So You Want To Be An Attorney?

Have you lost your mind? Nobody likes attorneys. You have to go through 3 more years of pain like you've never experienced before. Wave goodbye to your spouse, kids, and social life!

To do well you have to want it more than anything else, and become a master of time management.

How To Survive the 1st Yr of Law School

 

Read for Class!!!--read all assigned materials for that day, brief all the cases, do all problems.

Go to Class!!--attendance counts; they can lower your grade or throw you out if you don’t!

Talk to people-in your class, and upperclassmen-we won’t bite!

Get the study aids, and use them—Emanuels, tapes, outlines-whatever you can find

Don’t worry about your actual GPA-the average here is a C, and everything is curved. Just do the best that you can

Don’t be petty! People will hate you. If you have a group of friends, give them an outline to make copies of; if someone asks you a question and you know the answer, tell them! Life will suck if you have a great GPA and everyone hates you!

Don’t get behind—time management is the main issue in the 1st year. Don’t think you’ll have time to catch up later-you won’t.

Don’t totally rely on someone else’s notes or materials. Use them to supplement your own understanding. They can’t take the final for you.

Review what you know –try for every week, or every major topic-don’t wait until 2 days before the final to pull it all together.

Relax-but not too much. You need to have an outlet for the unbelievable pressure you will feel, but you still have to keep up with your work

 

Remember-we (upperclassmen) have all been where you are, and some of us extremely recently. The majority of us are willing to help. If you come across a jerk, try someone else. Sooner or later you’ll get lucky!

Study habits that worked for me

--Read all assigned material every day—be prepared for class

--brief the cases yourself—Facts, Issue, Holding, and Reasoning—don’t rely on commercial briefs

--go to class, and be awake—

--Ask questions if you don’t understand—more than likely others don’t either

--Ask the professor questions in their office if you’re too embarrassed

to ask in class-they will not bite your head off-they’ll actually help you!

--Stay on top of it-review well before finals roll around

 

When grades come out-Don’t be vicious, whether you did good or bad. The people who were your friends before should still be, unless they’re petty and small-minded! Remember it’s only one semester-your rank is on loan!

 

Devilous@Unforgettable.comBabylawyer@hotmail.com

 

Also, you will not have access to Westlaw or Lexis during the first semester. They want you to use the books. Many law libraries are now online. Check out a good one with lots of research links at the University of Akron (My Alma Mater), or the Law Crawler

 

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