What to Expect in your First Year of Law School Part I

Thinking About Law School?

It is that time of the year where many law school applicants are thinking about which law school to attend and which offer to accept. For the most part, no matter which law school you decide to attend, there will be many similarities between the majority of schools during the 1L year. In order to best prepare yourself, it is important to know what you are getting yourself into.

Not to create any doubts so early before your 1L year actually begins, but it is very useful to know what to expect. Personally, I wanted to learn as fast as possible how to start thinking like a law student and how to prepare during the 0L summer. I had not done many legal internships before attending law school, and so the impetus was great for me to expose myself to as much law school material as I could. Below are the things that I found to be very helpful in preparing me. They may not be the best form of advice, as I am just a 1L after all and not an expert. But I believe experience has given me some insight into the law school student's life. This will be the first of a two part article.

Tip #1 - Familiarize yourself with the material

There is nothing better to help you get oriented with what to expect from the subject material than to actually look at the material. The classes you will be taking during your first year are pretty much the same for most law schools. The doctrinal courses you can expect to be taking during your first year will include Torts, Criminal Law, Civil Procedure, Contracts, Property, and Constitutional Law. I suggest you order the casebooks that your professors recommend as soon as possible. Looking through them and seeing how cases are written and to familiarize yourself with the language will be very beneficial. This will, of course, depend on how early in the summer the professor will notify you of which books to get. But once you know, check them out. I am not saying to go and start memorizing what you read, because you will not know which parts you will be reading until the professor sends you the syllabus. Simply skimming and reading for the sake of starting to adapt to the legal style of writing will be sufficient in helping to prepare.

Tip #2 - Start thinking about which supplements to get, and get them

There are these things you will hear about soon called supplements. They are basically useful guides and handbooks that will summarize the law covered in your classes and come in many different forms. Personally, I did research on the supplements that are out there, and picked the one I liked the most. I then went and ordered the same one which corresponded to each class I would be taking during the first year. For example, I chose the Examples & Explanations series, and ordered the one for Torts, Contracts, etc. I recommend this series specifically because they include actual examples and answers for each topic covered in the chapters. This is very useful, and helped me to learn how to formulate my answers and what to start expecting from law school exams. You may not know what it is you are reading or not understand it if you are reading them during the 0L summer. But trust me, their value will become apparent to you later on.

Tip #3 - Start creating your "ideal" schedule

Once you know what your schedule will be for the semester, start creating your daily schedule so that you will have a plan. This is useful for a number of reasons. One is that once classes start, you will be overwhelmed by the readings, the excitement, and the nervousness. It will be tough to get everything sorted out while you are being bombarded by materials and expectations. To already have a schedule planned out will remove the anxiety of always trying to make sure you have time for everything. So first of all, know your commute. If you live on campus, this part is virtually nonexistent. A simple walk is all it will take you to get to your classes and to the library. But if you commute, like I did and still do, this is important. Familiarize yourself with the general commute time that it will take you to get to school, and please try to take into account any unforeseen events regarding public transportation. (Hint: there are always unforeseen events with public transportation.) I call this planned schedule "ideal" because once you start law school, you will know for sure how your actual schedule will be like. In that case, all you will have to do is to tweak the one you already have planned out. This is much better than to just wing it as each day comes and goes and to not have a schedule form the start. The last thing you want to do is to be late to class early on in the semester.

Tip #4 - Have a good summer, really though

The general response to a question of "How was your summer?" is almost always "good". But was it actually good? This will be your last chance to have a summer free of any school or internship obligations, unless you are already doing an internship of course. But if you are taking this summer off, enjoy it as much as you can. Go somewhere, relax, and enjoy your free time. Because once the semester starts, there will be no "free time". You will be spending a lot of time in the school library, and I mean a lot. So do yourself a favor, and have a good summer.

Tip #5 - Get used to writing

There are two activities you will be doing almost all of the time during law school: reading and writing. If you did not have a writing-intensive major in undergrad, make sure you start to get used to writing a lot. Whether it is on a notebook or a tablet, start "briefing" things. You will need to do this for every class. Briefing is basically the style of taking notes that is prevalent in law school. In order to fully understand the material, this will be necessary. For whatever it is you are reading, whether it be a newspaper article, or an academic article, or even a real case that would be in your casebook (if you actually took my advice in Tip #1), try to summarize what you are reading. You can see examples of what a case brief should look like on this website, which has examples from different classes. Getting used to thinking of issues and problems this way will be very useful for when you have to take law school exams. The exams will be testing you on how well you can identify issues, and how well you can apply the law to answer those issues. There is no greater feeling than to know you are on the right track and that you are doing something right.

Stay tuned for Part II of this article, where I will talk about some tips on navigating law school life, and getting the most of what your law school will be offering you.