Wednesday, July 18, 2007

How to Succeed in Law School

One of my favorite clients from this year who is packing up to attend George Mason School of Law sent me this e-mail yesterday:
"about what kind of time commitment *is* law school, in practice, to succeed (by my definition, "succeed" meaning be in the top 15 or 10% of the class)?"

My answer was: Take off Friday afternoons and evenings to see a movie and relax. At all other times when not in class, eating, or sleeping, then study. I also gave him the secret to my own success in law school (top 8% of my class, magna cum laude, Order of the Coif, blah, blah, blah) - spend every weekend reviewing and outlining your class notes from the week before. That way, your outlines are done and you can just study them while everyone else is scrambling to outline tons of material. This means, of course, keeping up with your class reading during the week.
And it does get easier as a 2L and 3L - the work is harder but you know what you're doing by then and get a system down.

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