Everyone in law school gets the same number of hours in a day, so it’s critical to use your study time effectively and efficiently. Part of that is thinking like your professor, and making sure your study aids will help you give your professor what she wants on the exam.
Read on for tips on making useful law school study aids, strategies for ensuring you’re really learning the material (not just focusing on a bunch of “legal trivia”), and ways to stay focused and use your time wisely. Plus, check out our advice for getting in your professor’s head!
Useful Law School Study Aids
- Attack Plans: A Key to Law School Exam Success Have you heard of attack plans? Some law students are already familiar with attack plans, but others may be scratching their heads. Read more about how attack plans can simplify your exam approach and lead to better grades!
- Can Bar Materials Help You Study for Law School Exams? Bar outlines, essay questions, and multiple choice questions can all provide some clarity and structure to your law school studying. Find out how to use them to your advantage here.
- How to Keep Track of Ambiguity When dealing with multiple complex legal concepts and tons of facts, it's sometimes hard to find balance in ambiguity. Read our guide to managing ambiguity to better understand and communicate on law school work.
- Flashcards or Flowcharts: What’s Best in Law School? Law students get lots of advice about study aids. Some people swear by flashcards, others by flowcharts. What’s best? We give our opinions.
- Creative Ways to Organize Your Study Materials Try the suggestions below for some creative ways to organize your study material and simplify your study process.
- Tech Correspondent: My Love Affair with Microsoft OneNote In this post, April Philley, a 1L from the University of Texas School of Law, gives some excellent suggestions for using Microsoft OneNote as a way to organize your class notes.
- Want Good Grades? Get Feedback on Your Law School Exam Writing Hiring a tutor isn’t the only way to get personalized feedback in law school. Check out these other options for getting valuable pre-exam feedback.
- Video Quick Tip: Different Way to Think About Law School In this Video Quick Tip, Alison shares how to build the best foundation for your learning using cases, outlines and hornbooks, along with a different way to think about law school.
- Five Myths About the Law School Study Group The study group is a staple of the law school experience. Have you found your study group yet? Is it the key to success? Does it really matter? Today, we debunk five myths about law school study groups.
- Meeting With Your Study Group Before Exams Study groups can be extremely effective if used properly, but they can also be very unproductive. There is no formulaic method to how you should interact with your study group, but here are some things you should definitely not do.
- How Visual Learning Tools Can Help You in Law School: An Interview With SketchyLaw Using hand drawn original video scenes, SketchyLaw aims to help students review and remember important legal concepts in a unique way. Even if you don't think of yourself as a visual learner, read more to see if you could benefit from this different approach to studying the law.
- 10 Reasons Why You Should Make Your Own Outline It can be tempting to forgo the outlining process and buy a commercial outline or borrow an outline from another student. Resist that temptation! Here are ten reasons why you should make your own outline.
- Tools For Law School Success: Critical Pass Flashcards Given that aspiring attorneys need to pass a huge number of exams during law school before they can even begin to think about taking the bar exam, Critical Pass now offers flashcards for law students can help with the core concepts and prepare for exams in key law school courses.
- Why Relying Too Heavily on Supplements Could Hurt You Academically Law school supplements are everywhere these days. There is an abundance of commercial outlines, canned briefs, readymade study aids, video lectures, and other resources that will purportedly help stressed law students understand the material. But supplements have some serious flaws, and when you rely too heavily on these generic study aids, you risk hurting your chances for achieving your full academic potential.
- The Complete Guide to Memorization in Law School Since memorization has played a role in basically every part of your academic life, you might overlook its role in your legal career. In this post, we go over what makes legal memorization unique, how to memorize effectively, and how to adapt your studying to your learning style.
- The Only Three Supplies You Need as a 1L There are ways to minimize the cost of your school supplies, however, while still providing the resources you need to excel in law school.
- Podcast Episode 18: Using Supplements Effectively in Law School Whether you are in your first or final year of law school, you should be using supplements. Want to find out more about what supplements can do for you and how can you use them effectively? Listen in!
Are You Really Learning the Material in Law School?
- Are You Using Scenario-Based Studying for Law School Exams? You Should Be! Sure, outlining is an important part of studying for exams, but knowing how you’re going to use this information is far more valuable. To do that, it’s critical to think through common scenarios that are likely to appear, so you know exactly what questions to ask in your analysis.
- You're Half Way Through the Semester, Now What? Do you want to get good grades this semester? Well guess what, that needs to start right now!
- Why Practice Writing Your Own Law School Exam Questions? Why is this a good exercise? Well, it puts you in the place of doing exactly what the professor does. It is also a fantastic way to test yourself on the knowledge of law: if you can create a fact situation to trigger certain discussions of the law, then you likely really understand the law and how it is applied.
- What Most Law Students Forget to Do: Think About the Material Students feel they are constantly working, yet learning nothing. So what is missing? Why do students feel this way? What's going wrong? You're forgetting to think about the material, that's what!
- A Common Law Student Mistake: Spending Time Studying Material You Already Know When students are studying for multiple exams, they spend their time disproportionately on the class they either like the most or understand the best. This is a frequent mistake and it's not the best approach!
- Are You Spending Time Learning the Material? If Not, You Should Be So often, law students find themselves strapped for time. They feel that they must spend every moment of every day reading and preparing for class. While that is really important, you must also make significant time outside of class to learn the material. Here's how to do that.
- 3 More Evidence-Backed Law School Study Tips Law school is now in full force, and your life is likely all about studying. Here we have three more tips to help you study and get ready for exams.
- 4 Evidence-Backed Law School Study Tips Everyone knows law school involves a lot of reading and studying. But what actually works? If you are wondering how to accelerate your law school learning over the course of the semester, you may be interested in these evidence-backed study tips.
- Two Ways Your Law School Exam Answers Went Wrong Getting your first law school grades can be shocking. And what can be even more confusing is trying to figure out what you did wrong. Mostly, the answer is “the curve,” of course, but there are two fundamental ways that things can go off the rails.
- 5 Simple and Effective Memorization Techniques for Law Students In order to apply and connect information like a lawyer, you first have to know something about the topic at hand. Here are my top five tips for memorizing the information you need.
- Ahead of the Curve: Reading Cases: From Syllabus to Exam -- Prepare the Case for the Exam On top of reading and briefing cases, after class discussion, you will have notes capturing your professor’s take on a case. As you work on drafting your outline and thinking about how cases could factor into your exam, keep the following advice in mind.
- The Complete Guide to Memorization in Law School Since memorization has played a role in basically every part of your academic life, you might overlook its role in your legal career. In this post, we go over what makes legal memorization unique, how to memorize effectively, and how to adapt your studying to your learning style.
- How to Make the Most of Cooperative Learning in Law School Some of your courses are relying on techniques that go beyond the traditional Socratic method style of instruction. To be sure, the Socratic Method is still the foundation of most law school courses, but team-based or cooperative learning strategies are starting to gain some traction, and not just in experiential or elective courses. Even some core, substantive law classes have started to incorporate group learning into their curriculum. Whether cooperative learning is being forced on you through a mandatory assignment or you’re joining a study group of your own volition, you’ll get the most out of these learning experience if you understand some of the theory behind cooperative learning and follow a few key guidelines.
- Top 3 Creative Ways to Study the Professional Rules We're looking at some new and creative ways to study the professional rules.
Staying Focused When Preparing for Law School Exams
- Are You Falling Victim to the Attractive Nuisance that is the Internet? Download Some Self-Control You're studying, looking things up on the internet, and then bam -- you fall victim to click-bait. Down the rabbit hole you go... Facebook, Instagram, procrastination. If this undoubtedly ridiculous chain of procrastination above sounds more familiar than you’d like to admit, you need to get that in check. Right now. So, what can you do? How about downloading a little self-control.
- Digital Distraction: When Media is Helpful and Harmful While You Are Studying We all know how it goes: you sit down to finally get some serious work done on that term paper when *bling*, your phone screen lights up. You think, “I’ll just check it real quick, what if it’s something important?”, and before you know it, you’ve been scrolling Twitter for an hour and haven’t written a word of that essay.
- How To Stick To Your Goals in Law School Do you need help staying on track and sticking to your goals? Use these tips to stay on track.
- Procrastination Rehab: Release the Responsible Law Student Inside of You We know it's in there, the responsible student inside of you. Stop being a procrastinator today and follow these tips.
- Organizational Tools for Outlining Legal Subject Areas 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. Here are three tools to make sure that you're on track to have your outlines and practice exams done in time to be prepared for your midterm and final exams.
- Law School Exam Advice: To Each His Own Difficult though it may be, you’ve got to trust yourself, your knowledge of how you learn best, and your intuition. That’s the only way to figure out what’s best for you. Here's why.
- The Three Most Important Things You Can Do as Law School Exams Approach Law school exam time’s fast approaching! What are the three most important things you can do? Simplify, simplify, simplify
- Video Quick Tip: How Many Weeks Until Final Exams? In this Video Quick Tip, Lee talks about the importance of doing a mid-semester check-in to make sure you're starting to think about final exams and are on track with your work.
- Three Ways to Create More Time in Your Day During Exam Season There is so much to do on the internet, but do you know how much time it's taking away from your studies? Here are some ways to reclaim some of that time during exam prep season.
- Making the Most Out of Reading Week Reading week is an important opportunity to make a final push in preparation for exams. Want to make the most of it? Make sure your reading week plans include the following strategies.
- How to Be the Star of Your Study Group Study groups are wonderful for some students and detrimental for others. Here are some ways that you help your study group be as effective as possible - and help you stand out!
- Getting Weird With Memorization If you’re lucky, the practice of law can be an exciting, challenging, creative, and fulfilling undertaking. On the other hand, the study of law can be so very boring. This is true particularly in the first year of law school, where it seems the older the case, the longer it takes to get to the point. We offer some tips on how to keep yourself interested and work on your memorization.
- How to Maintain Momentum During Finals Season as a 3L How do you find the motivation that you likely threw out the window the moment you stepped into 3L year? Garnering this momentum won’t be without difficulty but maybe the below three suggestions can get you on the right track.
- Podcast Episode 7: Time and Life Management Basics In this episode we’re doing a deep dive into a critically important topic — time and life management! If you’re an over-stressed law student or young lawyer, this is a can’t miss episode.
The Importance of the Professor's Perspective
- Getting Feedback on Past Exams is Critical for Law Students As a returning 2L or 3L, you may be dreading the coming academic disappointment about your grades from last year. But it is critical to get feedback on those past exams so you can learn from them and have a better academic outcome this semester. Here are some tips.
- Final Exams: Avoid This Negative Reaction From Your Professor A professor weighs in on what she wants to see on your final exams (and what gets a negative reaction).
- The Key to Law School Exam Success? Think Like Your Professor If you want the best possible law school grades, it’s really important when taking class notes, when outlining, and when writing exam answers to take into consideration what your professor thinks is important. Why? Well, the professor is the one who writes the exam!
- Tips for Making the Most of Your Professor's Office Hours Attending office hours can be a great way to get useful information outside of your case books and supplements. Many law students however, especially 1Ls, are unsure of how to approach their professors’ office hours. If you haven’t gone to office hours yet, or if you are wondering about how to get the most out of your experience, here are some tips.
- Do's and Don'ts for Reviewing Your Final Exam If you’re less than satisfied with your Fall semester grades, an individual final exam review session with your professor is probably in order. Final exam review sessions are one of the most informative and productive ways to improve your performance on future exams because they show you both what professors are looking for on a final and where your answer went wrong. They can be enlightening, particular for students who received disappointing results. Not all professors are willing to conduct individual final exam reviews, so if you’re one of the lucky law students who has a professor that does, you should definitely take advantage of this valuable opportunity! If you’ve got your review session booked, keep these tips in mind to help you make the most of this meeting.
- Demoralizing Feedback? Look at What You Did Right Between midterms and legal writing, lots of law students are starting to get feedback…which means lots of law students are feeling pretty bummed. But here’s a hint: Don’t just focus on what you did wrong. Pay close attention to what you did RIGHT.
- Avoiding Office Hours? Go, and Get Something Out of It All student should go to law school office hours. But you shouldn’t just go to office hours — you should go with a plan to get the most out of it. Here's how to do just that.
- Go See Your Professors—They Are There for YOU! Not happy with your first semester grades and wondering what to do to fix them? The first step is to collect your exams and get feedback from your professors about what happened (click here for questions to ask in your meeting). Here's how to start using your professors this semester.
- Office Hours - Should You Go? Here is a breakdown of why office hours are so helpful and how you should utilize them.
- Video Quick Tip: Office Hours In this Quick Tip video, Alison shares some tips on how to get the most out of office hours by explaining what to bring with you and how to prepare. Check it out!
- Sucking Up to Your Law Professor Won't Help You Thanks to blind grading, sucking up to your law professor will not get you better grades. So, in a curved class, what do you need to do to get ahead?
- Podcast Episode 21: What is Your Professor Looking for on Exams? In law school, you spend a lot of time preparing for exams. What most students don't spend time much on is putting yourself in your professor's shoes and focusing on what he or she is looking for in an exam answer. That's what this episode is about!
- Podcast Episode 106: How to Go to Office Hours and Make It Worth Your Time Developing good relationships with your professors will not only have a positive effect on your law school success, but may prove to be valuable for years to follow. So tune in, and learn to love office hours!
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