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:
- Study early and often . Do not join any student organization during the 1st semester.
- Start outlining early (usually by the end of the 1st month).
- 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.
- But if you have to go commercial, use High Court Summary for the well-prepared briefs
- Do well in legal writing as it will open (internship) doors.
- Read Getting to Maybe to do well on exams.
- Get top 10% grades to be on Law Review to get good job and good life and so on...
posted by Monsieur 2L @ 7:31 PM
4 comments
4 Comments:
Oh my GOD! NONE of that is advice I would give. Ever. Join organizations, make friends, enjoy the beginning of the year when you have less to do and more time to figure it out, learn how to book brief (and fast!), and don't even THINK about law review or grades for a LONG TIME! It's only as miserable an experience as you make it.
Hmm... this is the opposite of some of the advice I heard at the beginning of 1L. Don't join any student organizations? But that's the fun part of law school, and the only way to get exposure to things and people you might be interested in outside of your 1L classes. We were repeatedly told NOT to outline too early, and to start after about 2 months, because otherwise we wouldn't understand what was important.
I agree about High Court Case Summaries, though -- I didn't use them, but that's because I was cheap. A bunch of people in my section did, and a lot of times when the prof asked a question and somebody came up with a brilliant answer that I totally missed in the case, it turned out to come from the High Court Case Summaries.
I'm surprised that "take practice exams" is not on the list. I think that is THE key to doing well in law school
Any advice on how to not get shivved in downtown Houston for having the audacity to attend law school on stolen land at the expense of the underprivelaged? I'm starting South Texas in January, so I'm dying to know more. Any advice for a -1L?
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