24 Jul, 2006
Law School Preparation
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:
- 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.
- 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...