comes to start searching and applying for jobs, you want to be ready to go, not reformatting your resume or trying to decide what kinds of opportunities you’re interested in. Read on to find out what you can do now, before December 1 hits, to prepare for the 1L summer job search.
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