Preparing For Three Busy Years of Law School

Law schools deliberately give you more work to do than any human could possibly manage to do thoroughly—at least not without giving up on life as human beings know it. You must learn how to prioritize your assignments. The potential work facing you greatly exceeds your time available to do it. Determine what is most important for each course and focus on precisely that, doing additional work only as time allows.

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Falling behind is the biggest trap you face. If you fail to keep up, you will face ever increasing problems. Falling behind results in a downward cycle: You have trouble following today's lecture because you hadn't prepared for it, so you must do extra work to make up for your lack of understanding of the lecture, meaning that you will never have time to get ready for tomorrow's lecture, under-preparation for which will mean that even more work is required to be able to make up for your lack of understanding of it, and so on.

Time management extends to your whole law school experience. You should learn how to do your class work efficiently, and also decide in advance how you will spend your free time. Arrange your schedule to make time for the key activities you value most highly, and limit your involvement with other matters. You might have time to participate actively in two clubs, a sport, and a volunteer group, along with attending various career services workshops and special lectures that interest you, but you are unlikely to be able to participate in six or eight clubs and play as many sports, too.

Cut To the Chase

There are too many reading assignments in law school, and they are far too long, to do all of them completely and well. The key to keep from being overwhelmed is to learn how to do the essential work first, and the inessential later (or, better yet, not at all).

The typical student. To work effectively, you must learn to see the forest rather than the trees, the big picture rather than only the details. This is contrary to the way that courses are taught, particularly first-year courses. Most students, even those who have been advised by second- and third-year students to get the "big picture," lack the courage of their convictions and spend too much time on the details. They believe the professors who urge them to read the cases (and ignore the commercial outlines and such). They try to read and brief the assigned cases, and may top this up with a look at a commercial outline or other outside material. They end up overwhelmed. As a result, they sacrifice what they regard as the optional efforts—reading the outline for overall perspective and doing practice exams—in order to be able to spend more time reading cases. They work all the time and are consumed by stress.

A better approach. The better approach is a strictly disciplined one. Pick one course for which you will (try to) do the readings, brief each case, and so on. That will be more than enough practice at the traditional law student efforts. (Pay attention to how much more work this requires than do your other courses, without consequent improvement in learning.) For all of your other courses, do not read any cases. Instead, read two other outside materials. Read a canned brief of each case—a summary of the case. Legalines and Casenote are well-known publishers of such briefs. This will prepare you to follow the day's classroom discussions.

More important, read and re-read a commercial outline. These outlines, from Gilbert, West, Siegel, Emanuel, and so on, offer a (relatively) easy-to-understand guide to the important aspects of a subject. As with the canned briefs, they are keyed to the specific casebook you are using, so it is easy to understand which portions will be relevant to the upcoming week's assignment. Read these, and then re-read them. You should make it through the relevant section more than once before a class, and more than once in the weeks immediately after class. (Another possibility is to use a bar review outline.)

A sensible alternative. There is another sensible approach to courses for which a student outline has already been done. Check with second- and third-year students to find out whether anyone in their year produced an outline for any of your first-year courses as taught by the same professor you have. If such an outline is available, highly regarded as an accurate record of the course, and sufficiently detailed (such as 100+ pages, single spaced), feel free to rely on it as your primary source for the course. Make a copy of it to use for your daily note-taking in class. Then, at the end of each day, re-read the relevant parts of the outline and your notes, and put any notes that pass muster onto your master outline (the relatively pristine original).

The bottom line is simple: If you are putting in more than three or four hours a day outside class, you are being inefficient (and possibly wearing yourself down). Stay disciplined; working smart is more valuable than working hard. Extra time spent is unlikely to equate to better grades, just to extra time spent.

Preparing For Exams

Take mock exams every several weeks in each course. Pick questions relevant to whatever you have already studied. Have a study partner aid you in assessing your performance; examine, too, the model answer provided by the commercial outline you are using.

Doing this will serve many useful functions, among them:

• You will become accustomed to taking law school "exams," so you will not tend to panic when you must do so for real.

• You will learn the nature of law school exams. Spotting issues and giving a quick overview of the relevant legal standards, along with a very quick "discussion" of the relevant facts, is far different from the undergraduate exams you remember. (It is also vastly different from other graduate schools' exams.) Taking such exams calls for a different mindset from undergraduate exams.
   
• You will understand that a very good overview of a course is critically important, but knowing the details of all the many cases you were assigned is of limited value, indeed. This will cause you not to get overly interested in or overwhelmed by the details of these cases, or by the desire to take excessive notes in class.

Think Broadly About Your Career Development

Presumably, one of your primary reasons for being at law school is to propel your career forward. If you do nothing other than work hard for your classes, however, you will miss a large part of what law school offers in terms of career advancement potential. Several nonacademic parts of the law school experience are ideal for career enhancement, as are specific courses. Discuss with potential future employers and the career services office which skills you should master and experiences you should gain during the program.

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Some suggestions:

• Take advantage of the opportunity to get to know your classmates. You will learn a lot from the more experienced ones, and will profit from these friendships in the future, including in your career. Staying in touch with them will provide you with important career advice and information.
   
• Get to know faculty members, especially in your chosen field. You will learn a lot more about a field if you spend time with the faculty members who are doing research in it, consulting about it, and so on. They will also be able to put you in touch with good industry sources to discuss the field and potential employers or specific job prospects. You do need to avoid the appearance of trying to cozy up to them simply to improve your grades or to benefit from their largesse without giving back as well. A sincere and active interest in learning about the field, on the other hand, will meet with a positive response.
   
• Join student organizations that are relevant to your likely future career. For example, if you are interested in environmental law, join the environmental law society. You will have a chance to get to know the other members who are themselves interested in environmental law. They will be valuable contacts in the future for information about the industry, job opportunities, and so on. In addition, advocacy organizations and the like, which involve members working on behalf of clients or causes, will give you an opportunity to practice your skills—analysis, presentation, negotiation, communication, and so on—in a relatively relaxed setting.
   
• Take advantage of the professional services offered by the career services office. Take their resume preparation and interviewing workshops, have them tape a presentation and several mock interviews, and, most important, consult them about your career plans. Take the career assessment tests they give; have them analyze your personal and professional goals; ask for their perspectives on where you are most likely to derive both satisfaction and frustration in your chosen field. These experts are a source of knowledge you would have to pay a great deal to consult outside of law school, so be sure you do not waste an opportunity to get their input free of charge.
   
• Future employers will value skills that go beyond substantive knowledge of law. Your ability to speak in front of large groups, your negotiation skills, your writing abilities, and your knowledge of how to handle clients will, in total, be likely to have as much impact upon your future as will your technical legal knowledge. Therefore, gear your academic efforts to develop a broad range of relevant skills. Consider taking courses outside the law school to do so. In particular, look at the business school's course offerings.
   
• Join the local or national bar association. Become active on a relevant committee if you wish to meet lawyers active in your field. In order to establish yourself as knowledgeable about your field, contribute to the association's periodical. You have an opportunity to develop your skills and reputation along with your Rolodex (Palm Pilot) without anyone viewing you as a potential rival (yet).
   
• Join the local or national industry association(s) relevant to your field. For example, if you are a biotech person, joining a relevant biotech association will give you access to people throughout the industry. You can join a relevant committee or help out in some other way. Note, too, that it is particularly easy to get published in most relevant industry periodicals. If you are clever, you can develop relationships with those who will be your future clients (or employers). It is notoriously hard for young associates in law firms to develop their own clientele. This is one way to start the process and get ahead of the game.
   
• For those expecting to practice in the same area as the one in which the law school is located, make contact with practitioners in your field. Local alums are likely to be the most receptive to your advances. Even before you start school you can solicit their advice regarding which courses and professors to take, what special skills are most likely to be in demand, and so on. If you keep in touch with them as your law school career progresses, you may well find them offering you part-time work, or keeping you in mind when others are looking for help. They will also be helpful after you graduate, when having a strong local network will be of great value to you.

Keep Stress under Control

The first months of law school are loaded with stress. You will probably be in an unfamiliar environment, surrounded by people you do not know, and be expected to produce more work faster than you ever have before. In addition, you may be competing with people of a higher quality than you have ever encountered before. This, combined with your high expectations for your own performance, can generate tremendous pressure.

Such pressure can be good or bad. Pressure can motivate you to work hard in a focused fashion. On the other hand, too much pressure can paralyze you and leave you unable to work or concentrate.

To avoid being overwhelmed by stress, be aware of the signs. If you feel panicked about not meeting your goals, or enraged about what is being asked of you, or you are feeling the physical symptoms of stress (such as digestive problems; compulsive consumption of food, alcohol, or cigarettes; or tightness in your neck and shoulders), you may well be suffering from excessive stress.

Then recognize what is causing your stress. This is likely to be a combination of two things. First, you are demanding too much of yourself. You are expecting to read each case down to the minutest detail, and be able to respond correctly to each and every interrogation in class. You are also probably expecting to get through the whole program without falling flat on your face a few times. Be realistic; disappointments and mistakes are a normal part of the learning experience.

Second, you are failing to appreciate that law school programs deliberately give you more work than anyone can do in the time available. This can be a rotten combination. You need to learn, as noted earlier, how to digest the important elements of courses without wasting unnecessary amounts of time on them. You must carefully and firmly prioritize what you will do and what you will skip.

In addition, keep your everyday life under suitable control:

• Get regular exercise. Pick a sport you enjoy and devote half an hour or an hour to it at least five days a week. This will provide you with a suitable outlet for your anxiety, anger, and frustration.
   
• Eat properly. Too many late-night pizzas, or burgers wolfed down minutes before class, will eventually sap your energy and health.
   
• Get a reasonable amount of sleep, and make sure that once a week you get an extra couple of hours to help make up for your overly-demanding schedule.
   
• Last, do not let yourself be bothered by trivial annoyances. Learn to kid around with someone about the sillier aspects of your existence, including those that rile you despite their being not worth annoyance, let alone anger. For example, if you are cut off by a driver on the way to school, it is not worth screaming and yelling at him just because you are not suitably relaxed. The more such occurrences bother you, the greater the cumulative level of stress you will feel.

Don't Forget the Social Experience

Get involved in school life. Join several clubs, participate in a sport or two, and get to know your classmates and your professors. If you are married, involve your spouse in as many activities as possible, because it will enrich your experience to be able to share it with someone who truly understands what is involved, and he or she will enjoy the time rather than resenting your new and all-consuming lifestyle.

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