National Jurist -September 2008 - (Page 24) Law School Confidential By Robert H. Miller, attorney and author WHY WE LOVE THIS BOOK: It’s the most comprehensive law school guide on the market today, with conversational-style advice (think older sibling) written in large part by law students and grads. The book splits up the law school experience by year, and covers everything from things to do before classes begin to staying ahead of the competition, from making summer plans to surviving the recruiting season. FROM THE AUTHOR 1 BOOK EXCERPT You should know that the volume of material to read in your first year is overwhelming. The foundation upon which everything else in law school stands is the first year and the way you approach the first year. I describe it as drinking out of a fire hose. Law School Confidential (St. Martin’s Press, Revised Edition, 2004) “All the reading and color-coded briefing that you’ve been doing isn’t going to do a thing for you if you don’t find a concise way to structure it. Law school isn’t like college — just doing the reading isn’t going to be enough. There’s too much of it, and the distinctions tested are too subtle to rely on the memory of what you read 1,200 pages ago to carry you through. It’s time to take some fairly drastic measures to ensure that you arrive on December 1 with four complete outlines of your own creation. The process of creating your own outlines is the very best way to struggle through the material and get it organized in a way that you can understand. If circumstances warrant it (and they’re beginning to in your position), you might have to cut back on everything else that you’re doing in order to ensure that you get the outlines done—and that includes actually reading all the cases. Yes, you read that correctly. I’m not endorsing your cutting corners on a regular basis, and I’m not suggesting that you’ll learn as much from the experience (you won’t)—but if it comes down to a choice of skipping reading or not finishing your outlines, my recommendation is to finish your outlines, regardless of what your professors, or anyone else, may tell you. You must have a sense of the big picture—how all the law fits together—at the end of the semester, or you’re just not going to perform the way you want to on your exams.” 2 3 4 5 “ 24 You should always be decent and respectful to your fellow students. In the end, your classmates become your colleagues, your referral sources and can become a very valuable network. You should learn the “lay of the land.” Once you’ve arrived on campus and set up your living and working space, take an afternoon to wander around the city or town that you’ll be calling home for the next three years. Get a feel for where things are on campus. You should try to hold your tongue. Every section of law school has at least one “talker” — a person who speaks before he thinks his points through carefully. You know what? People don’t like that, especially not in law school. Don’t be “that guy.” You should never discuss grades. Never, never, never discuss your grades in public. Not even if people ask you about them. Nothing good can come of it. The correct and only answer when someone asks about your grades is, “I don’t discuss grades.” Period. Isolation is a reality of law school that many people have difficulty dealing with. My group of friends made it a point to get together on Sunday nights for a few hours to play poker, but aside from that, it wasn’t uncommon for me to go the entire week without seeing them outside of class. You need to be ready for that. — Chapter One excerpt ” THE NATIONAL JURIST September 2008
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