My approach to law school // January 3, 2021
This is an overview of my approach to law school and general advice. **There isn’t one way to be a successful law student**
1. MENTAL / PHYSICAL HEALTH - your health is THE most important factor in your law school success. Unfortunately, law school tends to normalize constant stress and exhaustion. Prioritize your health over your studies and you will be a much more functional student.
Do things that make you happy: read a book for fun or go on a long run/walk/bike ride with a friend. Do things that have nothing to do with law school!
Therapy: it isn’t accessible for everyone, but if you can, do it.
Take sick days: rest and nourish your body when you are sick. You will recover faster and be a better student because of it. The same goes for mental health days.
Practice community-care: check-in with your friends and support your classmates. Ask your friends and family about their lives and don’t dominate conversation with law school stories.
Drink plenty of water and eat well.
Plan ahead: every Sunday I look over my schedule for the upcoming week and write my to-do lists for homework, law review, and my internship.
Tab, label, and index: I tab my Bluebook, casebooks, and notebook to find sections more easily. In my notes I include an outline/index of key concepts and cases with page numbers. (I will share a photo of an index in the future)
Keep your workspace organized: I clear my desk of all notebooks and casebooks except for the ones that I need for an assignment. This keeps me focused on one task at a time. At the end of each day I clean my desk so that it’s nice and neat for the next day.
Treat law school like a full-time job: I have free time on the weekends and sometimes during the week because I stick to my work schedule. On weekdays I get up at 6:45 am and workout until 7:45 am. Then I eat breakfast. I begin studying/homework/class at about 8:30 am every day and work until about 6 pm. I give myself 45 minutes for lunch sometime between noon and 1:30 pm, but then I get straight to work again. Most days, I spend another 1-3 hours in the evening doing homework, but I always take time to eat dinner and hang out with my roommate for a couple hours first.
Find a calendar/planner system that works for you: I use my planner for assignments and use my Outlook calendar to keep track of class time, homework time, and internship time.
Schedule “fun” time to do things other than law school and put it in your calendar.
Pomodoro method: timing study session in segments of 30-45 minutes is extremely helpful because it keeps me on track with my schedule and forces me to take breaks to stretch, drink water, and use the bathroom.
Note-taking: depending on the class, I handwrite 50-100% of my notes and type the rest in OneNote. I find that handwriting helps me absorb information better than typing, although typing does have its advantages (it’s so much faster). I read through an assignment/case and highlight it, then I go back through and take notes. (I will post a photo of my notes in the near future)
Highlighting: it’s no secret that law students dominate the highlighter market, and for good reason. I highlight reading assignments and my notes. I also use different colors to signal different things, such as statute law versus case law.
Case briefs: some cases are so confusing that the holding is nowhere to be found and the entire thing seems to be in a different language. Do the best you can to write your own case brief before looking online for one. There’s no shame in using Quimbee every once in a while - in fact, it is a great source for reviewing - but you still need to do the work.
Find a conducive study space: I spent a lot of time in the law library studying with friends because it is quiet and full of good study energy. Now that I’m working from home, I try to recreate that atmosphere. I even play “library ambiance” sounds on Youtube while I do homework. Make sure you are comfortable and that your space isn’t full of distractions.
Make friends: as an introvert, I loathe socializing in large crowds for long periods of time and find networking difficult. However, I forced myself to network and socialize a lot during law school orientation and made so many incredible friends! I appreciate them all and I don’t know how I would survive law school without them.
Internships: I recommend talking to 2Ls and 3Ls about their internship experiences. It’s great to talk to career advisors too, but you are more likely to get the most candid details and advice from fellow students. When I was a 1L I befriended a 2L who was interning at a restorative justice legal clinic. She gave me great advice and a great recommendation to her boss. Long story short, I now intern at the same restorative justice clinic and love it.
Office hours: talking to professors one-on-one is terrifying at first, but in my experience, professors LOVE when students come to office hours. Talking to professors in office hours can make it less intimidating to raise your hand in their classes or when you are cold-called (the horror!).
Outlining: write your own outline. Using another person’s outline as a reference is fine, but write your own! All of my best grades were in classes where I created at least 80% of my outline on my own.
Go over your outline several times and cut out things you don’t need or won’t be tested on. A long outline isn’t necessarily the best outline.
Practice exams: do at LEAST two practice exams for each class using your outline so you get used to using it as a reference. Time at least one of these practice exams so you get used to the pace.
7. REMEMBER WHY YOU ARE HERE
On the first day of my internship, my boss said, “the first thing you lose in law school is the reason why you are there.” Law school is overwhelming, stressful, and at times, soul-crushing. It is easy to forget why you decided to go to law school and you are likely to second-guess every life choice you have ever made at some point or another (I do ALL the time). Therefore, it’s important to remember why you are here. If you want to go into social justice, look into social justice law courses you can take. If you want to represent athletes, look at sports law and contract law classes. Bottom line: step back and recenter yourself to remember why law school is worth the hard work.
