This is part 2 on law school preparation continued from this post.

How did I prepare for law school?
I did not prepare coming into law school other than a "how to succeed in law school" book that my school suggested (which wasn't really much of a help). It never crossed my mind to prepare by pre-learning some of the material because I had never done such a thing for any school work in the past. But I realized pretty quickly that law school is different than any other past experiences. Knowing that now and based on my experiences with law school thus far, I think prepping would have improved my grades for the first year.

What makes me think that prepping before law school would have helped?
I was lost and learned almost nothing throughout the first semester in class. I couldn't see how cases fit into the big picture and didn't understand many rules. It wasn't until I sat down at the end of the semester and started making my outline and going back through other resources that were more focused on rules/black letter law than casebooks (ie, past student outlines, CALI lessons, commercial outlines and supplements) that I started to catch on.

What if I had just gone over those types of resources before classes started? I think it would have saved me the stress of being lost and the time of trying to learn everything, including the easy stuff, at the end of the semester.

Who should prepare for law school?
This sort of self prep is in no way for everyone and not a lot of students do it. It takes a lot of motivation to put extra work into the summer before law school and continue working hard into law school. And burnout is definitely a concern.

To me, ideal candidates are students who feel like they have to achieve high honors in law school, say law review or a top associate position.

Students who would like to transfer to a more highly regarded school seem to be perfect candidates for prepping. If you want to transfer upward, you only have one year to prove your worth, and often competition at these schools are fierce because you're not the only one who wants to transfer. So if you're highly motivated and in this position, it might be something worth looking into. Some students from the Planet Law School message board have been in the same boat and a lot of testimonials pop up thanking Planet Law School for their grades allowing them to transfer.

Granted, there are likely to be more testimonials like this than ones by people who have prepped and not succeeded. Plus there is no way to know whether a person who prepared for law school in this way and excelled would have done so anyway. But looking back at my experiences in law school I can definitely see how the basic familiarity that would be gained through this method of preparation could help so it makes sense.

As our leader here at CALI reports on his blog, the CALI CD is being shipped to the 200 or so CALI member schools. That means if you're attending school in the fall at one of these schools, you should be getting the CALI CD for free!

Make sure that if your school doesn't give you your free CALI CD during orientation that you seek one out. Your school's CALI contact or someone in your library should be able to help.

If you are going to one of the few non-CALI member schools, write emails to your administration and tell them that you would like to see your school become member of CALI and have your friends do the same.

What is the CALI CD?
The CALI CD contains all of CALI's 600+ lessons in 32 subjects of law. It is not a demo CD, it is a complete collection of all CALI lessons. CALI Lessons are interactive, computer-based tutorials written by law professors. All CALI Lessons are listed here. Generally, the lessons are broken into different components of the different subjects. ADDED 7/38/2006: See what other students said about CALI Lessons and how the lessons helped them in this post.

Note that all CALI Lessons are available on the web with a password as well as from the CD. I suggest using the online lessons as they are gauranteed the most up to date. You should probably only use the CD when you don't have an internet connection. In order to get online access to CALI Lessons, also free to CALI member school students, get the authorization code from your school's CALI contact. Again, someone at your library should be able to help you with this as well.

Suggestions of how to use your CALI CD and CALI Lessons.
This is important because when I got a CALI CD during 1L orientation and before working for CALI, the CD was given to me with little explanation. I think a lot of students end up with this CALI CD as one of the many things they are given during orientation and have no idea what purpose it serves and, because of this, never try it or just forget about it.

Some pointers for how to use the CALI CD:

1. Don't throw it away when you get it during orientation!
2. Use the online lessons when you can and save the CD for times you don't have an internet connection, as mentioned above.
3. Run through the CALI lesson on a given topic before class discussion on that topic.
4. Alternatively or in addition to 3, run through the lessons on a given subject after that topic was discussed in class as reinforcement.
5. Use CALI lessons as a refresher during the weeks before exams.

How to access CALI Lessons before law school starts.
If you're not attending law school this fall or just want a head start on using CALI lessons, you can buy a subscription to CALI Lessons at learnthelaw.org.

A lot of you have probably never researched or even know what an LLM is. I still wasn't completely sure until I read Professor Gregory Bowman's (of Law Career Blog) multi-part post on LLM's. As he puts it:

• ...for those who may not know, an LLM is a postgraduate law degree--a law master's degree. In the United States it is typically a one-year course of study at a law school. In some programs you focus your studies on a particular area of law, but often you do not have to.

The thought of more school beyond the 3 years of law school may not appeal to you. But his posts are really great stuff if you're interested in eventually getting an LLM or just want to keep your options open.

LLMs by Law Career Blog Links:
Pros and Cons of LLMs
LLM Redux
LLMs Part 3

I hinted of more to come on law school preparation in this post. I'll elaborate a little further.

Self Preparation
Like I said in that earlier post, I believe that learning some concepts and ideas of prior to law school will help an incoming law student. And more than just a week long class, I think getting your hands on some actual material and learning some terms, basic concepts, and rules before you come into law school could really go a long way.

I really learned about the idea of self preparation from a book called Planet Law School (now in its second edition). Some people have criticized the book's negative undertones. No doubt the book is a sharp contrast to what you'll read or hear from most in terms of cynicism. But one of the basic premises, that garnering knowledge before you go to law school puts you ahead of the game, I agree with.

The basic idea in the book is to buy some resources before law school starts (such as Examples and Explanations, Commercial Outlines, etc.) and gain a familiarity with your first year material on your own through a prep program.

Advantages to this method
One big advantages to self preparation before law school that it should ease the transition to law student. Adjusting to the case/socratic/one final exam method isn't easy. But when you read all of these cases full of largely, at least for final exam purposes, irrelevant facts you can pick out the relevant rules more easily and likely understand the case better in terms of the big picture. A direct result of this will also allow you to have more confidence for in class discussion.

Further, if you prep before law school you should be able to spend less time learning the basics giving you the ability to delve deeper into the more difficult areas of a subject in class.

And because law school courses are curved, you cannot discount the fact that prepping could put you ahead of some students who have zero to little familiarty with the material. Just that possibility might be worth it to you.

Arguments against preparation:
Some, like the first commenter here, claim that prepping is detrimental because a student will learn the material in a manner different than how the professor will teach it. I have a tough time buying into that for a number of reasons:

1. If you do prep, chances are you're probably not going to learn, fully comprehend, and remember the more intricate parts of the law. But you're at least going to pick up some vocabulary and basic understanding of the subject. Hopefully, your professor will fill in those gaps. And the time saved due to familiarity is an added bonus.
2. Any student in law school is smart enough to adjust to a professor's teaching method, else they probably would not make it in law school anyway because they will be unable to use past student outlines, commercial outlines, and other supplements correctly. Even if the student did learn something in a different or even wrong way, is it that hard for an intelligent person to simply adjust to the professor?

Probably the most valid argument is fatigue/burnout. The first law school semester seems long and stressful enough as it is. Adding a rigorous preparation program to your summer is probably not the most intriguing idea. And if you end up burnt out by the end of the semester, that could really hurt.

More on this to come later...

I know. The "should we ban laptops in the classroom" debate is getting old. My personal feelings are that banning laptops is a bit of a witch hunt, to use too of a strong of a word.

But I have to post this article because it gives a shout out to the old undergrad alma mater and includes a professor whose class I took. That's right, Eastern Illinois University mentioned in the same article as Univ. of Chicago's, Univ. of Michigan's, Depaul's, and Univ. of Illinois' Law Schools!

My guess is the Tribune was seeking the most prestigious schools in the area for the article and needed a non-law school example...

Either that or EIU was the only school that would admit to catching a student viewing (extremely inappropriate material) in class. Now that's the EIU I know and love. Go Panthers!

Law School Academic Blog points out a couple of professors' thoughts on what skills are necessary to succeed in law school here and here.

One class, in particular, was a very involved class on a specific UCC article. I realized how involved it was when I came out of the test feeling awful, probably worse than I have felt about any other law school exam.

This in-depth of class is just not conducive to the "everything crammed into 6 weeks" summer schedule. Add to that another class, a law journal, no break between spring finals and summer semester, a full-time job, and a week-long work trip over this period and I simply should not have been taking this sort of schedule.

Why is this important?
I'm not complaining or making excuses for being unprepared, but this is relevant to an incoming law student because I look at this blog as a way for people to learn from both things do right and things do wrong. Most of the time I can speak with more authority on, and you can learn more from my mistakes. I would suggest to someone taking summer classes to choose a schedule more carefully than I did.

Know your school's pass/fail policy
Our school has an option to take classes pass/fail, meaning a student can elect to take a course so that he/she either passes or fails it and that class is not counted toward GPA. That would have saved me not only because I'm worried about my grade on the exam, but because there would have been much less pressure on me throughout the semester. I'm not sure if all other schools have pass/fail policies, but know your school's pass/fail policy so you can use it to your advantage when you need to.

Know your limits
When it comes time to pick your own classes, take into account all other activities. Remember summer classes are really are semester long courses crammed into a few weeks. Save less involved classes or pass/fail classes for times when you know you will be busy.

If I could not take the class pass/fail or if I couldn't find another less involved class to take its place, I should have settled for taking less credits and worried about catching up later. I think I overextended myself these past few weeks and it may have cost me in that class. Keep that in mind if you're tempted to try and load up on the credits over the summer.

Either way, I'm glad the summer semester is over and I can finally relax a little bit. Even though I still have to work, it will feel like vacation!

Professor Dave Hoffman in this post at Concurring Opinions asks "are law school courses a waste of money." He comes to the conclusion that they probably are not worth the money. My thoughts on this are below.

THE OPTIONS FOR PREP COURSES
There are a couple of week long programs that cost around $1,000. One by BAR/BRI and another called Law School Preview. Unfortunately I cannot truly comment on the quality of the programs because I did not attend either. If anyone who attended these wants to comment on either of these, feel free.

THE VALUE OF A LAW SCHOOL PREPARATION COURSE:
I think Prof. Hoffman may be underestimating the potential value of preparing for law school when he says "a prep course can't hurt you." I would add that a prep course has the potential to help you if it gives you a familiarity with the basics of law school that students are sort of expected to pick up along the way, about which so many incoming students have no clue (some fundamentals of the first year course material, basics of government, certain vocabulary, law school exam testing skills, study techniques, etc)

The first semester is spent (at least in my case it was) as much on learning those mentioned above as it is on learning the material. Having some sort of understanding about those topics, including some basic knowledge of the actual materials, would allow you to concentrate on the more intricate parts of the law in your first classes as well as pick up previously familiar topics taught through the professor with greater ease.

SHOULD YOU TAKE A LAW SCHOOL PREP COURSE?
"Want to know what everyone else will be doing this summer to ensure law school success," BAR/BRI's entrance page says, "They're taking BAR/BRI" the home page then explains. The "everybody's doing it"/subtle scare tactic marketing technique is pretty transparent because the majority of students entering law school do not do take any preparation course. So should you be one of them?

If it were free, like the program mentioned earlier this week it would be an obvious yes. The problem is the steep price tag of the aforementioned programs vs. how much you do actually gain from a week long course. It all comes down to what you're willing to spend for, probably at most, a marginal gain in law school success. But, again, I think the gain could be greater than what the Professor mentions. There are certainly other (cheaper) methods of preparation which I will discuss later.

Along the same lines as the earlier Public vs. Private Sector Jobs post, I think it's important to understand as a prelaw how the employment game works for those who know they want to work in the private sector for law firm.

I can't do a better job explaining that than this post from toplawstudent (I know, we've been linking each other a lot lately). I will add a couple of thoughts, though.

The Big Law Firm Jobs and The Money:
A big law firm is just about the only way you are going to see a 100k+ salary straight out of law school. And about the only way to get that kind of high paying job right out of law school is to have some sort of combination of high class rank/highly ranked school that allows you to get what is known as a summer associate position at a big firm after your first year.

Simply put, a large majority of law students do not get a starting salary of that nature. But that does not mean you cannot work your way up to that sort of salary with experience. It just means that most students will have to prove they are good lawyers through work experience, the best law students will be assumed to be good lawyers based on one or two good years in law school and a summer associate position.

The Feast or Famine Myth:
The numbers are so contrasting. $40,000 vs. $135,000. Those are the only numbers mentioned in the the post and they do stick out at you. I think that some students may get the impression that if a person doesn't get the right ranking at the right school in the first year, thereby missing out on the big law firm job, then they are stuck with $40,000 by default.

As this article points out, that is not necessarily true. There is a whole array of starting salaries to be had at small and medium size firms. It is not an either/or proposition.

Links:
As a side note, some interesting commentary here on traditional law firm hiring practices.

The Sutherland Scholars Program (video report from WC11 in Atlanta), as blogged about on Law.com's blog, looks like a great, free opportunity for minority students to prepare for law school.

I don't know much about the quality of the program, but it sounds like they are assigning coursework and holding classes in a way that mirrors real law school.

With this six-week preparation program (put on by Sutherland Asbill & Brennan) being free, I see no reason for an incoming law student with such an opportunity not to take it.

Law school is such a unique experience. I think a lot of incoming law students show up unprepared for/uninformed about law school and spend the whole first semester trying to figure out how to play the game. It would be great to come to law school prepared and with an understanding of how things work.

Top Law Student Blog has a posting on what to wear in law school. I agree with most of what was posted, but it's such a common question so I thought I would add some of my thoughts below...

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Do not be alarmed, this is the same old blog. I just got a little bored with the old look of the blog so I changed the template...

Also: Technorati Profile

Learning how to study in law school is the hardest part about law school. If you’ve done much research about law school, you will know that the cornerstone of studying in law school is the outline. More about outlining below...
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