From: thf2@ellis.uchicago.edu (Ted Frank)
Subject: Re: Advice for first year law student?
Reply-To: thf2@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations
Date: Wed, 19 Aug 1992 23:38:55 GMT

In article <1992Aug19.190733.23105@eff.org> mnemonic@eff.org (Mike Godwin) writes:
>In article <3732@cvbnetPrime.COM> jharring@banner.UUCP (Joe Harrington) writes:
>>I'm starting first year of law school at Boston University next
>>week.  Are there any law students or recent law grads that would
>>care to share some advice for a first year?
>
>How to Survive the First Year of Law School
>At The University of Texas
>by Mike Godwin, mnemonic@eff.org
>
>(Copyright 1988,1992. This article may be freely distributed on any
>computer forum, including commercial online services. To reproduce it
>in print or in any other non-computer medium, please seek permission
>from the author.)

Mike gives good advice, but there are some areas I disagree with him;
I'm following up on the conflicts rather than the areas of agreement,
but hopefully I won't seem like I'm flaming Mike, 'cause it was an
impressive piece.

>First, disabuse yourself of any notions about your natural academic 
>superiority. Sure, you're good, but so is everyone else in your class. 
>And since everyone is graded against everyone else on a curve, the 
>chances are nine out of 10 that you'll be in the bottom 90 percent of 
>your class, regardless of your undergraduate performance.

But at the same time, don't let yourself be intimidated by the
inevitable number of people you meet who seem smarter than you;
when grades come in at the end of the year, there are going to
be a lot of surprises.  

>Class Preparation
>
>Keep up with the assigned reading.  

Better yet, be ahead.  Law school is a stressful experience, and you're
going to find yourself getting sick more often than you anticipated.
Having an extra couple of days breathing room when you absolutely need
that twelve-hour night of sleep while fighting off a cold can save you
much grief later.

>Professors
>
>While some law professors make a pretense of keeping office hours, 
>most of them don't really want to see you outside the classroom, a 
>milieu they prefer because that's where they have all the control.  

I think this varies from school to school and professor to professor.
A number of schools (including U of C) have an open-door policy, and
it doesn't hurt if you have a[n intelligent] question to ask the
professor -- it shows that you're thinking about the material, and
away from the classroom persona, a professor might be much more
receptive or able to explain material.  A number of law professors
I've seen are desperate for feedback; if something's becoming
incomprehensible in class, it doesn't hurt to let them know it.  At
worst, they'll blow you off and you'll know not to go back to them;
at best, they can explain material to you, or even subconsciously
give information as to how they're thinking about the exam.  But
don't go see a professor unless you've done the reading and have
thought about it.

>Any question you want to ask a professor probably can be answered 
>by a "hornbook" (legal treatise) anyway, and library is full of 
>hornbooks.

But, then why pay for a law school at all rather than correspondence
classes?

>Buying study aids
>
>You may find it best to buy Legalines outlines for each of your 
>courses except contracts. 

But on the other hand, some of the Gilbert's outlines are written
by the person who wrote your casebook, and you may want to get those;
Gilbert's on Property is crucial if you want to understand the
Dukeminier casebook.

>Some students buy "hornbooks" for particular 
>subjects, but for a first-year student the treatises often go into too 
>much unnecessary detail. Theyre also very expensive, and in general 
>it's best not to buy them; but you may want to make an exception for 
>contracts, which many students find a particularly subtle and 
>difficult branch of law. The Calamari and Perillo hombook is good for 
>general contract law, while the White and Summers hornbook is 
>necessary for a thorough understanding of the parts of your 
>contracts course that deal with the Uniform Commercial Code. 

My own recommendations:
Dressler's "Understanding Criminal Law."  Very clearcut, and a much better
exposition than the Legallines outline (which Dressler also wrote.)
I swore by Farnsworth in Contracts, and I didn't really understand a
lot of the consideration/promissory estoppel issues until I read Grant
Gilmore's "The Death of Contract," a short 150-page or so book that made
everything coalesce in one night about fifteen weeks into class.  
(But then, Chicago teaches that consideration is bogus, and your law school 
might not, so...)
The West hornbook on Civil Procedure I found useful, but then, that was
my worst class, so take it with a grain of salt.  I forget who the author was.
If you have a math or economics background, the Landes and Posner book
"The Economic Structure of Tort Law" is simply phenomenal for that class.

>Study Groups

But don't let yourself slack in the other four subjects that you're not
responsible for.

My study group worked best when we pooled resources for the legal
research and writing class.  It worked less well when we did group
outlines; outlines tend to be personalized, and the real benefit of
having an outline is in the writing of it, rather than the study of it. 

>Computers
>
>(Some word processors include outlining capability--in general, those
>word processors are not as good at outlining as programs designed for just
>that purpose.)
>
>If you buy a Macintosh, the outlining software of choice is MORE; if you own
>an IBM PC, buy Thinktank or Grandview.. Both products are available at local
>computer stores. 

I got by just fine using a word processor to outline.

Your outline doesn't have to look professional -- it just has to be
something you can understand.  I know I spent much more time than I
should have making my outline look pretty rather than read well.

>Practice Exams

I found the Emanuel's book on "First-Year Questions and Answers" helpful.
Through that, you can quickly see where your understanding is lacking in
the black-letter law.  But professors' previous exams, as Mike mentioned,
are much more important.

Once again, good work by Mike.
-- 
             ......................................................
             ted frank | thf2@midway.uchicago.edu | std disclaimers
             the university of chicago law skool, chicago, illinois
             you can't throw me to the lions -- i'm charlton heston
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