Ask Noah About First Year of Law School, Getting inTop 10%, Law Review

[nickg1532]

i should be like you and not even try to read for class.

law review is kind of a pain. i don't know what your hours requirements are like, but ours suck.

i'm working as a research assistant, so that takes a 10 hours chunk out of each week.

the job search stuff is kind of a pain too. i mean, i enjoy being put up in nice hotels and being treated to good meals, but i'm not productive at all when i'm on a callback.

anyways, this year has been super busy. can't wait til i'm a 3L

[Hey_Porter]

[ QUOTE ]

anyways, this year has been super busy. can't wait til i'm a 3L

[/ QUOTE ]

My 2L was actually ok, but 3L was excellent. All I did was play golf two times a week off of student loans and go to the race track every monday. Did that all of May and June before the bar too. That led to a little more anxiety after the exam (as I thought to myself, "damn, I shouldn't have played as much golf"), but I passed, so in hindsight I wouldn't change a thing!

[remi983]

Noah, care to comment on my 1L study strategy:

I'm in a four person study group and each member is assigned 1 course to become an expert on. For instance, I'm the group's expert for contracts. I'm responsible for the group's outline, finding and summarizing the professor's law review articles on contracts, gathering old tets, and consulting nutshells, etc. The other 3 members are responsible for torts, criminal & civ pro.

We'll start exchanging our materials in early October and practice taking exams soon after that. We'll talk out the answers and consult model answers. If we have any questins after that, the designated expert has to ask the professor to explain.

Thoughts?

ps Thank for telling me about High Court Case Summaries. My life is so much easier with them.

[XXXNoahXXX]

remi,

[ QUOTE ]
finding and summarizing the professor's law review articles on contracts

[/ QUOTE ]


Dear God. Are you seriously doing this? This goes so far beyond what is necessary that I don't even know what to say. I think if you took a nap during the hours it would take to do this, your time would be better spent and prepare you more for the exam.

In case you don't know yet, law review articles are mostly mental masturbation and ego stroking for professors and academics. 1L contracts exams will deal with offer/acceptance/consideration/mailbox rule. law review articles will deal with UCC section 1.2.4 (a)(3) and how they say "all" instead of "every". basically, don't do this. and if you insist on being psychotic and doing it, each of you should prick your fingers with a pin and take a blood oath to secrecy, because if that got out, you'd look like the biggest tools in the world.

I'm not sure if I like this strategy at all to be perfectly honest. The end result is going to be someone handing over an outline to you. Congrats, you could have done the say thing talking to a 2L or going on your school's website.

I had a study group that I met with 4-5 times for each exam, in the week before the exam, and although none of us were "experts", there was never really any questions that one of us didn't know the answer to.

I guess it could be cool, what you're doing, but don't over-rely on the other people. Subtle differences in the way your brain works and what outline/note style works for you are going to be magnified if you don't have hand in personalizing the outline.


Delegating tasks such as collecting old tests and hornbook photocopying is definitely a good ideas. The rest, I don't know.

My recommendation would be to study for all your classes as if you're on your own. Then view what these people give you as a bonus. You know who is going to be get better grades than someone who is in a group of "experts"? The person who is an expert in all the classes by himself.

[FlyWf]

Noah,
Is your view the conventional wisdom or something that you think because you're smart(because your strategy is what I'm using, right down to considering people toolboxes who are trying to start exam-related nonsense in September)? That was poorly worded, but I think you might be able to figure out what I mean. I need to not [censored] up law school like I [censored] up undergrad, but it seems like all the older students I talk too are already tired of the whole law school thing and are blase about everything("You actually read the casebook? Haha, kids.") and I'm not sure if that's a cynical affectation or reasonable time management. I spent all of undergrad thinking that I was too cool for piddly little [censored] like class so I understand how seductive that mindset can be.

Also, I have a visiting professor for one of my classes. Do you have any hints or ideas as to how we could track down an outline for his class? According to some of the 2 and 3Ls I've talked to there are rumors that previous people in my situation have had success, but nobody has any concrete idea of the actual process.

[burkoboy]

noah I want to get around a 170 to make sure I get into USC....


is it just study study study my little ass off until i consistently score that high on practice tests?

[LetItBe]

[ QUOTE ]
Do you have any hints or ideas as to how we could track down an outline for his class?

[/ QUOTE ]

I've never understood the point of this. 99.9% of the benefit of an outline comes from making it. Same for the 4-person strategy above...just seems dumb to me. Make the damn outline, you'll learn the stuff much faster than by tracking down outlines, writing a treatise on K, or whatever else people think of.

[FlyWf]

So you'd never use a commercial outline or hornbook? There's value in gaining a new perspective, especially from someone who has taken the class already.