If I could go back in time, I would share some
secrets to my younger self about law school. After doing well in college, I thought I knew a
lot more about academic success than I really did. No one told me about what I really needed to do
during law school, and the resources I did find were sketchy at best. Okay, time to go
back and share my ten law school secrets. Hello lawlings, this is Professor Beau Baez.
The advice I share is based on my experience in law school, and what I’ve seen teaching
thousands of students at six different law schools. During college, my primary focus was to
get top grades so I could get into law school. I graduated with a 3.96 gpa (for my non-US
audience, that's out of a possible 4.0), two majors, one minor, a debate
team captain, and significant public service. But I never thought beyond getting
into law school, leaving me with a few regrets. “Keep the end in mind” is one of the seven
characteristics of highly effective people. In law school, that means focusing on the opportunities
after law school. That might mean jobs with prestigious law firms, judicial clerkships, government, or non-profit organizations. And if your plan is to go work for Mom and Dad, maybe you’ll change your mind. The goal is to have as many career options
as possible. Now, to the ten secrets. Grades. Earning high grades means more
opportunities, even at the elite law schools. The problem is most law schools have mandatory
grade curves that professors must follow. After assigning a raw score to each exam, the professor
then ranks every exam from top to bottom. For example, a professor might assign 2 A’s,
4 A-‘s, 7 B+’s, and so on. And if in one year, a batch of students does much better than in
prior years, guess what, they still don’t earn higher grades. During orientation, my law school’s
Dean told us that most in the room would not earn A’s—there was a collective gasp
from the 500 entering 1L’s. Doing good work isn’t enough. What you need is to outperform your classmates, which is outside of your control. Exams. At most law schools, there is one
final exam with several essay questions. If you’re lucky, the professor might provide a
midterm exam, which may be graded or provided only as practice for the final. Law school essays are
unlike anything you’ve seen before. In college, professors usually wanted to see how much of the
course content you remembered. But in law school, course content—the law— is a small part of what the professor is looking for. The most important aspect in a law school essay is applying law to a set of facts you’ve never seen before— the skill you will use after graduation when preparing legal
documents. But applying law to facts isn’t enough, with the professor expecting the essay to be
organized using the IRAC format, or something like it. I would tell my younger self to focus
all my extra time and energy on preparing for the final exam. Classroom. The law school classroom is
dominated by the use of the Socratic method, also called the case method. The professor calls on students randomly, assigns students to be on call on a specific date, or relies on volunteers. I would tell my younger self that classroom discussion isn’t that important for two reasons. First, few professors assign grades for classroom performance. And for those that do,
it tends to be a tiny part of the course grade. And second, there is often a mismatch between
classroom discussion and the final exam. One of my first year professors spent
so much time discussing legal theory, that I prepared to discuss theory on the final. Not one question involving theory on the final exam. Younger self, don’t stress out
over getting called on in class. Classmates. Some law students enjoy volunteering
to answer questions in class. They often use sophisticated words and appear to be more
knowledgeable than anyone else in the class. One of my classmates went so far as to research scholarly
articles for each class, which scared the rest of us. But these classmates, who enjoy volunteering,
often don’t even have the best grades. My advice to my younger self is to spend extra time preparing
for the final, not reading law review articles. Cases. Expect to spend most of your time reading
dry boring legal cases. Also, expect to keep a legal dictionary close by to look up all the
new words, especially during the first year. My advice is to read the cases twice, but not
more than that. The first reading should be quick, for context, then a careful second
reading for your study notes and case briefs. Study Aids. I advise not going crazy using the
thousands of available study aids. Find a few that make sense to your way of thinking and use those. Before reading a new section in the case book, read a study aid that discusses that material. This provides context for what you are about to read. The one study aid I would tell my younger self to never use is the canned case brief, a resource where someone else has briefed the cases. By preparing case briefs you understand the law
at a deeper level because you had to do the work yourself. Also, canned briefs encourages students to not
read the cases, usually resulting in lower exam grades. Younger self: case briefing is
about the process of writing the brief, not the content in the brief. Study Groups. I regret not joining a study group. I thought I could do better
on my own because that’s how I studied. But joining a study group is beneficial, if that
group is focused on studying and not socializing. Practice Exams. From day one, I would advise you
to start thinking about final exams. This means practicing exam writing skills, especially the
use of IRAC. Many faculty provide their old exams, which are pure gold in understanding how they
think. Some prefer to write long exams with many issues, and others prefer the more detailed analysis. I would tell my younger self, convert multiple choice questions into short essays,
which I describe in another video. Law Review and Clinics. Law review is the
most prestigious law student organization, with prominent law firms and judges often
ignoring those who were not on law review. It’s not exciting work, but a box to check off if
you can. If you don’t get on law review, clinics provide invaluable
practical skills you can use after graduation. Clinics are basically small
firms funded by the law school, where clinical faculty work with students in
developing real world skills. I would tell my younger self, join a clinic
instead of taking more classes. Summer Before Law School. Developing the skills
necessary for a law school exam takes time. This means learning IRAC, nested IRAC, and
case briefing, and then practicing those skills. I strongly recommend getting a head start,
reading books that teach law school academic success skills, taking a skills based online
course, or working with a tutor. Unfortunately, once law school begins there is limited time for exam preparation. I would tell my younger self to take a few weeks off after college graduation, and then begin preparing for law school. Let me know in the comments what you
are doing to prepare for law school, or if you are in law school what’s working and not
working for you. Don’t forget to hit the like button, and check out my other videos to help you become a better student and a better lawyer.
