Another law school entry…
For all those loyal blog readers out there, I’m guessing you remember my First Month Law School Report entry. Well, it hasn’t been two months yet, but I’m ready to write another entry about my experience thus far.
I’ve realized something that I think will allow me to maximize my academic success. There are some key strategies involved in class preparation because of the paradoxical nature of the law school experience. On the one hand you’ve got the threat of being put to the test in front of your peers and on the other hand you’ve got the exam monster, your real evaluation, hanging over your head. The problem is that there simply isn’t enough time to:
a) Prepare for all of your classes completely
b) Learn the actual law from various study guides**
c) Practice attacking hypothetical situations like the ones you might see on the exam
So what the hell are you supposed to do? In my experience thus far, the only thing a student can reasonably cut down on is class preparation. It simply doesn’t make sense to write your own brief for every case and know the case inside and out for the rare situation when you’re the one that’s called on. Even though the threat may seem great, I’ve been called on three times in Contracts, one time in Torts and one time in Civil Procedure (my other two classes don’t “teach by ambush”). I just can’t justify spending so many extra hours just to look slightly smarter or more prepared in front of the class. The reality is that all you should really do is make sure you understand the concept being presented in each case, why it’s being included, the basic facts and the court’s reasoning. I can get those from a case by getting some brief online and skimming the text of the case. Learning the procedural history, each prior court’s reasoning, random facts, etc is a huge waste of time. First, it won’t make you look that bad if you can’t recall exactly what the trial court said about some concept and second, it won’t matter on the exam.
All that being said, I still see extreme levels of preparation in some classes. I honestly have no idea how these people find the time and energy to do all of this extra prep, such as reading 2-3 supplemental texts on each topic the night before every class. Somehow they do full briefs of every case plus they triple their reading load. Not to say that I’m all-knowing about law school success, but I personally think they’re barking up the wrong tree. There’s no need to write out your own brief with free briefs all over the place online — if nothing else it saves you time typing things out to copy portions of another brief. I know it’s over-used, but this is a definite situation where it’s better to working smarter, not harder. I guess we’ll see who’s right when we get our grades back around February.
** Law students don’t actually learn the law in class, you learn how judges in certain jurisdictions apply that jurisdiction’s law to a set of facts — so it’s more that you’re learning reasoning patterns. In actuality, the general law on a subject is often different than what the result of any given case says
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