LAW SCHOOL TIPS FOR SUCCESS: For a 1L, From a 3L

my name is heather lee o'keefe aka the blonde barrister of blondebarrister.com and this is the first video of a series i'm starting to help current or prospective law students i wanted to make this video because my passion is helping others succeed so my goal for this series is to help empower and uplift you fellow law students and colleagues in the legal field by sharing my own experiences and tips for success to hopefully make your law school journey a little bit easier i'm now a 3l which means i'm in my third and final year of law school so i've been in your shoes and i know how overwhelming the first year of law school can seem i want to start by saying that everyone learns differently we all have different learning styles so what works best for me may not be best for you and that's okay but i still wanted to share these top crucial tips that i learned from 1l year with the hopes that they will help you too so let's start with tip number one which is staying organized there's so much information that it's gonna be thrown at you during law school orientation and your first week of school that you're not even gonna know where to begin so it's really important to keep all of your information organized in one place and know where to look to find the information you need what i recommend and what i did is to print out every syllabus for each class and mark down what you've done and what you haven't done so my professors a lot of them had a course schedule included in their syllabus what to do for the first day of class second day of class and so on so once i completed something i would check it off and i would know that that assignment is done i think i had about five classes my first year of law school so keeping track of what you have and haven't done for five different classes can be overwhelming but if you stay organized it'll be so much easier to stay on top of your material tip number two is time management and that goes hand in hand with staying organized it is so easy to get off track and lose track of time but if you have a daily schedule for every day and if you know exactly what you need to get done by the end of that day it makes things a lot easier so what i recommend is having your schedule written down whether that be in a personal planner or on google calendar figure out what works for you and stick with it i started by using a personal planner like an agenda but i realized that didn't work for me so i switched to google calendar and i stuck with that ever since so what i do is i type in all of my classes and their times so it'll show on my calendar when i have class i'll also put the exams and things like that and for each class i will write in the notes for each day what reading is due that day if there's an assignment due that day anything i need to know for that class all i'll have to do is click on it and i'll see what i need to be prepared for that day and also if i have an assignment due sometimes i'll color code that and make it red so i'll see on my calendar that something important is happening that day whether you use an online calendar like google calendar that i use or some other form of a planner written down all that i recommend is that you just have it written down somewhere so you always know what's going on and what you have to do also to-do lists are very helpful and i know that there's some mental thing that goes with checking off something off of your to-do list it just makes you feel so successful and motivated to keep checking things off of your to-do list i have multiple to-do lists so it's easy to always see once i finish something what can i work on next tip number three is being prepared for class which you think would go without saying but i promise you there's going to come a time your first year of law school where someone in your class gets called on and they are unprepared you will see how embarrassing that is so i don't want you to be that person so stay prepared stay on top of your readings and make sure you do your case briefs speaking of case briefs i recommend that you do your own case briefs of course you need to know how to do them but i also recommend to use a canned brief or a commercial case brief to make sure you're on the right track to make sure that you have the relevant facts because believe it or not not everything in a case is relevant sometimes and to make sure you know the specific rule that you need to know for that case i remember my first year of law school and reading my first few cases for class and i just remember being so confused because it was unlike any other reading that i had ever done in my whole school career so far so if you feel that way is completely normal reading cases will get easier and case briefing will get easier so just look at those commercial briefs the canned briefs and that will kind of give you an idea of what to do there are many sites out there where you can find case briefs really all you have to do is google a case and usually it'll come up but i personally recommend lexisnexis case briefs and that's what i used my first year all you have to do is log in log into your lexis account and search the case you're looking for and most landmark cases which are most of the ones you learn about first year have a case brief available on lexisnexis all of the lexis case briefs include the rule the issue the analysis the answer and the conclusion so it's all right there for you again i don't recommend only using the canned briefs because professors will know when you're using a commercial brief so still do your own and just use these as a supplement tip number four is to start outlining from day one what is an outline basically it's just a summary of the legal topic of the class you're taking so my outlines include my class notes things my professor said definitions rules legal concepts and things like that and you may be thinking where do i even begin with that if you have no idea how to start your outline that's okay but here's a little secret it's actually given to you and you may not even know it just look at your syllabus or open up your textbook and look at the table of contents and there is the skeleton for your outline for example here's my contracts book chapter one the agreement process there's part one of your outline chapter two consideration there's part two of your outline and it has every little thing in between so all you have to do is just kind of copy down the table of contents of your textbook and then fill in the blanks with your class notes looking back on first year i remember taking notes that just weren't even relevant to the course itself and i would write down every single thing my professor said so it's important to note what's relevant and what's not and that'll just come with time but it's really important to start that outline from day one because it'll be really hard if you start mid-semester or wait till the end of the semester also i recommend downloading barbary outlines or some kind of commercial outline to compare to your own outline that you're creating for class just to make sure you're on the right track and that you're not missing anything my next tip is to take advantage of supplemental materials and what i mean by that is things that are given to you by your law school such as barbary and lexisnexis westlaw those kinds of things i know that my school provided all of the one else with access to barbary's 1l mastery course which was really crucial to my success my first year and if your school doesn't provide that for you i really suggest looking into it and possibly investing in it unfortunately law school isn't like undergrad where you can just go to class and not study and kind of forget about one particular class until the next time you have that class no in law school you have to stay on top of your courses you have to stay on top of the material study outside of class and for me it really helped to use outside material like lexisnexis study guides barbary and things like that i'd have to say that barbary was my favorite study tool because it provides lectures outlines practice multiple choice questions and practice essays and combining all of those things it just really helped me grasp the concepts one thing i really liked about barbary and it really helped me study it was taking the multiple choice practice tests and not only does it tell you when you're right or wrong but it tells you why you're right or wrong so it doesn't really help to just get the answer right because maybe you were guessing but if you see the explanation for the answer it really helps grasp that concept and know why you were right or why you were wrong tip number six is networking the legal profession is a career where it's not only important what you know but also who you know so start networking now think of all your classmates as future colleagues or even employers your reputation is of utmost importance in this profession so just make sure you treat everyone kindly and with respect one way you can start networking in law school is by joining student organizations this can also help you narrow down which area of law you are interested in if you are currently undecided i remember my first year i joined almost every student organization that i had the slightest bit of interest in and it really helped me narrow down which field of law i want to practice when i graduate getting involved in student organizations early helped me land executive board positions my 2l and 3l year which look great on a resume and now i'm even president of my favorite student organization it's never too early to start building your legal resume and thinking about future employment opportunities so start thinking now about where you might want to intern your first summer as a law student and make sure to keep an eye out for when their applications open you want to make sure you're one of the very first ones to apply now my final tip for not only law school but life in general is to believe in yourself and have confidence that is the number one key to success always remember that you are right where you need to be you belong here you worked hard to get here and you deserve to be here also if you feel absolutely clueless your first day your first week even your first month of law school don't worry everyone else is in the same boat that you are and you're not alone one thing they told us during my 1l orientation is that you are now one among the best think about it everyone who got into law school everyone in your entering class you all had to have a good gpa you all probably did pretty well on the lsat so you're all in the same playing field whereas you could have been the best in your undergrad class or high school or whatever but now you're also surrounded by the best so don't compare yourself to others on the same level that you might have used to if you've made it this far you're obviously more than capable of achieving greatness and if you're watching this video that means you're already taking extra steps to be even more prepared and successful in law school thank you so much for taking the time to watch this video i wish you all the best in law school if you enjoyed these tips or if you learned anything today please like this video and subscribe to my channel for more law school related content i'd really appreciate any feedback and suggestions for future videos so please let me know by commenting below i'll see you next time

Channel: Heather Lee O'Keefe

Views: 816

Rating: 4.9183674 out of 5

Keywords: law school, law, school, tips for success, tips, success, 1l, 2l, 3l, law school tips, how to be successful, how to be successful in law school, what i wish i knew, before law school

Id: djrd5B8zek4

Length: 10min 51sec (651 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 24 2020