|
|
|||
|
|||
Charles Glasser
| This FAQ | |
| No one set of answers is going to apply to every school, nor to every individual. Nonetheless, there are some commonalties among all law students and law schools. This FAQ is just a general guide, and to be sure there are things not covered here that ought to be. When you do arrive at law school, try not to put too much faith in third-hand cafeteria info. One-L's tend to filter out the real information in this stuff and generally pass along only the most paranoia-inducing stuff. If you can acquaint yourself with a 2 or 3L that can spend time with you, you"ll be doing yourself a big favor. Also, try and meet a 2 or 3L that has taken the same class with the same professor. He or she might clue you into their style both in the class and on the exam. More on this in "Exams." Develop a good BS detector. Anecdotal evidence is usually suspect, especially when it's been passed around for years at a law school. | |
| How Can I Hit the Ground Running? | |
| This is a question that appears often. Law students are generally a more motivated type, and its understandable that one might want to get a "head start." Unfortunately, law students are usually as equally paranoid as they are motivated--a dangerous combination. Law Schools do not expect you to know either substantive law, nor forms of legal analysis before you get there. Try to remember that the fact that you got in means that they believe that you have the requisite ability to learn both. Let it happen at the pace that the school has designed for you. As to the summer before one-l, you might read something fairly erudite and law-related, like Holmes' "The Path of The Law," or Llewellen"s "The Bramble Bush," but for the most part, you should take this time to relax your mind, and get the other parts of your life in order. | |
| How Can I Get Ready For Law School? | |
| As mentioned [above], there isn't much that you have to (or should) do to be intellectually prepared. However, there are a couple of things that you should do to make your life easier during one-l. Take care of business that might possibly distract you, or eat up large quantities of time. Are you sitting on the fence in a relationship? This is the time to fall off the fence, either one way or another. Do you have a place to live? Are you planning on getting dental surgery? Take care of these kinds of things *before* school starts. Likewise for financial aid and scholarship stuff. Try to get any problems squared away *before* school starts. In every class there is always that one student that is freaked out in the middle of the semester about money and tuition, when her mind should be on Conditions Precedent To Contract. Are you in a band, or have a part-time job, or involved in some creative endeavor that requires a commitment of time? Be honest with the other people in that group and back out *now*. Unless you are going to night law school, you simply will not have the time to do both, or at least, to do both well. | |
| What Classes Should I Take? | |
| In most ABA schools, first-years don't have a choice. You are assigned a "section" and the whole lot of you have the same schedule for Contracts, CivPro, Torts, etc. | |
| Are Study Groups Good? | |
| This is a very subjective call. A lot of this depends on your studying style, interpersonal skills, and the class method in question. They tend to sink to the level of the "slowest" person in the group. Out of kindness, study groups tend to slow down, making sure that everyone understands the material. This might annoy you, this might help you. The study group *should* have a defined method before starting. Not that any one goal is better than the next, but you all should decide whether you're going to quiz each other, or compare notes, or work together on finished outlines. Some find study groups to be most useful right before exams. (See "Exams", infra.) John Sexton, Dean of NYU strongly suggests study groups to his first-year students, but not just to study. Rather, it allows one- L's to develop small support networks. There is a lot to be said for this. (See "Exams," and "Not Losing Your Mind) | |
| Mental Health | |
| Hornbooks, Outlines...Whats The Deal? | |
| Hornbooks (or treatises) are in-depth discussions of a specific topic, usually written by professors (and their 2nd-year research assistants). Often, they are companion pieces to casebooks. Others have been around for 75 years and are constantly edited. Should you buy them? Depends. First, they aren't cheap, usually running about 50 bucks each. And they are available in your library. Second, they may confuse you more than help you. Rather than giving the law student a broad picture of elements of say, Civil Procedure, they are more inclined to go into fine detail about one narrow issue at a time. That means that reading a hornbook for detail without the requisite general knowledge might confuse you more than help. On the other hand, for the more intellectually curious, hornbooks are the best way to flesh out parts of a narrow argument or concept. (See Recommendations) Outlines, such as Gilberts and Emmanuels on the other hand, are about as general as one can get. They serve as a kind of road map, giving the student an overview of the topic that helps one get the general idea before reading the assigned cases themselves. In every class, there is always one person that sniffs at them, ridiculing others for using them. By the end of the semester he or she is using them. They are not definitive and they are not always accurate, but they serve a purpose well. WARNING! These commercial outlines are not substitutes for the reading material assigned in class. Even if they cover the same material as the professor assigned, they often arrive at different conclusions. Canned Briefs, or "casenotes" are the bottom-feeders of the legal publishing world. These pre-digested notes are tempting, as they are published to "track" your casebook. But learning law really doesnt mean memorizing a bunch of rules and cases. It means learning to analyze and extract theory from a set of circumstances, and these books negate the need for you to practice that skill. | |
| How should I take notes? | |
| Use a pen. *rim shot* Seriously, you got through undergrad, you already know how to take notes. Many thoughtful students' best notes are taken *the night before* class. Huh? That's right... Don't just read the cases the night before, or fall prey to the highlighter syndrome. As you are reading the cases, devote at least one page to each case, and brief it in some variation of the following; Name, Jurisdiction, Posture, Facts of the Case, Rule Applied, Court's Reasoning. Also, if something about the case throws you, or if you are confused about something, write it down. If it doesnt get answered in class, you can at least ask the professor about it. Now, the next day in class, as the case is discussed, you can go through your list as it is being discussed, and check off what you got right, or correct what you missed. No frantic writing or missed words. And if you are "hit" (See "Socrates Unplugged") you have it all in front of you. | |
| Socrates Unplugged | |
| The Paper Chase was a movie. This is the real world. The fact is, that at most top schools, it is considered very bad form among professors to torture students publicly. Some teachers hit students randomly, others call on the same people, looking for someone to parrot their take on things, yet others go in the order of the seating chart in a democratic fashion. The fact is, that answering a question incorrectly in front of a hundred people is a rite of passage, and it has to happen to everyone sooner or later. The best thing to do is be good-natured about it. The professor may tease you a little, and the class may laugh, but this laughter is more often than not nervous rather than malicious. Most of them are thinking "Thank god it's them and not me." So if you *do* say something dumb, or stumble, or both, laugh right along with them. | |
| Exams...Am I Doomed? | |
|
Sort of, but its not as bad as you think. Larry Kramer, formerly a Professor at University of Michigan and now at NYU says that after an exam, "your hand should hurt, your vision should be bleary and you should be totally exhausted." Law school exams are like *nothing* you had as an undergraduate. In most cases, you'll have something like three or four hours to answer two or three fact patterns. A fact pattern is a heinously long story, the point of which is to get the student to extract each possible theory and define, apply and conclude it. Some professors throw in a "policy" question to let you run with the ball a bit, but it is usually a request for you to echo their ideology. Many schools keep old exams and even model answers on file at the library. Look at them about half-way through the semester, and try to ascertain what wave-length that professor is on. Most professors w | |