Posted 4 years, 7 months ago at around evening time by abogado
This time last year I was settling back in to American life after four months of traveling in South Asia. For the two months of life-limbo between post-collegiate-global-exploration and cross-coastal-pre-grad school-legal-orientation, I had no job, no permanent home, and really not a care in the world. Unfortunately, I nearly squandered this incredibly rare situation of non-existent responsibility and infinite freedom due to a persistent anxiety of what the law school experience would bring and a lingering need to know what to expect. So, just in case there are people out there who, like me a year ago, can’t sit back and enjoy a good thing when they’ve got it (and knowing the kind of people that end up in law school that is nearly everyone), or for anyone who wants some insight in to the world of law school, I am going to attempt to put together some random observations, hints, and advice that will probably prove to be absolutely worthless to you in your legal career, but that you think you want to know anyway. This may or may not conform to a numerical list or any type of recognizable organizational scheme.
#1: Do Not Read “1L” by Scott Turow
Seriously, the guy is an unbelievable whiner. Harvard is obviously a competitive school and I’m sure the people there put a lot of pressure on themselves to succeed, but how many times was he on the edge of nervous breakdown? There are 550 1L’s at Harvard every year. If he didn’t like the people in his study groups or clique of friends, he should have found a new ones. Or, better yet, studied on his own.
Tangential piece of advice: study groups are largely mechanisms for the “gunners” [From Wikipedia: “A gunner in educational colloquial terminology is a person who is competitive, overly-ambitious and substantially exceeds minimum requirements. A gunner will compromise his/her peer relationships and/or reputation among peers in order to obtain recognition and praise from his/her superiors.” Sounds about right to me.] to get together and either attempt to display their infinite wisdom, or to expose others’ lack thereof, for the purpose of patching the holes in their egos that constantly leak self-esteem. If you decide to join a study group (I never did and did fine, but see #3) wait until you know the people in the group and you know how they will respond under pressure and whether or not they are complete assholes, with the latter being the most important consideration.
As for Turow, things may have been slightly more intense 20 years ago as far as the Socratic method and the hard-ass professors, but I highly doubt the gossip/gunner/workload etc. factors have changed much at all. I read it, it freaked me out, and it was completely unnecessary.
Tangential piece of advice 1.2: “Law School Confidential” is nearly as worthless and will freak you out even more. There are a few bits of good advice in the book, but it’s basically hundreds of pages of “how to be an obnoxious law student”. Scoplaw, a classmate of mine, gives similar, but better advice here and discusses the somewhat infamous Section 3 [“Law School Can be Different”]. (p.s. If anyone has specific questions about GULC or Section 3 feel free to leave a comment or email me.)
#2: So Should I Prepare at All?
I wouldn’t read anything too specific to the law. You may have a book to read for orientation or the like; go ahead and read that. What I wish I would have done, instead of reading the above, was to read something critical of the legal educational institution or the legal institution in general. It is very easy to ignore such issues when you are memorizing the requirements for a contract, but in my opinion this will provide the needed perspective to understand not just the “what” but the “why”.
I’m having second thoughts about even recommending the background reading so I won’t give any specifics, but the point remains: anything you need to know (and plenty more) you will learn in class. If you want to know what a Tort is, read the wikipedia entry, anything more in depth is probably a waste of time and energy.
#3: Study Techniques
Any advice that someone gives on how to study is bound to be completely inaccurate for >75% of people out there. Personally, I figured out which classes I had to read for and read every page assigned. I figured out which classes I didn’t have to read for, and barely cracked the book. I figured out which professors lectured exactly what they wanted you to know (usually corresponding to the classes in which reading is not necessary), and I took copious notes, everyday. Other classes you could get by without attending once and doing all the reading. The one thing that I did for every class (and again, many people I know never did this) is my own outline. Outlines are basically 50-100 page summaries of the class in outline form. Most (if not all) exams are open-note, which means open-laptop and Ctrl-F. Searchable notes and a detailed outline are key in exams where you cannot possibly remember everything and time is the main constraint. All that said, probably 10+% of the class did exactly the opposite and did far better than me, so my only advice here is take any study advice with a grain of salt.
Tangential advice 3.1: Work on your typing and become very familiar with Word. Seriously, this will help you far more than doing summer reading on the Rule against perpetuities (which is obsolete anyway).
#4: For God Sake, Please Do Not Brief Every Case
Okay, so I know a few people who did this, and I’m pretty sure that they aced every class, but seriously, for those of us that do something other than law school (at least once in a while) there are far better ways of spending time. This falls under the rubric of study advice, so again, take it for what its worth, but I briefed cases for the first week and never thought about doing it again. When you are studying for exams, a brief is far too hollow to provide any help and you really should read and outline the case again anyway so it is fresh. The only legitimate reason to brief cases is the ever-present fear of the cold-call, but once you’ve been made a fool of by a professor once or twice (and seen every other member of your class equally humiliated) this fear should subside. More importantly, Westlaw does this for you. Go to the headnotes, copy them and paste them in to your notes if you need to, but please, do not brief every case.
There is a whole other set of advice for when classes get going, but I’ll save that for another time as this nonsense is long enough. The overarching theme of any advice I can give is to chill out. Seriously, there is plenty of shit to worry about in law school: grades, journals, moot court, your reputation, job prospects, where a good happy hour is on a Monday night . Make sure you focus on the things that actually matter (like the latter). Listen to what everyone has to say, but don’t necessarily believe a word of it.
If for some unknown reason anyone has specific questions unfit for comments feel free to email me.
[...] abogado [...]
The only advice I wanna read is how to get into the Federalist Society ’cause that’s obviously the fast track to success. Come on, I know you know the secret handshake. Show it to us.
Is Viet Dinh a federalist? Did you read these emails? Do lawyers talk about other things besides law?
Boy am I glad you didn’t convince me to read 1L and use StoreLaw. Fuckin’ dork.
dude you really like talking about law school.
Oso – Federalist Society is open to everyone as far as I can tell — the more successful evil twin of the ACS. We should have someone sign up to receive their emails so we can keep tabs on these people. They do put on pretty good symposia though. Don’t know about Mr. Dinh’s club affiliations, but it wouldn’t surprise me.
That email series is pretty interesting, I try to check it out every once in a while.
Lawyers? Yeah, they talk about eating babies and which new BMW to buy this week.
Bobbo – I remember the Strorelaw — which seemed like such a great idea at the time. Definately don’t remember recommending 1L. If I did, can you ever forgive me?
Rajeev – I’m not sure that I enjoy talking about it so much as it is the only thing I feel particularly qualified for at the moment. I’m not very proficient with the law, but I’m a damn expert at what the first year of law school is about. Anyway, when we go out I try to observe bar etiquette of not discussing law school, so it probably comes out disproportionately here. So, How ’bout them Angels? I really need football season to start soon.
i have no comments on the law school thing, as hey, i can’t get myself to stomach the thought of going to grad school even now (teaching in the public school system will do that to you). however, i will say this — i had never looked at your flickr photostream of your southeast asia journeys … you got some really got shots, man.
I find that some of the advice I’d give for the first year of a PhD program in education is pretty similar, especially (a) you don’t really need to read everything your professor assigns; (b) have a life and do something else besides study; (c) chill.
what did you score on the LSAT…inquiring minds would like to know.
yea I hate AOL too
Myke – glad you enjoyed the pics. I enjoyed taking them.
Cindylu – I always imagine PhD students sitting in coffee shops having deep conversations and rarely stressing out about anything. I’m certain that is not the case, but it’s a great thought.
Gustavo – I’m not sure if its really good form to reveal such information on a blog. Are you planning on taking/have taken it? Feel free to shoot me an email.
Moreno! See Oso, I told you he didn’t run off and join a hipster commune in Copenhagen. Silly Oso.
Yo Abogado,
Cheers,
This is in regards to your Roberts Nomination post. I agree that Moveon didn’t provide a solid argument to not support the guy. But the latest one I got from PFAW seems a little better:
“When Roberts worked for the Reagan Justice Department, for example, he derided what he termed the “so-called” right to privacy and said that it is “not to be found in the Constitution.” The Washington Post reported yesterday that Roberts, referring to the Supreme Court’s landmark privacy ruling in Griswold v. Connecticut, praised a dissent that would have permitted states to prosecute people for using contraceptives–even married couples!
But this is only the tip of the iceberg. Here are some highlights from what the press uncovered over the last week. While working under Republican presidents, John Roberts:
*supported regulatory changes that would have permitted the federal funding of discrimination against women, minorities, people with disabilities, and older Americans (Washington Post, July 26 );
argued that Congress should strip the Supreme Court of authority to rule on cases regarding abortion, school prayer, and certain school desegregation remedies (New York Times, July 28 );
*argued that affirmative action programs were bound to fail because they required “the recruiting of inadequately prepared candidates” (New York Times, July 28 );
*criticized the Supreme Court decision forbidding organized prayer in public schools;
*sought to expand the ability of prosecutors and police to question suspects out of the presence of their attorneys (Washington Post, July 26 );
*and argued that the Justice Department should not intervene on behalf of female prisoners who were discriminated against in a job-training program (New York Times, July 28 );
…and this information comes from documents the White House willingly made available!”
So what now?
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PhD students stress out a lot more than you think. It’s called quals and orals. Also, anything involving money is pretty stressful since we don’t have much of it and have to practically beg our advisors to get us a job.
Some of us don’t drink coffee, but we do have deep conversations about abstract theories and APA style over lunch, dinner or hookah.
Revazito – good to hear from you as always. Hope things are chill. Any chance you can make it down to SoCal in the next few weeks?
This is hard for me to comment on without knowing the exact context that they are talking about, but I am assuming when they say “when he worked for the Justice Department” they are refering to when he was an assistant to the Attorney General. If this is the case, then his “deriding” a decision may simply mean that in his capacity as Assistant Attorney General he was arguing against that position. Basically, the point is that he worked for Reagan, his job was to defend the position that the administration wanted, and to that end he would be required to make the best argument possible. The point is it *may not* have anything to do with his own views or how he would respond as a judge. Now, I am not naive enough to think that he is going to be a progressive when it comes to social issues like abortion and birth control. Regardless of his personal opinions, he had an obligation when he took that job to make the best argument possible. Believing otherwise would be like saying Public Defenders support the act of murder, or all Prosecutors unequivically support the drug law regime. That’s just not how the legal profession functions, and for good reason.
hmmmm. I’d be very curious to know what he was supporting and in what capacity. Usually, when attacks are phrased in this way (i.e. “Mrs. So-and-so voted for the elimination of money for our kids to go to school so they can succeed in life!”) they are masking something that justifies the position. The Republicans mastered this technique against Kerry and I don’t particularly like it.
Again, this says nothing about in what capacity he said or “argued” these things. Personally, I think they are being deceptive and using scare tactics ala Karl Rove. If he were making these types of statements and implications I would say the same thing. If I am wrong, and these were academic or personal statements then that would change everything, and they should say so in the reporting. But my hunch is that these are not manifestations of his personal beliefs *even if he does really believe such things*. Therein lies the problem IMO: we just don’t know. So we are left to judge him by his credentials, and they are pretty much impecible. I just want to avoid the hypocrisy of using Republican-style scare tactics that are baseless and manipulative. If there are good arguments against the guy someone will find them, but the fact that he “argued” something as a lawyer is not convincing and its disingenuous IMHO.
” I just want to avoid the hypocrisy of using Republican-style scare tactics that are baseless and manipulative.”
I completely agree man… Thanks for those comments.
I wish I could make it down man, but I have some interviews and stuff coming up next week. But we’ll see. What the hell are you guys doing going out in La Jolla on a Thursday night? I know you guys know of better spots, come on now. We can’t always be looking out for Oso and making sure he can walk home belligerent when he needs to. I know some ladies who are headed to Beachcomber tonight. Damn, 75 cent beers sound pretty good, huh? I’ll be there in spirit. pace.
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