What If I Didn’t Do Well On First-Year Law School Exams?

It’s no secret that your grades in your first year of law school are very important and that the final exam comprises most of your grade. Thus, you should take studying for finals very seriously! But even if you didn’t do well on your first-year law school exams, it doesn’t mean you can’t recover and improve moving forward! Doing poorly is an excellent wake-up call, an indication that something didn’t work right. In this post, we give you a few tips of what you can do if you didn’t do well on your first-year law school exams! Modifying your approach with these tips will give you a better chance at success next semester!

What If I Didn’t Do Well On First-Year Law School Exams?

1. Take stock of your study strategies.

As mentioned above, if you didn’t do well on first-year law school exams, something didn’t work right. Thus, the first thing you need to do is evaluate how you approached the semester. How well did you prepare for class each day? Did you stay on top of your assignments? Did you: Spend too much time focusing on the wrong things (like briefing cases) that you couldn’t get through everything? Wait until the end of the semester to start outlining? Ignore your outline after it was finished? Waste time during the exam flipping through your outline? Do any practice exams? To summarize an old adage, you can’t keep doing the same thing and expect different results. As such, you need to evaluate your approach to this last semester and make some changes for the next one.

2. Start outlining earlier.

One very common mistake we see law students make is that they don’t start outlining early enough. Many students save all their outlining until the end of the semester, and then they get overwhelmed. It also doesn’t leave any time to review the outlines and memorize as much law as possible. Your outline should be thought of purely as a safety net on an open-book exam.

The construction of your outline and subsequent review should allow you to have most of the relevant law memorized. Then, during the exam, you can focus on writing a precise, detailed response to the essay question(s) posed. Flipping through your outline just takes time. If you finish your outline right around the time you finish classes, you will have plenty of time to review your outlines before the exam! Therefore, if you didn’t do well on your first-year law school exams, try to set aside some time at the end of each week to update your outlines next semester!

3. Take more detailed notes in class.

If you didn’t do well on your first-year law school exams, another thing to work on for next semester is your approach to class each day. Remember that your professor is the one who writes your final exam and the correct answer. Thus, the most important person’s thoughts about the law and its application is your professor’s. By taking good notes during class, you’ll have documented exactly how your professor wants the information presented. If your professor explains a hypothetical, pay attention to the situation and the method of analysis used. It could be helpful for you when you go to analyze a situation created by your professor on the final. If you take good notes during class, then you can immediately transfer your professor’s thoughts directly into your outline. Then you’ll be able to review these notes before the exam!

4. Take practice exams.

Finally, if you didn’t do well on your first-year law school exams, it could be because the format and style of the exam were unfamiliar to you. Law school exams are a whole new animal. For this reason, it is highly beneficial for you to complete practice exams before the real thing. The best practice exams are your professor’s past finals. By completing these, you’ll get an idea of how your professor likes to write questions, test certain concepts, and the kinds of answers your professor expects.

You can practice issue spotting with these questions, making sure that you have developed the skill of identifying what problems need to be addressed. You will learn if you are applying the law properly and if you are analyzing with the proper level of detail. When you’ve done practice exams, you’re no longer walking into the real exam blind. It is always best to be as prepared as possible!

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What If I Didn’t Do Well On First-Year Law School Exams?