Today I'm going to be talking to you about
a couple of things that I wish I had known going into law school. I'm a 1L going into my winter quarter---we're
on the quarter system here, but most law schools will be going into their winter semester. I wanted to make this video because I was
actually super apprehensive and anxious going into law school and, you know, throughout
the whole process because once you accept your law school and decide where you're going,
that's a moment of...you know, real triumph and excitement, and it feels like a huge decisive
step but then after that you have this sort of blank period of waiting. And for me personally, I felt like I should
spend all of that time prepping, or doing something to get ready, and I didn't know
what that should be. If you are going to law school, you're probably
a type A personality or sort of type A adjacent, and those of us who have those personalities,
we always like to go into a situation as prepared as possible. But with law school, it's not always possible
to do that, and in fact it's not super helpful to try and pre-learn the law. I mean, I remember the sensation of trying
to read this book on the history of the Constitution, which I had never studied before (in depth),
and thinking---oh my God, I have to get through this book, if I can't get through this, how
will I get through law school?? And just really stressing myself out over
the summer before law school started, and...in the end none of that mattered at all and had
nothing to do with how well I did in school. I wanted to make this video now because a
lot of you probably are getting your acceptances and starting to make that decision. I know that sort of anxiety process is beginning
in some of you---it was for me. I also wanted to wait to make this video until
I got some of my fall quarter grades, to know...whether I would be, basically, qualified or not to
make this...and, turns out, I am. So! Here we go. First thing to note is that law school is
going to test you on two very separate skill sets. When you're in the daily grind of classes,
it's going to feel quite different from when you're taking your exam, which for a lot of
schools is what determines your entire grade for the class. It's not going to be like in undergrad where
you had you know, problem sets or shorter papers plus participation. For the most part, your beginning classes
are going to be determined by a single exam. For us at Stanford, we basically sat for 3-4
hours in a room all together and typed as much as we could, as quickly as we could,
and that 14-20 page essay that we generated was what we were graded on. All of that is very different from what you
need to do to prepare for class. It's important to keep in mind, first of all,
that some people are going to seem really really brilliant in class because they talk
all the time. For one thing, the amount of speaking you
do in class, and your understanding of the material are not exactly always correlated...people
have different approaches to speaking out loud in class, and you shouldn't feel pressured
to speak just for the sake of speaking. Secondly, being prepared for class means knowing
the minutiae of cases really well, and understanding the issues of each particular case, and while
you will be tested on issues in the final exam, it's not always going to be the same
sort of stuff. So for example, in class if you get cold-called
(which is something where the professor just randomly calls your name and you have to answer
on the fly), the professor might ask you about the procedural history of a case---stages
of trial the case went through, like did it get appealed, where was it first heard, what
sort of court...all of that will feel extremely important in the moment of class, where you're
speaking in front of your classmates, and the spotlight's kind of on you...but for the
vast majority of cases that we studied, none of that procedural history really came up
on the final exam at all, because it's not super relevant to the application of these
cases to the blackletter law itself. Blackletter law is basically the actual rule
that the case created. So that's one thing to keep in mind. your class skills and your exam skills are
two separate things, so you do want to be very prepared for class, but keep in mind
that at the end of that road, you're going to be asked to do something fairly different
which is analyze everything that you've learned in that class sort of, holistically. They use the metaphor of the forest and the
trees a lot, so for the exam you're going to do a forest-type approach but when you're
going from class to class day to day, it feels very much like you're in the thick of the
forest (i.e. among the trees), and it's easy to lose sight of the final goal, which is
to get an overall understanding of the material. Which brings me to my second point. In your orientation, you'll most likely learn
the basics of briefing a case. The word 'briefing' is kind of...it was a
little bit confusing for me at first, because it means different things. Briefing a case in that situation is just
reading the case in your casebook and writing yourself a mini-outline of the important points
so that you can later talk about it in class or study, you know, make your outlines for
finals from it. You'll also be writing briefs which are another
thing entirely, so don't get those mixed up...We learned a sort of standard briefing structure
which is, first, facts (what are the facts of the case? what literally happened?), the
procedural posture which is what court did it start in...how did it end up in this court...issue
(the issue of law that the court's opinion is trying to determine), the rule (pretty
straightforward: what rule is going to be passed down from this case), the holding (the
holding is basically another word for the outcome of the case, but holdings can be construed
broadly or narrowly, so a holding might be something like...in every case involving a
ship of this kind, x will happen or x will apply, that sort of thing), the reasoning
of the court in coming to that holding or conclusion, and then any dissents that might
be interesting or useful to understand the issue. Dissents will be most important in Supreme
Court cases. That's the basic structure of briefing a case
for class. So again: facts, procedural posture, issue,
rule, holding, reasoning, and dissent. That's how I basically structure them. Every case that I read, I try (I really try
but you know you can't always, sometimes you run out of time) but I try to write out all
of those categories and then put, you know, little bullets under each one. Some people have different methods, and it's
actually important to note that briefing the case for class that is just for you, so whatever
method helps you understand more fully what the case is about is the best method. So for some people, they switch the order
of the categories, so maybe the reasoning goes before the holding or the rule comes
after the holding. That doesn't really matter as long as it makes
sense to you. You might also add different categories, so
some people like to split the reasoning into the plaintiff's argument, defendant's argument,
then the court's approach to synthesizing those arguments or picking one side over the
other. Don't get bogged down by the categories and
the need to produce a perfect product in your case brief. It's really about making something that is
functional and that will help you approach your classes. The third point I would emphasize is staying
on top of your daily notes. Of course, going to class is very important
and taking good notes is very important because when you sit down at the end of the quarter
or semester to try and pull together your outline, your notes are going to be the foundation
of your review. Most of us going into law school were strong
students, and we feel that we know how to study, and that's true, but for me, anyway,
law school involved a much greater amount of detail that I wasn't particularly....super
interested in. For each case, there's a lot of minutiae that
you need to keep track of, things that also feel counterintuitive because they have historical
roots in law...it's not always clear exactly how we got to that point. It's very important to keep track of all that
because if you fall behind, it's very difficult to catch up. Making sure that you have a well-structured
note-taking system that makes sense to you, and that you keep on top of it every day,
every week, it feels very tedious and difficult but it's going to pay off at the end when
you're trying to make that outline. We have a database called SLATA and we use
those outlines. Former students of a class can upload their
outlines and you can use that as a guide for creating your own. I did that, but it's not enough to just rely
on that because obviously course material changes from year to year so it's very important
to have your own notes to rely on. It also feels weird to try and go off of someone
else's notes because it's like picking someone else's brain. Things are organized differently, and things
are emphasized differently. Having your own notes is very important. The last thing I'll mention is how important
it is to try and carve out time for yourself. I talked to current students here before coming
and they did tell me that fall semester was going to be extremely difficult and honestly,
going in I was like, "I was an English graduate student, I used to sit and read for like,
8 or 10 hours a day...how much harder could it really be?" It's harder. Fall quarter we basically had 4 hours of class
a day, and literally almost the entire rest of the day I would spend reading for the next
day's classes, and I would also spend all of the weekend reading, except for Friday
nights and maybe like, one morning or afternoon, like Saturday afternoon or Sunday afternoon
but most of the weekend was also spent reading and it was very, very difficult not to burn
out. Luckily, my boyfriend---now fiance!----was
living with me and he really helped take care of me and made sure I wasn't totally just
getting this tunnel vision, but beyond that, you really can't rely too much on other people
to take care of you. You need to look out for yourself, and part
of that is making sure that you put your body and your health as a priority. Making time to work out, making sure you're
eating, and trying to maybe cook for yourself also...those are all nice things that give
you a little bit of room to breathe. Otherwise it can get very overwhelming very
quickly. It's difficult to find that balance, and it's
something that you have to actively cultivate in yourself before you start school. So those are my very basic, very general tips,
things that I wish I had known going into fall quarter. If you guys have any questions, please feel
free to leave them in the comments below, if you haven't subscribed yet, please subscribe,
and let me know what else you would like to know about the law school experience. I would love to talk to you guys about it! Thank you, see you next time :)
