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Law School Journal
Cant Get Right
Yearly + Live Member Sage ⭐ 🍌 7Sage Tutor
Since my first year of law school started last week, I've been thinking about starting a journal to help me process things and reflect. I think that maybe by working through how to articulate things, I feel like I exert some control and agency. In any case, this is one of those times where it seems like it could be of value. I also thought that a candid and contemporaneous account from someone going through it could potentially provide some value to future students. So instead of opening up a word document, I figured I'd make a thread.
Throughout the life of this thread, I'll make updates through the comments rather than amending the main body. That way, any comments will track with the content.
Comments
9/12/19
I'm nearly through my second week. So far, it has felt a lot like drowning. By giving it my greatest effort without any respite though, I've so far managed to keep my nose just above the surface--just enough to keep breathing. I feel like if I fall behind though, there will be no catching up. Some things are better this week than last though. For example, I know where my classrooms are now. I was twenty minutes late to my very first CLR (Communication and Legal Reasoning) class. There's apparently different and unconnected third floors, and I simply couldn't find the room.
I've felt that my in-class contribution has been mostly insightful and articulate. I ran into an impasse with one prof over a logical issue--she didn't see the implications of a contrapositive kicking in a hypo she'd written which led to a contradiction in the stated facts. It's been maybe the one thing since school started that I actually knew for sure that I knew, yet it became clear that, right or wrong, I was wrong. The exchange ended on an unanswered "So?" That was more awkward than bad though, and all the substantial stuff has been better. For the touching element of battery, for example, "The issue is in causing harmful contact, not in contacting harmfully." Pretty much nailed it; nbd. CLR is probably the most intimidating class at this point. At most schools it's Pass/Fail, but it's graded at Northwestern so it's a bit more intense. My primary anxiety is concerning plagiarism. If this were MLA, I'd be ready to roll. Unfortunately, I am not ready to roll. We're having to submit assignments with exactly zero guidance thus far in using a wholly unfamiliar system of citation, and I am terrified of making an error. A citation error is plagiarism, and plagiarism is serious, serious shit that I don't want any part of. What should have been a very simple assignment--it was only a few sentences--took four hours. I've got to figure out how to break the paralysis on that. I've got some time for an intensive tomorrow. I'd hate to spend it on CLR, but maybe I should use it to study citations.
Orientation was alright I guess. I think orienting us was simply a futile undertaking under even the best circumstances, but I think it could have been better. We spent an inordinate amount of time in sessions about being respectful and professional. Meanwhile, much of the most important day-to-day things (like how to navigate the third floor) were left untouched. All of our classes are coordinated through an online service called Canvas. It is the thing around which our entire lives as students revolve, and its existence was never even hinted at. Things like that.
Got my final immunizations today. How cool is it that we eradicated small-pox! A lot of times I think about the moon landings as humanity's greatest achievement: Wrong. We eradicated the most devastating disease on the planet. Does anything else even come close?
Briefing cases seems like a colossal waste of time.
Outlines are hugely important; it's vital to make sure to get a good one; I really wish I knew what they were.
I really like all of my professors. It's my understanding that this is rarely the case, so very grateful for this.
This week's takeaways:
1. Locate classrooms ahead of time.
2. Plan for what you're going to read and for exactly when/where you're going to read it. Your books will be too heavy to carry them all, and so you've got to know what you're going to need, when, and where.
3. Everyone else is drowning too.
4. Right or wrong, your professor is right.
Thanks so much for this! This is really insightful and interesting!
Awesome!
Thanks for this! I'm in the admissions cycle now, so this will be me next year.
Would you suggest maybe learning legal citation during the summer before? And also.. does your school provide Quimbee? I've heard good things about it in offering explanations and outlines.
No, if you do anything at all before start, pick up some easy intros like The Short and Happy Guides. Having read the one for Torts, I have felt like I’ve had my footing. My Contracts Professor actually co-wrote the one for Contracts, so I am eager to get my hands on that actually.
Update on the citations: We got our feedback, and she does not intend for us to do citations until we’ve covered that in class!
Not sure about Quimbee. We have been given a lot of online resources which I haven’t fully explored yet, so maybe it’s wrapped into that.
I’m following this! Thank you posting! I look forward to the next one!
@"Cant Get Right" thanks for posting!!!
I love law school journals! This first entry reminds me of Scott Turow’s One L. Following you on your journey @"Cant Get Right"
p.s. It’s probably a good sign that you spent 4 hours wrestling with Bluebook citation. Putting in the time and effort and attention to detail will surely pay off when you’re doing citations more regularly
This is awesome! Please keep sharing.
This is such valuable content!!! Thanks so much, have been watching your journey from the beginning!!!
This is like peeping into someone's diary. Im all for this! Thanks for posting!!
@"Cant Get Right" You're doing great! I love this idea and will definitely be following along on your journey. Stay positive, stay focused!
Very happy that you've chosen to share your experience with everyone! I hope you find the time to post here often. I'm sure you could do a lot in relieving some anxieties that prospective law students alike will surely have. Best of luck to you and just keep swimming!
Any books you've read before or in the early days of law school that you'd recommend?
This is awesome. Thank you for doing this!
Thanks everyone! I’m glad this is something there is some interest and potential value in.
@lsatplaylist One thing I read which I felt like has been helpful is Short and Happy Guide to Torts. It definitely didn’t get me ahead or anything, but I do feel like I have my bearings in Torts more than my other classes. Short and Happy Guide has a book for each 1L class, so I might recommend picking those up. I wouldn’t study them intensively, but a good engaged read might be beneficial.
9/26/19
Wow, what a week. Where to even start.
So my first cold call; it did not go particularly well.
Cold calling is very different depending on the professor. I have one professor who sticks with one student the whole class. No one else really speaks. The whole class is a dialogue between the professor and the one student. If the student is unprepared and incapable, it's just going to be a very bad hour. On the other end of the spectrum, another professor does what we've affectionately termed "warm" calls: He lets the student who will be on call know the night before. They are the "resident expert," for the day, and they only get the larger discussion going really.
I got my cold call with one of the professors in between. I didn't totally bomb it--I had read the case--but I certainly didn't shine. I couldn't answer questions about the facts of the case; I didn't really understand what the issue was to be honest. Most of the cases you read in law school are the really tricky ones. If you're shipwrecked and haven't eaten in three weeks, is it really murder to kill and cannibalize one of your shipmates? What if he is in such bad shape he is definitely going to die anyway? What if you are definitely going to die if you wait for him to die naturally? What if you've all agreed to draw lots and he reneges after pulling the short straw? These are the hard questions you'll really be talking about. This case though, there was no issue to me. It was a charge for intentional infliction of emotional distress which has an extremely high bar. There have been a lot of really terrible things people have done which have not satisfied the elements for IIED, and this case was just not even close. So I didn't put too much effort into studying it, and I couldn't recall the details which I had considered trivial and tedious as I read.
So, I looked unprepared in front of my professor and classmates. I’m having a lot of mixed feelings about that. I've been a lot less confident ever since then. I realized today that I've been much less vocal in classes since then. I'm going to try and work on that. My natural reaction to underperforming the cold call is to determine “That will never happen again,” and to go to whatever lengths necessary to ensure it. I know I would succeed too.
But that’s not what I’m going to do.
As I said in the previous entry, briefing cases seems like a huge waste of time. Well, briefing cases is how you do really well in class. You can do well in class too when the time comes. One of my classmates did so well in Contracts the other day the professor gave him a pencil--a Palomino Blackwing--and when you read the next section you'll know how big a deal that is. Classmate totally crushed it, we are all kinda in awe. For me, I can't do it all though. I don't have time for things that feel nice on my ego but that don't prepare me for my exams. So next time I get cold called, I'll just have to do my best to power through and then deal with the emotional fallout. And that is extremely hard for me. It’s very counterintuitive. But I'm trying to stay focused. I believe and trust in the people who've told me that the things which will prepare you for the exam are completely different from the things that prepare you for class.
I think that with a five minute review of my cases, right before class, I’d’ve remembered 60% more details. I’ll do that from now on, but other than that I’m not making any major changes. I’m confident I’m doing the right things, even if that does mean my on-calls won’t necessarily be spectacular. I’m not being graded on that, so I’m not over investing in it. When exams roll around, though, I intend to be ready.
So, actually, that was last week.
This week--mostly yesterday--was just a series of being hit by one freight train after another.
The day started with Contracts and it was the most brutal class I've ever been in. No one had any idea what happened; we were all totally shellshocked coming out. I honestly don't really even know how to articulate it. Basically, I think the takeaway was that none of us have any idea what is happening, we don't even know what basic words mean, and literally every one of us is going to fail, not just Contracts, but in life generally. It was like our whole experience of contracts went from two to three dimensions all at once and we just had to accept it. Do you know how a two dimensional being would feel to suddenly be transported into three dimensions? I admit it's not the clearest hypo, but that's what it felt like to me: Like having a bad salvia trip while being launched off the planet in a rocket.
Torts was actually a lot of fun. We were scheduled to do our final review of the intentional torts and our professor arranged to have two of the deans come in and allegedly commit basically every tort there is against her--including battery--in a surprisingly decently acted out skit. We had no idea it was going to happen, and it was really funny and did a lot to lift the mood after Contracts. She recorded the whole thing and our assignment is to identify all the potential torts. Some of us will be representing her as the plaintiff, and others of us will be representing the deans as the defendants. I'm on defense (though we are counter-suing for a number of things including IIED).
Over the lunch break there was a session held to tell us about outlining! So, I finally know what an outline is! And the high we all felt from Torts kinda whipped back the other way. The first slide of the presentation was "What outlines are not. . ." and one of the things outlines are "not" is 150 page manifestos of everything contained in the class, lol. I assumed the number "150" was chosen as an absurd exaggeration until the presenter said "It does not have to be this huge 150 page thing--well, mine was, and it certainly can be--but it doesn't HAVE to be. So apparently 150 pages is just kinda an upper range. That is per class, so only 600 pages total, you know, at the upper ranges. But the good news is, we were encouraged not to freak out about it.
So after the big outlining session, we broke into our sections and talked with students. Some of the students had started outlining really early, others did it later or in groups, and plenty had just used outlines they'd gotten from the school's outline bank. Unfortunately, I identified much closer to the students who made their own outlines. It's going to be a long
weekendweekmonthsemesteryear.And after that is when things hit rock bottom: We had Civ Pro for our last class.
Ok, I couldn't help getting in a burn on Civ Pro which actually is turning out to be (slightly) more interesting than anticipated. Our professor is preparing a case to go in front of the Supreme Court and she talked to us about the case and her team's prep. Really cool to have profs involved in things like that. Their strategy is to rely on the liberal Justices to rule in their favor and to direct their arguments specifically towards Justice Beef Supreme for the swing vote. Bonus points to anyone who gets that reference without having to look it up!
So, you know, all-in-all. . . eh? . ?
This week's takeaways:
Policy is when judges predetermine their decisions but then can't support it with proper legal reasoning. And that isn't always a bad thing.
IIED is completely arbitrary because it's left up to the jury to determine what constitutes outrageous behavior and they are wildly inconsistent.
A lot of people in my section are getting sick, and I'm terrified of even coming down with a cold right now.
The criminal justice system, even on a theoretical level, is a total, unmitigated mess.
I'm beginning to notice a change in my speech patterns, and I see lawsuits everywhere, all day everyday.
@"Cant Get Right" This is hands down my all-time favorite post. Your descriptions are so vivid too it feels like I'm experiencing the emotional roller-coaster with you! I hope you keep writing these. Very helpful for us 0Ls.
Love your journal posts and how informative they are. Laughed a bit at this line because I know this feeling all too well. Thanks for sharing!
Loving this! Can you share a bit about how you are studying? What does your study routine look like?
Yeah, that's a really great question. This took me a while to figure out, but I think I've got a workable system now. Basically, I do my readings for the next day in the afternoons/evenings. The rest of the day is off. I get to school at around 6:30 in the mornings and spend the whole morning doing an intensive for a single class. I take Friday afternoon and Saturday morning off. Saturday pm through Sunday am, I do a heavy intensive on whatever is causing me the greatest anxiety (contracts today). Sunday pm I read for Monday and make my master syllabus for the week.
So as an example, here's what I'll be doing this week:
Sun 9/29
am
Intensive: Contracts
pm
CLR: Submit Statement of Facts Assignment
Contracts: CB 163-176, 186-203; R2K SSs 37, 45, 59, 60, 61, 69; UCC 2-207 (and all comments); CISG Art. 19
Torts: Prepare Defenses for midterm exercise
Civ Pro: CB 455-461, 451-476; FRCP 16, 26(a)(1), (d), (e), (f), 30, 33, 34, 36 (warned will be time consuming)
Mon 9/30
am
Intensive: Contracts
pm
Contracts: CB 205-225; UETA SSs 2, 7, 11, 13 (starting on pg 274 in supplement)
Torts: CB 123-143
Civ Pro: CB 478-488; FRCP 26(b)(1) & (2)
Tues 10/1
am
Intensive: Contracts
pm
Contracts: CB 225-238; R2K SSs 21, 33; UCC SSs 2-204(3), 2-305
Torts: CB 144-146, Problems 1-4 group of 3
Civ Pro: No class Wednesday (Contracts Make up class in its place)
Wed 10/2
am
Intensive: Civ Pro
pm
Crim: CB 258-350; MPC 2.02, 2.04, 2.05
CLR: Slocum 232-241; Online Modules in QP and SA
Thurs 10/3
am
Intensive: Torts
pm
Crim: review/finish from Wed pm
CLR: bring hard copies of TREACC from closed assignment, MBIE 1.1
Fri 10/4
am
Intensive: Crim
pm
Off
Sat 10/5
am
Off
pm
Intensive: TBD
Sun 10/6
am
Intensive: TBD
11/4/19
Part I
It's been a while since I've updated this because the last few weeks have largely been more of the same. I've been keenly aware that I have been completing assignments without really learning the underlying lessons, but I hadn't really found the solution for correcting this. I've been tinkering with my study strategies, and I feel like I turned a corner yesterday and figured it all out. Law school classes are taught really poorly, thanks Christopher Columbus Langdell who was a terrible teacher who for some reason set the standard for how law school has worked for the last 150 years or so. Essentially, you'll get as little as possible out of class and have to teach yourself everything. I guess if teaching yourself is good enough for Lincoln and Kardashian, it's good enough for me, but I've definitely got some beef with the system on this point.
Anyway, I'll go into more detail on the specific study strategies I've settled on in a future post after I've settled in and really developed things, but wanted to get some preliminaries down now. I figured it out while I was studying for crim yesterday and could feel a big difference. The effect was that I went to class already knowing everything we'd talk about. I was a far enough ahead I was actually a little uneasy. The amount of hedging I did for one answer I gave was comically bad. I was two steps ahead on everything though, so I felt kinda out there on answers that would have been impossibly hard as recently as the previous class.
Takeaways and Objectives
Teach yourself everything before class. If you show up to class expecting to learn anything, you've already screwed up. Class is for the sole purpose of confirming that your professor is on the same page with your other resources and for learning what her specific views, expectations, and quirks are.
If you're not ahead, you're behind.
If you don't grasp something, attack it. Utilize every available resource, go to your TAs, go to your prof's office hours, just fix it. Now that I've figured out how to teach myself, I'm confident I'll be able to get my feet under me, but it's going to be a long November and it's going to come down to the wire. I'm going to have to double time all the way.
11/4/19
Part II
So the previous post was the upbeat stuff mostly written over the last couple weeks. Here’s the less upbeat, more current stuff which I really want to get down before cooling off. I’ll spin it into something constructive later, but for now I’m feeling pretty salty and want to get that part of it in.
We’ve had our midterms at this point and still waiting to get feedback on most of it. Torts was today and went horribly bad. So here was the format:
16 questions, multiple choice. (When you’ve taken torts, you might feel multiple choice is not the most appropriate format.) Additionally, there was a text box where we had to explain the reasoning for our answers. 55 minutes.
First off, pacing felt okay (but wasn’t) I skipped if I didn’t know what to do right away and moved forward steadily on any question I did. Still ran out of time. Not even close. Guessed on 5. Pacing did not come naturally for me on the LSAT, but it is addressable and is ultimately and legit part of what we’re being tested on. Here it felt more arbitrary. My analysis was too in-depth, my pacing was not appropriately calibrated. Overall, I missed half. The explanations haven’t been graded, but we were provided with model answers; I will not get full even credit on the explanations for my right answers. Each multiple choice was 1 point, and each explanation is another point. Unless the prof is going to give points for well argued wrong answers, I’ll likely end up at about 14 out of 32 points.
I‘m a stoic, and didn’t cry, and that puts me ahead of many of my classmates. As bad as I did, all indications seem to place me at about average.
I remember something my prof said at the beginning of the semester. Without the curve, we would all fail. The comment was meant to make us less uncomfortable with being graded on the curve. My interpretation now is somewhat different: Law school simply sets us all up for failure. The fact that everyone will fail and a curve will correct for it doesn’t really make a whole lot of sense when you think about it. Maybe we should try a system where at least some of us might be expected to succeed? Like I said, pretty salty at the moment, so maybe this’ll evolve, but we’ll see.
I feel better about the essay exams (which I haven’t received back yet . . .). We’ll see, but I think my responses will match pretty closely to what I’ve figured in hindsight the model answer is likely to be. I’ve done another practice Contracts exam on my own and my essay could have substituted in for the model response without any substantial differences in structure, content, conclusions, or style. So I’m not giving up yet, but for sure feeling dejected and demoralized.
Also got my first writing assignment back. Got a B. The median was a B+, so that really stung. I kinda feel like I got penalized for some stylistic things. There was one sentence which prof called a run-on. It is NOT a run-on. It is a lengthy compound sentence, but it is grammatically correct. There were also tons of notes about things like using “did owe” instead of “owed.” There was maybe one or two notes on substance and then it was torn to shreds on style which I don’t accept as legitimate grounds for lowering my grade unless there actually was an error. We have conferences on those papers, so that’ll be interesting. Definitely got to cool down first before going in for that!
Overall, maybe this is par for the course. In my first real class for my English major in undergrad, I got a C! Real pissed over that. After settling down, I ended up winning an award for that classes’s final paper. On the LSAT, same thing. Terrible at first, great in the end. So I know I can learn all this—totally master it. I am smart and capable, and the legal education system will not succeed in transferring its failure into me. That I can master this is without question for me. But I’ve only got a month. I don’t know if I can do that or not.
Either way, time to get to work. If it’s doable, it’ll be done. If it’s not, then however short I fall will be mitigated an minimized.
For the moment, I mostly just feel like shit. But the resolve has begun to exert a minimum presence. It’ll grow and take over soon enough.
Takeaways and Optimism.
It’s okay to take a moment to feel bad. But only a moment.
Everyone feels terrible right now, it’s not just me.
It’s not over yet.
Maybe the essays won’t be as bad when they come back.
Someday, entropy will be complete, time and space will cease to exist, and none of this will matter.
After listening to your AMA podcast, its kind of crazy reading these posts and following you for the ride. Keeping going man, you are an inspiration!
Thanks @Andrew_Neiman ! I think all this is pretty normal. So hopefully this thread concludes with a happy ending and, ultimately, the narrative will be that even the people who have a hard time and feel terrible (everyone) can get through it and do well. We’ll find out!
@"Cant Get Right" thanks for this helpful journal! Have you ever reached out to @"Nicole Hopkins" on her Northwestern law school experience and how she studied? Do you guys have similar study methods? I remember seeing a post where she said she was like in the top 2% of her class.
Remind me.. what school did you wind up going to?
I think Northwestern.
Read the latest update and am optimistic things are going to get better. Please keep posting updates as time allows. It's great for pre-law students to have these stories.
For real. If all schools are like this, knowing what to expect is very helpful.
Yeah, at Northwestern. And all of this conforms to everything I've ever heard about every law school, so please don't think this is at all unique to NU!
More time to cool off and get some perspective and feeling a lot better. I got my Crim midterm back and scored, "good." Not sure what that means, lol, but it felt relatively nice.
More on torts though. I did score the median, but I attempted significantly fewer questions than average. Few people finished, but most got to three or four more questions than I did. So I think that actually puts me ahead of the curve. As far as the timing issues, which were substantial, I'm simply not worried about it at this point. Timing is something that I know how to practice and master. On the LSAT it started as my weakest attribute and finished among my very strongest. Come exam time I'll be the most efficient exam taker there is as far as timing goes.
Also, for various reasons, this is not going to count towards our grade after all. So now I feel like I can take away all of the benefits from this experience with none of the consequences. Upon reflection, I haven't been studying as hard as I should or could have been. I've been devoting a lot of time to it but not being as engaged or proactive as I should have been. Many of you have come to know me as "Cant Get Right" but I'm not always that guy. I've come to recognize Cant Get Right as the best in me--the me I like to think of myself as, me at my best. The LSAT helped me find that best version of myself, but I haven't really been that in my efforts in law school. That's changed now. It may be too late. Even as Cant Get Right, I need time to figure things out and time to learn at my own pace. And I don't have much time.
To reconcile that, I've decided to follow my own advice. I often tell people on the LSAT that their goal is to walk away from the test feeling like they took their best test. If you take your best test for any given LSAT, you've done what you set out to do, score be damned. The score is too big to manipulate, and you have to focus on what you can actually do. So that's the direction I'm taking for myself. If I get through exams and feel like I gave it everything I had at my highest level of ability, then I'm happy. Period. I'm not lowering expectations. I want all A's. That almost never happens, but that's what I want to happen at the end of all of this. But that can't be the goal because it's not something I can tangibly work towards. Rather, it's a potential consequence of achieving the real goal which is to do my best.
I might be the first to say this, but this should be the early workings of a possible book! It is very engaging!
^Agreed with the above. I already feel like I'm reading a really good book.
Thank you for doing this!
Bumping this, I know you're probably busy with finals coming, but interested in how things are going!
Ok, quick check in! This may be a bit disjointed and stream-if-conscious. I’m sitting in a 24/7 diner getting breakfast. It’s the kinda place that’s been around for +50 years and would still have a sizable smoking section if it could. And that’s how I feel right now. I haven’t slept for three days, but I just submitted my final assignment for my writing class and I’m feeling good. I don’t know where I’ll land with it grade-wise, but I’m proud of what I produced. The first graded draft was rough. I didn’t fully grasp exactly what I was supposed to be doing. She tore it up and I scored just under the curve. Like with the LSAT, my pacing is slow and steady. But law school just doesn’t accommodate that. So a few days ago, this assignment clicked. I just finally saw in its entirety what I was supposed to be doing. I just didn’t really have enough time left to do it right. But I did what I could: I’ve literally been working on it for three days straight only pausing to eat and to walk the dogs. I wasn’t procrastinating—I don’t want to give that impression. I was just struggling and grinding before. I only knew enough to know it just wasn’t happening. So when it clicked I just had to do it. We’ve been working on this thing all semester; I trashed the whole thing and rewrote it from scratch. With a little more time it could definitely be way better, but I’m proud of what I did for the time I had and I’m confident it was the best work I could have produced all things considered. So, big milestone, this was the final assignment and we are completely finished with this class for the semester. But it’s out of the frying pan into the fire. It’s exam time. More soon. Now, pancakes.
Wow man good job
I recognized your pancakes post was about 7pm est
brinner anyone?
Proud of you. Maybe get the dogs some treats.
LORD NEVERMORE. Thank you
Ok, it's been a few VERY intense weeks since my last update. More to cover than I can even begin to write about, but going to try to hit the highlights--mostly exams.
So I've written a lot about torts and before finals, we did another practice exam, and I was very happy with my progress. Our professor graded and curved it and gave us all the data, and I landed right on the cusp of a B+/A-. I probably didn’t quite crack into the A’s, but considering the improvement from the previous assignment, I felt really great about my efforts and recommitment to bringing out my inner CGR. Coupled with the writing assignment, I feel like I rolled into finals with a couple of wins under my belt, some good momentum, and some validation that my renewed efforts were effective.
Exams
Exams were more intensive than I even anticipated, and I anticipated quite a lot. I fell short simply due to a failure of the imagination. Wow. It may have been the hardest month of work I've ever been through, and it was coupled with a heavy amount of anxiety, self-doubt, and depression. That certainly didn't help things, but succumbing was simply not an option and I just had to work through it the best I could. I took some time for self-care, but in retrospect I can see that I did a really bad job of it. Instead of planning for breaks and allowing myself to relax, I took unscheduled breaks which I did not enjoy and which I mostly felt enormous guilt over. That's my first tip for exams: When the time comes, take care of yourself. Your mental and emotional health during this time is important to both your success and well-being. Plan for it, carve out time for it. It can't be a whole lot, there's just too much to do, but it can't be zero either. I pushed myself to my breaking point and there were two moments where it could have gone either way. I won't be doing that again.
The work before exams was basically to teach myself the entire course before the test. Not a great situation to be in, but this relates back to my previous posts about failing to understand exactly what I needed to be doing throughout the semester. I have mixed feelings about that still. On one hand, I feel like there are resources I could have utilized to prepare me for what I need to do. On the other, I feel like it's reasonable to rely on classes to prepare you for the exams. Thinking back on it, there were a couple of points at which they may have made the effort and it just didn't get through. I think the problem is that it's always communicated in big, abstract terms. This may be sufficient for some people, but it just wasn't for me. I understood I needed to be doing more, but I just didn't know what that looked like in any form I could actually utilize. So one thing I did over the last week was to translate that into actionable steps which I'll share in a future post. Next semester, I'll know exactly how I'm going to approach things day to day and class to class.
So the exam schedule was Torts and Contracts in week one, and Civ Pro and Crim in week two. My feelings going into my exam studies were very different for each class.
Torts I feel like is the most common sense class and I felt like I at least had my head above water. At the same time, there were some very essential concepts I was very fuzzy on. The final weeks were a blur and I didn't feel like I retained anything in any class, so I really had to teach myself a lot of material. But in torts I was confident I at least knew how to go about it.
Although Contracts was my second exam, I started studying it first. Contracts is very heavy on statutes and rules. Also, there are two different sets of rules you have to know for contracts concerning different types of transactions, so quite a lot. I started there instead of Torts because I was simply so overwhelmed by it. I needed to get it done. I started at the top of the syllabus and just worked my way down. Rule by rule, I pieced together an understanding of the course by using the different sources of laws, the notes in the book, and whatever I could salvage from my frenetic, disjointed, and disorganized class notes. Notice I did not include cases in that list. The cases are almost 100% of class prep and are almost as completely useless for exam prep. You should make a note of that. So I worked out different concepts and created my one pager as I went. This professor allows us to bring in a single sheet of paper for the exam with anything we can fit on, so that's obviously a very important resource. If we'd just been graded on the building of our one pager, I'd get an A+. I am so proud of that thing, haha.
Once that review was done, which took more time than the review for any other class--as expected--I moved on to torts and followed a similar approach. I used my template for Contracts to build my one pager, though she allows for two pages. I loved the formatting from my Contracts one so much, I just adapted it. This is going to be important later on, but we'll get to that then.
Now, I had to take time away from my classes to study the exam format and test taking strategies. As I think I discussed in previous posts, law school exams don't really test the things you do in class. Taking the test itself also requires skills and execution which have absolutely nothing to do with knowing the law. (Just like the LSAT involves skills with absolutely nothing to do with knowing the materials.) They're absurdly time restricted and failure is expected. Our Contracts professor showed us the data from his last year's exam and the top grade only earned 1/3 of the possible points. Yeah, so the top A+ grade scored a 33 if graded on a 100 point scale. It's utter lunacy. This information did two things. (1) it informed the urgency of learning how to take a law school exam. (2) it took the pressure off: Wow, failure really is the only possible outcome, so I simply have to learn how to fail gracefully. So I bought some books, read some books, and outlined test taking strategies. This was two days before my Torts exam. Huge mistake. However, if there's one thing I've learned how to do well, it's learning how to adapt strategies to take a test well. With no proof of concept, I had to just devise a strategy, learn how to execute it, and then trust it. There was a scientist who had never learned how to swim. To prove a point, he read a book about how to swim, took a boat out into the middle of the ocean, and jumped it having never been in the water before. That's me. The scientist swam, and I executed my exam strategy. Hopefully it was a good one. Before the torts final, I took three practice exams to hone in my time management skills and practice my execution. That was a steep learning curve which produced dramatic improvement. I also practiced working with my Torts one pager, my primary tool and lifeline for during the exam, and it proved a highly effective tool. The night before the exam, I quit studying, relaxed, and went to be early.
Exam Day 1: Torts
So remember I said that it would be important that I followed my 1 page Contracts template for Torts. For Torts we had two pages, but I did it on one using smaller font, print size, line spacing, and margins. It was elegant and detailed, a beautiful one pager. Apparently I missed that there were font, print size, line spacing, and margin restrictions for our 2 pagers. I wasn't allowed to use my one pager. I could have formatted it properly onto two pages. In hindsight, I should have just left the exam room before the test started, reformatted it, and printed it. I'd've shown up 5 minutes late, but that would have been so worth it. In my panic, I simply didn't realize the clearly correct solution. A classmate had an extra copy of his which he let me use. I was unfamiliar with using it, it didn't have everything mine did, but it may have saved my ass. From spending so much time studying and constructing my one-pager, I actually found I'd internalized the material really effectively. As I said, Torts is the most common sense subject, so most things conform to exactly what you think they should. The things that are more complicated tend to stick out. I'm not sure I missed any nuances as far as the application went, but some things were fuzzy and I wasn't able to be as formulaic in my execution as I had been in developing my strategy in practice. It felt improvised, but competently so.
Afterwards was an interesting emotional experience. On one hand, I felt like I could not have done any better under the circumstances. There are reasons to believe I did well and reasons to believe I did poorly. I felt an overwhelming sense of dread. That's the only word I know for it. Not depression, not anxiety, not fear or worry or downtrodden. Dread. I had planned to take the rest of the day to start taking Contract PT's, but I just couldn't even move. I curled up into a ball and caught up on the last season of Venture Bros which I only just found out had been released quite a while ago. This was the low point of the whole semester emotionally. There are a number of other honorable mentions, but this really was the uncontested winner. I took the day to process the emotions, feel bad, and forgive myself for feeling it. I've found that has been a critical part of my emotional well-being throughout this semester, and with LSAT before: allowing and forgiving myself for these types of emotions without feeling shame over it. It's hard for me, but I think it's really important. We all go to dark places sometimes, and it's important not to bottle that up.
Grade Prediction: B/B+
Exam Day 2: Contracts
Out of sheer necessity, I had to keep pushing forward. I just didn't have time to allow myself anything more than the rest of the day after my exam. At this point, I'd already done my review for contracts and I felt confident that my knowledge of the subject was where it needed to be. I took four practice exams, and I seemed to be hitting all the right issues and discussing them reasonably well. At the same time, I did not feel like I was distinguishing my essays beyond the B+ into the very narrow A range. However, I made enormous strides in my exam strategy and execution, and this was a very productive time on that front.
Exam day went smoothly. I feel like I identified all the correct issues for discussion and I feel like I discussed them to the best of my knowledge and ability. I just don't feel my knowledge or ability was sufficient for an A. Ultimately, however, I am tremendously proud of that exam. In a previous post I stated that my goal was to do my personal best under the circumstances. I did that in Contracts, so I am happy. I don't think I broke into the A's, but I am supremely confident that I maintained the curve with room to spare.
Grade Prediction: B+/A-
Exam Day 3: Civ Pro
Civ Pro was by far my worst subject. For studying the material, this was the most overwhelming. Contracts was a close second, but I had far more time to allot to Contracts. I hadn't understood much in Civ Pro for quite some time. I had to review the Federal Rules of Civil Procedures we had covered, which I felt like I somewhat understood. But I basically had to teach myself Jurisdiction in a weekend. Anyone who's taken Civ Pro will be nauseated at the prospect of such an undertaking. I had done a fairly extensive PJ review before zoning out for the rest of the semester, but that's kinda the easy part. It's just so boring and arbitrary. Torts makes sense and is interesting. Contracts makes sense (eventually) and feels fundamentally important. Criminal Law simultaneously makes sense and doesn't make any sense whatsoever all at once which makes for a fascinating topic. Civ Pro is a list of rules. They're as good a set as any, but different rules, particularly on Jurisdiction, would likely be just as good as long as everyone was on the same page. There are certain things that would be somewhat diminished if the rules were different, but for the most part it seems to me that different decisions would be just as good in places and better in others. This makes for incredibly dull and tedious work. I've never done well at dull and tedious. So, I simply had a lot of catching up to do. And it was still dull and tedious, so it was difficult to get through.
And so the exam itself is the one that gave me the most anxiety (before, not after, haha!) and the exam prep was far more subject matter oriented than it should have been. I did not have time for a single practice exam. Instead, I read some practice problems and briefly outlined an answer supplemented with heavy review of model answers. I was growing increasingly confident in my ability to execute my exam strategy, so this was a calculated gamble. However, the review was really effective and it may have been the best use of my time even under more optimal circumstances. I learned a lot and wish I'd taken this approach to at least supplement some of my prior practices.
Just a note before moving on: When I say "increasingly confident in my ability to execute my exam strategy" that is a subjective standard. What I really mean is "increasingly confident in my ability to achieve the level of execution which was possible to achieve under circumstances very much not ideal. Law school exam strategy involves a lot of complexity and nuance which I came nowhere near to fully developing and which I am, in fact, supremely confident I did not develop half as far as I should have. I'm only concerned here with what was possible under the circumstances. I only emphasize this for anyone who may be at risk of thinking exam taking strategy is learnable so quickly. It is not.
And so, I learned Civ Pro and practiced along the way. I wrote out some form answers of my own for each topic I reviewed to define the various answers and then used switches and plug-ins to make universal form answers in applying the facts. So I'd define a particular element and then write a form answer like:
"Because [facts] may fail/satisfy [rule], the court may/may not have SMJ. However, [facts] may suggest it can/cannot exercise SMJ because of [rule]. Ultimately, the court is likely to decide that it can/cannot exercise SMJ because [rule] will likely be satisfied/failed because of [facts]."
That may not seem very helpful or insightful, but somehow writing out all these form answers for every factor for the class really solidified my testing strategy. It will be something I do throughout the semester from now on, and I think this got me to my maximum potential, whatever that may be.
The actual exam is difficult to reflect on. It is my worst class, but it is by far the exam that I took the best. The whole time, I really felt like I was writing the model answer. It felt good and I'm really proud of it. It's hard to estimate my grade under the circumstances, but I think it warrants a slightly expanded, more bullish prediction. If I do break above a B+, it will confirm my theory about how arbitrary grading in law school is, which I'll discuss more below.
Grade Prediction: B+/A-/A
Exam Day 4: Criminal Law
Crim offers unique challenges and opportunities on an exam. For one thing, there simply are no right/wrong answers. Outcomes often depend much more on what jurisdiction you're in than on what actually happened. My professor actually told us not to even bother with drawing conclusions on the exam. The exam, our prof instructed, would be all "On one hand . . . On the other hand." On one hand, this leaves open a lot of room for debate and elaboration which is where the points are on an exam. On the other hand, it involves a level of complexity far beyond the other subjects. (See what I did there . . ?) This was also an interesting exam because our professor made it a take-home exam, doubled the time allowance (7 hours!) and set a 5,000 word limit. To put that into perspective, many people write closer to 10,000 words than 5,000 on the shorter, three hour exams. (Mine never got much longer than about 5,000, which does give me some anxiety against the 10kers, haha.) Honestly though, I don't know why more professor don't do this. Imagine having to read all these exams written under the worst possible conditions. I have no envy for them for having to read all of that garbage test after test after test. Why do they do that to themselves? With Crim, we actually had time to formulate and structure our thoughts and arguments, proofread, edit, etc. He will have a significantly less miserable time grading these than the others will. Good for him.
Anyway, Crim is just too big and I simply didn't get through my review. I wasn't able to finish. As the final exam, it kinda got back-burnered. This was another calculated gamble which I made knowingly and deliberately. It's my best subject and I had to rely on that to some extent. Also, I've got time within the exam itself to do some targeted review work if needed. It's also open book/note/outline, so I'd have all the resources I needed if I got caught with something I wasn't prepared for. Once I accepted that I just wasn't going to complete my review, I feel I did a good job of honing in on the most important things as efficiently as possible. I had bullet points for basically all the "hands" on the subjects I most expected. One of the three questions I couldn't have prepared for better without a sneek peek of the exam. I knew it would be there, I prepared for it being there, and I totally annihilated it in one hour flat. The other two took up all the remaining time though. Not a minute to spare in the end.
Ironically, this exam was kinda the mirror image of Civ Pro. My best subject but the one I feel the most uneasy about how I took it. Because it's such a unique subject and exam, I simply don't know how to assess it. That makes for an absurdly wide open range of prediction. I simply have no idea what to expect.
Grade Prediction: B/B+/A-/A
A note on grades: I really don't know what to expect. The curve is kinda an absurd approach to grading and ultimately, I think, produces grades that are largely arbitrary. I don't think the exams do a good job at all of testing our knowledge of the subject matter. Rather, I think they mostly test our law school exam taking abilities. This is neither what we are here to learn nor what is taught in class. I believe that literally everyone in my section has sufficient knowledge of the material to achieve enough points to constitute an A. Those A's will not be distributed to the students who know the most but rather to those who've proactively studied exam taking strategies and developed those abilities the furthest. On an exam like the LSAT where objective failure is not universally guaranteed, strategy is necessary to achieve the highest levels of distinction. On a law school exam where failure actually is guaranteed (remember, 33% was the highest grade in Contracts last year), the best exam strategy is uncomfortably closer to sufficient than it is to necessary. Less knowledge executed with better exam strategy will simply earn more points than better knowledge executed with lesser exam strategy because the better knowledge does not have room to expand on itself given the severity of restrictions. The knowledge of the subject matter is still necessary, but I think there are real problems with an exam design which places strategy so near to sufficient. It shouldn't be determined that way. Maybe I'm just hedging in anticipation of disappointment. This is entirely possible, even likely. However, I think I could be both hedging and entirely correct in my assessment. I've spent a lot of time over the years I've been involved with the LSAT in thinking about testing theory, and I really can't imagine me changing my thoughts on law school exams even if I were to magically receive perfect A+'s across the board. It's an ill-conceived, failed system, and I just want to say that now before I can be as effectively accused of being bitter and biased against a system in which I failed to excel.
So, that gets us up to date. Looking forward to the break and to a much better executed second semester. I'll talk more about my plans for that later, but for now I think this one is long enough!
What a ride Josh! Thank you for sharing the journey with us. Reading your journal has served as a huge motivator for me while studying for the LSAT as it reminds me what I'm working towards and what it takes at that level of academia and success. To me, if there's one commonality between your law school and LSAT journey so far, its just the sheer work ethic that's required and I use that as a reminder everyday. It almost felt as if you were frantically trying to keep your head above water the entire semester and its helped me develop a sense of urgency and adaptability in my life and LSAT preparation- I see it as just a taste of what will be required of me if I ever make it to that level.
With the importance of test taking strategy in doing well on exams, why does it fall more into the sufficient realm over necessary in regards to receiving high distinction? My takeaway after thinking about your insight was rather the opposite due to the severe restrictions of the exams. It seems like both knowledge and ,more importantly, strategy are necessary components to exam success. Can you elaborate more on that thought? Wishing you, your doggo & family a wonderful holiday season. I hope you will be able to take some time for yourself before the next semester. You are an inspiration sir! Thank you for all you do for the community. Cheering for you all the way in sunny California.
Man, sunny California sounds really nice right about now. I actually saw the temps in Chicago for today and thought to myself, “Oh nice, it’s getting up into the 30’s today!” I guess I've adapted well enough to have taken on that mindset, haha. Definitely looking forward to getting back down South for winter break.
For the sufficiency thing on exam strategy, I'm using the concept of sufficiency a bit loosely for sure. I don't think anything is truly sufficient for getting A's in law school, but if we put necessity and sufficiency on a spectrum, exam strategy is just uncomfortably close to the sufficiency end. It's also absolutely necessary if we turn the equation around and put the A's in the sufficient, so you're for sure right about that.
I guess what I mean is that no matter how much you learn/know, no one will ever be able to actually get it all down on the exam. If getting up into the 30's is the best anyone can hope to do, it really doesn’t matter how much more than that you know. I think every one of my classmates knows at least 50% of the class. That means literally every one of us has the capacity to absolutely crush the curve based simply off of our level of knowledge of the subject. So if everyone knows more than they could ever hope to get down on the exam, who gets the top grades? Not the people with the greatest knowledge.
On my Crim exam, for example, I had to cut whole sections and topics of discussion to get under the word count. I know those were valid points of inquiry which were worth points, but there was simply not room for them. I could have gotten those points only by being able to structure my answers more strategically to get more points in less space. This is a pure strategic matter with nothing to do with my knowledge. I wrote those points into my exam and then had to delete them. And the Crim exam was actually the least strategic of the four.
Revisiting this as a starting 1L and It's very helpful. Thanks!
I've been meaning to update this for a long time! Things got pretty bleak at exam time, and I really feel like I should send an update from the other side. I do want to preserve the bleak parts, because providing a sincere, unguarded, contemporaneous account of 1L was the whole point. But I also feel like I should preserve the rest for the record.
I'll revisit soon with more details, but basically, everything worked out fine. I mean, law school is still bullshit, but only because no one tells you how to do it. It's like on the LSAT how study strategies are far more complicated than just skimming through a crappy LSAT book. But, for me anyway, I didn't know that until JY told me! Law school is the exact same. The first semester didn't have to be so bad if I'd only known how to go about it. Second semester I figured out how to do it. I don't really know how I did because Covid-19 hit in the middle of the semester and put us on Pass/Fail for every class, but it all felt much smoother and I felt much more capable.
Now, in the first semester of my 2L, I'm a grizzled veteran.
Wow, sad I missed this update!! Did you end up doing OCI?
Oh man, I still need to give this a more in-depth update.
For now though, I can address OCI at least: I did not do OCI. For those that may not know, OCI is On Campus Interviewing and it's the primary way law schools help to place students into jobs. It's mostly for big law. For me personally, though, no salary is worth that amount of misery and suffering. For my likes, there are few things I'd willfully submit myself to with greater displeasure. I'm looking for civil rights stuff, but that's normally through smaller, more local organizations so looking for jobs is a much more individual undertaking. I'm primarily interested in education funding, but holy shit is the law not on my side! So for this summer while I try to figure that out, I'm looking at other things like housing and criminal justice stuff. There's plenty of organizations doing that sort of work, but they're almost all small and local. So it's a lot of work to identify which organizations to apply with, and more work to do it because there's no OCI equivalent to streamline things.