The orientation to get ready for the actual orientation

I just got back from the "New Students Reception/Panel" or as Assistant Dean Alicia Cramer puts it "the orientation to get ready for the actual orientation" on the following day. There were four people on the panel: a part-timer, a 1L/2L (don't ask), another 2L, and a recent law graduate. They gave these standard advices about law school/life/career:

1. Study early and often . Do not join any student organization during the 1st semester.
2. Start outlining early (usually by the end of the 1st month).
3. There is no substitute for reading and briefing the cases. Use commercial outlines, and briefs as supplement to your own reading/work, and not to replace them.
4. But if you have to go commercial, use High Court Summary for the well-prepared briefs
5. Do well in legal writing as it will open (internship) doors.
6. Read Getting to Maybe to do well on exams.
7. Get top 10% grades to be on Law Review to get good job and good life and so on...

Paper Chase DVD

I highly recommend The Paper Chase movie, which I saw on DVD the other night. This dramedy is entertaining and touching; especially when a married 1L with a pregnant wife isn't cut out for Harvard Law and complemplates suicide. You will get a decent introduction for the Socratic method.

What is surprising for me is that Timothy Bottoms who plays the lead character Mr. Hart in the movie is now doing a killer Bush impression on Comedy Central's That's My Bush.