National Jurist -September 2008 - (Page 23) Acing Your First Year of Law School: The Ten Steps to Success You Won’t Learn in Class By Henry S. Noyes, professor at Chapman University School of Law, with Shana Connell Noyes WHY WE LOVE THIS BOOK: It focuses on the first year, providing many helpful tips for not only surviving, but also coming out on top. This book has a readable, conversational tone. It includes particularly valuable information about outlining, learning from Socratic class discussions, briefing cases and studying for exams. FROM THE AUTHOR 1 2 3 4 5 “ You should try to have efficient and effective studying skills. This really sets apart the students who do well from the rest of the students. You should never take time trying to learn everything on every subject. Law school exams are not going to test you on everything. Learning the substantive material is only the beginning of it. It’s test-taking that really counts in law school. BOOK EXCERPT Acing Your First Year of Law School: The Ten Steps to Success You Won’t Learn in Class (Fred B. Rothman Publications, 1999) “Socratic discussion is confusing. It causes first years enormous anxiety because they cling to the memory of college, when class meant answers and illumination and real discussion of the material you studied. Forget college. Law school classes are the opposite of college classes. Your professors purposely muddy the waters. They want to confuse you under the theory that it is good for you because it makes you think. You are supposed to be confused. It’s painful, but that’s just the way it is. Again, the advice here is that you shouldn’t worry about it too much. Most students find that it is not until they sit down to outline the class that a light bulb snaps on in their heads and all of a sudden, things fall into place. After a semester of confusing and aggravating classes, they finally begin to recognize and distinguish issues from rules and facts from dicta. So hang in there. Make a real effort to understand, but when you find that you don’t understand, just let it go. Take heart knowing that later in the semester, the light bulb will snap on in your head and you’ll finally be able to see what’s going on.” You should deal with prior commitments and potential distractions before going to law school. You really have to remove all of the distractions. Prepare yourself and the people in your life for you being unavailable. You should use all available resources to stay productive and work efficiently. Law school, in hindsight, for almost everybody seems like it should have been a lot easier. In my book, I sought to give students the tools they need to be better prepared and less anxious in class. You should know that your first-year is the most important year of law school. Work as hard as you can your first year, because your first-year grades follow you not just throughout law school — but far into your legal career. Those grades determine whether you will earn a place on the Law Review and Moot Court, whether you will get a job as a summer associate your first and second summers and whether you will get a judicial clerkship after graduation. As much as you may try to avoid it, you will get called on at some point during the semester. When you do, your professor will expect you to give a brief recitation of the facts, issue, reasoning and holding of the case you are discussing. — Chapter Three excerpt ” 23 September 2008 THE NATIONAL JURIST
For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.