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Tag Archive for: 0L Advice

Make the Most of Your Orientation Week of Law School

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make the most of law school orientationOrientation week of law school is supposed to be a time when you are “oriented” to the law school. It is also supposed to be a time where meet new people and gain some understanding of what you’re getting into.

Some people really enjoy orientation week. Others feel intimidated by it and report feeling pressure to “network” and become BFF’s with half  of their class right away. There is also a sizable portion of people that complain about feeling like they are back in high school again. Read more

How I took One Full Day off a Week in Law School – and Why I Recommend Scheduling Breaks

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Schedule Breaks in Law School How I took One Full Day off a Week in Law School – and Why I Recommend Scheduling Breaks

Are you wondering if you should schedule breaks in law school? Most competitive law students do not take time for  regularly-scheduled breaks.  This is not to say that they study 24/7 and never take any time off – they simply do not incorporate regular breaks into their schedules.

In law school, most of my friends were pretty competitive (like me) and because they wanted to succeed, they tried to work as many hours as they could seven days a week. Some even felt guilty any time they had a family function, outing, or illness that cut down on precious study time.

A few of my friends, however, made it a point to schedule some time off.  One took Saturday mornings off. She would wake up late, take her time eating breakfast and drinking coffee, and not start studying until the afternoon.  Another took every Thursday night off to go out to eat with his parents an have a drink with friends. Read more

Law School Prep Tip #9: Learn How to Make a Law School Outline

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Law School Prep Tip #9: Learn How to Make a Law School Outline

What is outlining?

Outlining is the process of organizing and condensing all of the material that you learn over the semester into one single, manageable document that you are able to commit to memory. Outlining is an important skill to have in law school. You will be expected to make an outline for each of your core substantive law school courses.

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Law School Prep Tip #8 (for pre-law students, law students, and lawyers): Don’t Engage Negativity

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Should I go to law school if I do not want to practice law?Law School Prep Tip #8: Don’t Engage Negativity.

You deserve a lot of credit for choosing to go to law school, especially given all of the negativity that surrounds that decision. The following negative statements are constantly bouncing around the media:

“Law school is so hard.”
“The bar exam is impossible to pass.”
“The job market is so bad.”

You’ve probably had several friends, family members, and strangers warn you about the difficulty of law school or the dismal job market.  And if you’re anything like me, when someone goes out of their way to tell you how their nephew graduated two years ago and still doesn’t have a job or how so-and-so hated law school so much she dropped out, your first reaction will be to argue with the other person (and include a healthy dose of sarcasm). Read more

Law School Prep Tip #7: Get a Head Start on Legal Writing

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Get a Headstart on legal writingLaw School Prep Tip #7 is to Get a Head Start on Legal Writing.  

Why? Because being able to write a good paper, memo, or argument will help you not only throughout law school but also throughout your legal career. Many attorneys report that the law school class that helped them the most when they began practicing law was their legal writing or research class.

Because legal writing and research are such valuable and necessary skills for practicing attorneys, the vast majority of law schools require students to take some kind of legal writing or legal research class their first year of law school. Thus, it is a good idea to consider getting a head start on it over the summer.

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My Secret to Graduating as the #1 Law Student (and Law School Prep Tip #6)

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My Secret to Graduating as the #1 Law Student (and Law School Prep Tip #6 Set Challenging Goals and Develop a Unique Strategy to Accomplish Them).

My decision to go to law school was not the most well-thought-out decision I’ve ever made. I think my exact logic for that decision was:  “I want something challenging but medical school is too long.” I didn’t even have any desire to practice law.  I was basically only going to law school because I wanted the intellectual challenge. (Side note: While I do not regret my decision to go to law school for one second, I also do not recommend that such big decisions be made with such little forethought!).

Note: if you are looking for a FREE law school prep course designed by a #1 law student, please reserve your spot for our law school prep course here.

If you are looking for a very detailed guide on how to succeed in law school, please download our FREE guide here.

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Law School Summer Prep: Tip # 5 Purchase Commercial Study Aids

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Law School Summer Prep: Purchase Commercial SupplementsAs mentioned in our previous post, in law school, professors teach classes using the Socratic Method (rather than lecturing). This means that the professor will go in front of the classroom and ask students questions about the law and the assigned reading, rather than simply telling the students what the law is.  Many times students don’t know the answer. Or they get the answer wrong . Or it takes them ten minutes to arrive at the correct answer and by the time they provide the correct answer, you forgot what the question was.

This makes it very difficult to learn the law! It also means that you may find yourself very confused after class.  I remember many occasions in law school when I would leave the classroom ten times more confused than when I walked into it.  Read more

Law School Summer Prep: Blog Series Tip #2: Develop Healthy Habits

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how to prepare for law school over the summerHealthy habits are underrated in law school. In law school, you will be surrounded by classmates who put physical health on the backburner. Physical health is important, in part, because it is intimately related to mental health.  If you are looking to increase your concentration, focus, and recall – and ultimately do well in class and on law school final exams – maintaining a healthy lifestyle is something you should make a priority.   It is also something you can start on in the summer – the earlier you start changing your daily routines to make them more healthy, the better. Thus, our second tip for law school summer prep is to develop healthy habits. Here are a few suggestions on ways you can do so:  Read more

Law School Summer Prep: Blog Series Tip # 1: Read a Lot

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how to prepare for law school over the summerThis post is the first in a series about all things that 0L’s – that is students about to enter their first year of law school – can do to prepare. Some of them are lifestyle changes (for example, this blog post);  others are more substantive things (i.e. what books to read, and what assignments to get a head start on)

We assume that most of you 0Ls are not itching to grab a legal treatise on Contracts the first week of June, so for our first post, we’ll start with a lifestyle change that may be easier to implement. Read more