Sunday, March 20, 2011

There's a Method to 0L Madness

Funny, but when I decided to get good at Scrabble, there was already a well-established method for doing so.  It was spelled out by a lot of different sources, but it always worked out about the same.  Memorize the 2 letter words, memorize the 3 letter words, learn strategies for playing more bingoes, etc.

With 0L of Law school, it's about the same.  This really drives home the adage that Law School is a 5 year committment.  You really need to put in about a year's worth of work before you even show up.  I've done part of that already by taking the LSAT and applying to schools.

The rest, though, is that you can improve your grades before you ever set foot in a law school classroom.

I'm slowly reading blog posts by various high-achieving students and a pattern is starting to emerge as to 0L activities.

1.  Get LEEWS or attend the seminar if you can.  The dates don't work for me, so I'll be buying the CD course.  That will work great because I drive and travel a lot.  I can load up my iPod and use my travel time to my advantage.

2.  Buy the E & E books.  These are books that have examples and explanations on the subjects that are taught in 1L year.  I believe there are six of them, total.  They only cost about $30, each.

3.  Hornbooks?  Not as universally recommended as the E & Es, but still recommended.  These are pricier.  So, perhaps getting them from the library might be a good idea.

4.  There's a book called "getting to maybe" that is widely cited for being a good guide on how to write for law school exams. 

Now, I'm hearing recommendations for what to do once you're a 1L, but frankly, it's all pretty commonsense straightforward stuff.  Get to know your prof.  Work their practice exams.  Get in their head to try and answer the exams the way they want people to answer them.  Study like mad starting a month before finals. 

None of that is going to come as a surprise to anybody.

However, the LEEWS and E & E advice?  That's like a secret handshake.  I never heard of those things two months ago.  If I had to guess, at least half the class, and maybe more like 90% of them will show up to the first day of class with no idea what these things are.

This whole thing is like academic bloodsport.  It's reminiscent of that old joke about two guys walking along and they see a bear running at them.  One guy starts running.  The other guy says, "What are you doing?  A bear can run 25 miles an hour!"  The first guy turns around and says, "Yeah, but I don't have to outrun the bear."

So, anything that gives you an edge over fellow students?  Delays the day you get eaten by a bear.

Some schools are worse than others, and I'm going to a school with a reputation for being competitive, but not cutthroat.  Still, the stakes are huge.  The very top grads can probably look forward to really good job offers.  The rest run the risk of becoming law school road kill.

Although I bet everybody will know all about E&Es and LEEWS by the time they're 2Ls, 1/3 of law school will be over by then. 

Besides, once the semester starts, the last thing people will want to do is add to their workload. 

So, will it work?  Will it matter?  Who knows.  Worst-case, I don't see how it could hurt.  I'll blog on it if it works.  If not, I'll e-bay this crap and try to get half my money back.

As for things I didn't do correctly, here are the biggies, other than waiting until my mid-40s to apply:

1.  I didn't study hard enough for the LSAT.  My only weakness was the logic questions section, but they sell books specifically to prep you for that.  All other sections, I basically wailed on.  Although I did get accepted to my primary school of choice, that's mostly because it's a lower tier school.  With a better LSAT, I could have gotten a scholarship.  I might even allow my acceptance to lapse and re-take the June LSAT and re-apply. 

2.  If my goal was law school, I really, really, really should have chosen an easy major.  If you ask me, a lot of humanities degrees require a lot of work and aren't necessarily easy As.  I'm talking something like communications where the people might not be as academically driven and there are a ton of electives. 

If I were a young person intent on law school and just followed #1 and 2, I'd probably be looking at admission to a top tier school.  As is, I might get accepted to a school or two in the second tier, but that's about it.

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