What to Do before School Starts

Get started as early as possible. Four weeks is not too much time to give yourself, as there is a lot to do. Here are some suggestions to help you spend this time profitably.

If you are not going to be living in a dorm, get yourself the best accommodations you can afford. It may be unrealistic to expect anyone to move in a month in advance, but it would be prudent to make your arrangements as early as possible before the crowd gets there. Try to get a room close to the university law library. That is where you will be spending your after-class hours, and the less time you waste trudging back and forth, the more you will have for work and study.


Look for a place that is relatively quiet. You will need as much sleep as you can get, and when you are studying in your room you will need an atmosphere that lets you concentrate on difficult work. I had a small apartment at the start of my second year of law school that looked pretty good when I took it. After a music major moved in next door, along with his African drums, Chinese oboe, several other instruments, loud stereos, and lots of wine-bearing visitors, it became a great place for fun, but not exactly the ideal spot to concentrate on the learned writings of Supreme Court justices. Soon I was spending more time at my neighbor's place than my own. If I had not moved to new quarters I am sure I would have flunked out that semester.

Besides your apartment, check out all the cheap restaurants, pizza places, beer joints, water holes, and singles bars in the neighborhood. Find one or two really good places to dine out. Do these things now, as you will not have much time later. Do not forget the markets, drugstores, movies, gyms, emergency medical set-up, and anything else you might need. You can do most of this at night and on weekends.

As soon as possible, get a list of the casebooks that you will be using and then go out and buy them. Make sure you get the right edition. Off-campus prices may be cheaper; but be careful, especially of sidewalk vendors, who are notorious for passing off stale material.

Sometime before the first day of class you should devote time to checking out things around school itself, and also to visiting the local county courthouse and the state appellate court, if there is one nearby.

On campus, see if any professors are around, particularly those you may have this semester; introduce yourself and try to get acquainted. Say hello to the administrators and clerical help in the office. Ask everyone you meet for any tips that might help you get through the first year. Occasionally you will pick up some valuable information. If you have the time and inclination, go into the empty lecture hall where your class will be held. You might want to sit in a few different seats to find your preference and then, if you feel it is important enough, get there early on the first day of class and claim it.

Spend a few hours looking around the law library. Get to know the librarians. Most are pretty helpful. Browse around the different parts of the stacks and thumb through the various types of law books. Find out where the best carrels are for you to work. Look out for drafty air conditioning outlets, areas where there will be too much visual stimulation, noise, student traffic, and other distractions. This personal environmental impact survey could be extremely worth-while. Think of yourself as an embryo and the library as your womb-home for the next three years.

When you visit the county courthouse, ask the clerk to show you how the litigation indices work. Take a look at a few civil and criminal files. One thing that may come as a surprise is that a lawsuit ultimately boils down to a bunch of papers. An appellate court looked at a similar bunch of papers to reach the decision printed in your casebook. On this early visit do not make any attempt to understand the material in the files. But do notice the titles: Complaint, Temporary Restraining Order, Demurrer, Answer, Motion, and so on. You will see that everything is presented formally. Be aware that some underlying controversy is the reason why each case is before the court.

All of this will give you a better grasp of what you will be studying later on. You may note that some lawyers seem to have put more work into their cases than others. While it is not always true, it usually works out that the most thoroughly prepared are the ones who win.

When you are through looking at the files, go upstairs to the county law library. Get acquainted with the librarian, who could be of great help to you during your entire law school career. For example, if a professor assigns outside reading and there is a big waiting list at the school library, a friendly county law librarian may lend you a copy from the court library, or perhaps even get you one through the state library book exchange. This librarian could save you the outdated advance sheets--the paperback copies of the current appellate court opinions, which come out before the bound volumes--which would give you a little home library of the latest cases to supplement those printed in your casebooks.

If some other enterprising individual is already receiving the advance sheets, try stopping in at a few of the law firms in town to see if they will give you their throwaways. It is another source to tap and could give you a future job contact.

The state appellate court may not be close enough to the law school to visit, and if you do get to it, it may not be in session.

However, if it is accessible, go. You will at least be able to check out the files. You will note that each of these appellate cases contains a copy of the trial court clerk's record, a stenographic transcript of the trial court testimony and the briefs filed by each side. A completed case also will contain a copy of the appellate court's opinion.

County trial courts rarely write opinions, and those they do write are not accorded much respect as legal authority. In the federal system, however, District Court judges often write opinions. Their views are accorded intellectual value and are often used to bolster legal reasoning and arguments expounded by state and federal appellate courts. The casebooks you will use contain selected opinions of the appellate courts. Appellate opinions have precedential value in the jurisdictions where they are issued. They are also persuasive to decision writers in other geographic areas of the country. As of the date they are written, they contain the latest judicial thinking on the legal issues involved.