The one thing you don’t need to worry about as a 1L is deciding which classes to take, because you’re unlikely to have much choice. 1Ls are typically divided into “sections” and you’ll take all or most of your classes with your section. (Many schools have one “small section” where you’ll have 20-30 classmates for a substantive class, versus 100 or more for your other classes. And your legal research and writing class will generally be small.)
Each semester as a 1L, you’ll probably be taking some combination of the following classes:
Core First-Year Courses
Torts
Tort law governs when courts will award money from one party to another for acts that are intentional or negligent. Here you’ll study civil cases covering claims like assault, battery, negligence, trespass, emotional distress, and false imprisonment.
Civil Procedure
Who can you sue and how, when, and where can you do it? This class takes you through, you guessed it, the procedures and rules of civil lawsuits.
Property
Get ready to talk about “Blackacre,” the most commonly used name for land in fictional property cases. In property, you’ll study cases dealing with disputes over who owns land, landlord and tenant conflicts, and whether someone who doesn’t own land might still have the right to use it in limited ways.
Criminal Law
What do you have to do to be guilty of a crime, what state of mind do you need to have while doing it, and what defenses might get you off the hook?
Constitutional Law
You’ll definitely cover how the government is structured, which branch has what powers, and how equal protection and due process work. If you have time or if your school requires a second semester of Con Law, you’ll also learn about the more exciting stuff, like free speech.
Contracts
How to make them and break them, and what happens when they are breached.
Legal Research and Writing
This course goes by different names at different schools, but most 1Ls will take some version of it for a full year. You’ll spend time learning how to research the law both in books (yes, sometimes!) and online, and you’ll have writing assignments where you’ll learn the proper structure and writing style for legal documents, usually a memo and a trial or appellate brief.
Details vs. the Big Picture
Lawyers, by nature and training, are detail-oriented folks. If you’re a “big picture” thinker, you may be surprised by how many details you’ll have to pay attention to in order to do well in law school. Tweaking one tiny facet of the hypothetical scenario you’re discussing can change the entire outcome, as can one poorly-placed comma in a contract or patent (seriously, people fight for years and spend millions of dollars in legal fees over such things).
Conversely, if you’re good at the details, it’s easy to miss the big picture, which can also be problematic. You might remember every detail of the cases you read, but have no idea how to use this information to analyze a new situation.
It’s this push-pull between the big picture and the details that makes law an interesting, and challenging, discipline. Learning to navigate this tension is one critical component of law school success.
What’s the Point of Class?
One of the most critical things you can do to optimize your law school grades is simple:
Pay attention in class and participate fully.
You are trying to master an entirely new world. Your professor is your guide to this new world, and—critically—the person giving out grades at the end of the semester. Class is your time to gather critical insight into how your professor wants you to understand the law.
Why is class so important?
- It gives you a chance to double-check your understanding. If you’ve read the assigned cases carefully, class might seem a little redundant. You probably already understand much of what’s going to be discussed. However, you need to double-check your understanding. Try to stay focused—particularly when you think you understand the topic. The devil is in the details, and it’s easy to get complacent and miss something important.
- It gives you critical information about what YOUR professor thinks is important. If you want great law school grades, it’s important to hone in on what your particular professor thinks is important. The easiest way to find this out is to pay attention to what he or she spends class time talking about. Are there particular topics that come up over and over again? Does your professor have a unique point of view about the course content? Even if you disagree with this point of view, it’s important to understand what it is.
- It shows you how your professor talks about the material. Are there particular words or descriptions of concepts that are frequently mentioned? Did she write something on the board? If so, you’ll want to keep an eye out for ways to include these phrases (sometimes called “terms of art”) in your exam answers. Your professor may also break the law down into parts, or elements. Any time this happens, write it down, because this is the “black letter law” you need on exams.
- It helps you learn how to think about the law. Class, in the ideal, is a chance for you to learn to think about and talk about the law. Not every professor does a perfect job with the Socratic method, unfortunately, but—when it’s well used—you’re getting a daily tutorial in how legal reasoning works. All of these crazy questions and variations your professor throws out? You should be asking yourself similar questions when you read the assigned cases, and later when you prepare for exams. These hypothetical questions often indicate areas of ambiguity, which are disproportionately likely to be tested on the final, so pay attention.
So that’s what you can expect from your first-year law school curriculum. Now that you know what courses you’ll be taking, you can start preparing for the unique challenges of each one!
Looking for some help to do your best in law school? Find out about our law school tutoring options.
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