tips for success in law school

Prepare your resume and sample cover letters as you would a brief. Then visit your Career planning office for review and advice on planning your career. The general rule is that Career Services can begin meeting 1L students on November 1. Try to get into their office soon after to start thinking about your plans for next summer! Most legal employers cannot accept your applications or resumes until December 1, but when that rolls around be ready to go.

Take a break! It is important not to lose sight of things that you were interested in before starting law school. Exercise, watch reality TV or your favorite movie, play a mindless video game, or attend the latest play at your local theater. Its easy to get bogged down in everything that you have to do, but maintaining parts of your life that you enjoyed before law school is important to remaining who you are.

Law school is hard work. To get consistently high grades, law students need to work 50 55 hours a week outside of class. It pays off to have a blissful and restful summer. In addition to any work hours or class hours, have some fun. Get lots of sleep. Enjoy life. Do at least some things that have nothing to do with law. And, if you are an entering 1L, do all things that have nothing to do with law.

Many law students become stressed and overwhelmed because they do not take control over their time from day one of classes. Flying by the seat of ones pants worked well for most students prior to law school. It is the road to self destruction and mediocre grades in law school. Set up time blocks on a weekly schedule for completing all tasks regularly reading for each course, reviewing the material again before class, reviewing class notes within 24 hours to fill in gaps and condense, outlining weekly, reviewing outlines, doing practice problems, working on papers or other assignments.

Law students tend to waste enormous amounts of time if they do not have structured time management schedules. Some of the big time wasters are interruptions from e mails, instant messages, text messages, and phone calls. Other time wasters are naps, errands, video games, TV shows, surfing the Web, and visiting in the student lounge. Use these distractions as rewards after getting your work done rather than as time wasters to avoid work.

Unlike undergraduate school, the courses that one takes in law school need to be remembered because of the bar exam and legal practice. Cramming does not reinforce memory because the information never gets into your long term memory filing cabinet and disappears once you regurgitate the information on a final exam. Law school courses have an overwhelming amount of material that needs to be applied on exams and not just memorized. Because we forget 80% of what we learn in 2 weeks if we do not review it constantly, review every week of the semester is the key to good grades on exams and retaining information for later use. It is easier to regain use of information for the bar exam and practice if one learned it well to begin with and merely has to brush up rather than re learn.

Efficiency is about making the best use of ones time. Law students who constantly monitor how they are learning and hone their skills to be more efficient will excel. Active learning techniques help one to become more efficient because one is using study time to learn rather than merely do time over cases or outlines.

Effectiveness is about getting the best results out of ones studying. Law students who constantly monitor what they are learning and hone their skills to be more effective will excel. Using learning styles to advantage will help one to become more effective.

Always as yourself questions to determine how well you understand the material. Always evaluate your study habits to see what is working and what is not. Then determine the changes you have to make. Professors, tutors, and the academic support staff can all assist you in becoming a better student.

et a minimum of 7 hours of sleep. Eat balanced meals rather than junk food. Exercise several times a week. Laugh every day. Give yourself rewards for a job well done. Law students often defeat themselves by getting liittle sleep, eating poorly, never exercising, and constantly focusing on the negative.