University of Wisconsin Law School Student Bar Association

Version 1.1 (Updated January 19, 2009).  Print This Page
Originally created by Anwar Ragep

Welcome to SBA’s guide for 1Ls. There are a lot of official guides available such as “Read This First” which is worth checking out. The idea behind SBA’s 1L guide it to provide information to 1Ls and prospective students just as though we were hanging out in the law school atrium and this was advice we would give to a friend. We hope you find this useful and if there is a subject you would like us to cover, or if you would like to contribute to the guide, or if you find a mistake, please email us or leave comments and we can incorporate suggestions into the next version.

“Experience is something you don’t get until just after you need it” – Steven Wright

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Unsolicited General Advice that is Worth Considering and/or Taking
Before Law School: What to do and what to know
Law School Myths
The First Week
Where to Get Help
Classes
Learning Legal Jargon
Thinking like a Lawyer
Social Life
Academics
Moot Court and Law Review
Study Habits
Outlining
Speaking in Class
Exam Preparation
General Frustration
Grades
After your Finals
Picking 2L Classes
Asking for a letter of Recommendation
Law School Secrets
Quotes and Advice

The best of the best advice
1. The best thing you can do as a 1L is keep up with the reading.
2. Ask for examples! Ask friends, ask 3Ls and 2Ls, and professors. This school has an enormous amount of resources and it pays to be respectfully assertive. You are not the first person to take Torts with Palay, and chances are someone has a lot of outlines, notes, or exams. It pays to ask.
3. Join a LEO group, PILF, Batlaw, or any other organization that has resources and will be a good place to turn if you need help.
4. If you use an outline to study, make your own outlines. There’s a lot of information to learn as a 1L. Everything you do yourself you will learn better.
5. Share. Your reputation will become well known.

Before Law School: What to do and what to know
Most people will say there is nothing you can do to prepare for law school. This is mostly true for substantive law (there is no reason to start reading about torts now), there are a lot of things you can do to get your life in order. The first semester is usually a mess. People don’t have any idea how to study, whether they should be in a study group, how much time to commit to work, etc. Anything you can do to decrease the amount of time you will spend stressing over these things gives you a huge advantage once you get here.

The First year is your most important year.
Yes, it makes no sense. There is absolutely no reason why your performance your first two semesters is significantly more important that the rest of your time in law school. But that’s the way it is. Doing average or poorly your first isn’t the end of the world. But it does mean you’ll have to work extra hard later on to get the same opportunities. So take your first year seriously.

Books worth Reading.It is definitely worth looking at a few that could give you some background on what to expect. (1) Getting to Maybe by Fischl and Paul. A good book worth skimming to get an idea of how to take law school exams. Also worth looking at again closer to exam time when you can appreciate the techniques more (2) Law School Confidential by Miller. Probably the best-known law school guide. A lot of different techniques and suggestions. (3) Introduction to the Study and Practice of Law in a Nutshell by Hegland. A good book for giving you a little taste at what substantive law will be like. A pretty straightforward read. Again, no book is really going to prepare you for all the substantive law you learn, but a little research can be helpful so things are less overwhelming once you start school.

Law School Myths: Some things you don’t need to worry about at Wisconsin.
Myth: Wisconsin Law School Professors love to use the Socratic method. First of all, what is the Socratic method? The idea behind it is that a professor will ask many questions in order to help someone arrive at the Truth. Actually, it looks pretty much exactly like a professor picking on one student until it becomes awkward for everyone. There is a belief that this type of teaching happens a lot in law school. This is simply not true. And definitely not at UW. Despite what you’ve seen in moves such as Legally Blonde, professors rarely put people on the spot. Also, if you are going to be on call, professors usually give plenty of warning. For example, professors will tell either you or your section of the room to be prepared on a certain day. If you prepare even a little you will be fine. And even if you don’t, most professors take pity on you and move on. The truth is that it’s usually a slow way to teach because the class is waiting on one person to arrive at whatever conclusion the professors wants him or her to reach. So between worrying about global warming, the possible cancellation of American Idol, and the Socratic method, you don’t need to spend much time worrying about the latter.

Myth: Law School is like Law & Order. Jack McCoy would have had his license revoked at least 100 times by now. This isn’t especially important, except you should keep an open mind about law school and what you do there. Most movies and books about the 1L experience are overly dramatic and you don’t need to worry if you read some book and it seemed like law school will be horrible. If you are reading this, you probably have at least 15 years of education, so you mostly known what you’re getting into. Like any program, law school just has its idiosyncrasies.

Myth: Law school is a lot of memorization. You do learn a lot of information in law school, but most professors allow you to bring in all your notes and outlines for the tests. This means that almost everyone will have the same information on an exam. So law school is a lot less about memorization, and almost exclusively about applying information you’ve learned to new situations.

Myth: You should know what type of law you want to study. There are many practicing lawyers who still haven’t figure out this question. Your first year is all required classes (with the exception of one elective second semester). So you have time to figure things out.

The First Week
You need to find what works best for you. You will be told this over and over your first week. You should accept the fact now that a lot of people will tell you what worked for them, and then they will conclude with the obligatory, “but you should do what works for you.”

The first week is deceptively easy For the most part, your first week should not be too difficult academically. Most professors will take pity on the incoming 1Ls and there may be a lot of reading, but few people are called on and most professors are aware that the 1Ls haven’t learned much/anything yet. So why is it deceptively easy? Law school picks up. It gets harder. Or to be more accurate, if you don’t develop the study habits early, it gets overwhelming. So your first week should be spent doing 2 things: reading the required texts, and developing a study system that (here it comes … ) “works best for you.” Check out the section below on study habits to get some ideas.

Where to get help?
Seeking out individual help will almost always be more beneficial. There will be a lot of orientation-like lectures where faculty, or an SBA member or someone tells you what worked form them. This is by far the most common forum for advice-giving. Unfortunately, it’s usually the least helpful because there are 50 or 100 people there. There is nothing wrong with these sessions per se, however they most likely consist of a few people telling a large group of people information that is not person-specific and usually a few people in the audience will dominate the dialogue (if there even is one).

So what should you do? Very often, the person giving advice puts their email up on the board, or mentions their office hours. Chances are, if this person is taking time out to give a talk to 100 1Ls, they are involved in the school and more than willing to help you. It’s just so ineffective when everyone else is there. Instead, email them asking for advice. Ask for outlines. Ask if they have sample exams. Ask them if they will read a sample exam for you.

Make contacts early. It’s very important that you be proactive. There are a lot of people willing to help, but around finals time everyone including faculty, professors, and even the laziest 3Ls get busy with work. They are much less likely to respond to emails or take time out to help you. If you ask for help before the mad rush, you have a huge advantage.

Classes: [INCOMPLETE: More coming soon]
There is a ton of substantive information about classes. Here are a few highlights about UW first year classes, however the same class can vary greatly depending on the professor. The one constant is that if you keep up with the reading in all of them.

Criminal Law. You probably already know more about crim than any other first year class. It is statute based, meaning that all the criminal rules come from the Wisconsin Statutes. The result is that this is one of the most straightforward classes because the rules of criminal law are laid out in the statute. Just don’t mistake straightforward for easy. There are a lot of subtleties that people miss if you underestimate this class. The best advice for this class, or any class that uses statues is to read the statutes. Believe it or not, a lot of people in class will just not read it and simply rely on the professor describing it. This is a huge mistake. In any statute-based classed, there will be exam questions asking you to read a statute and interpret it. You want experience doing this. Also, don’t worry if the first time you read a statute it makes little sense. That’s a normal response to reading a statute. They’re often confusing and contradictory. But if you give it a shot, then class is a lot more valuable because the professor will often highlight parts that were confusing to you and explain why it was written that way. Ultimatley, you’ll get a lot more out of class.

Civil Procedure (CivPro). This is basically the rules of how law is conducted in Civil (non-criminal trials). Some people love this class, but most people get bored because procedural law is a lot less sexy than, say, learning about homicide.

Torts

Legal Research and Writing. There are books written on this subject. There is room for creativity in legal writing; however, you really need to master legal writing conventions before you can get creative. You will be given writing examples, and you can also find sample writing on Lexis, Westlaw, and in the Library. Starting out, you are unlikely to know legal conventions already, and it gets a lot easier with practice.

There is only one thing to really keep in mind in this class: revise as much as you can. Your first draft will be shitty. Accept that as a given now. It’s also almost impossible to organize a paper in your head. So write everything first and then spend a lot of time revising. More than any other class, you want to get things done early. The more time you have between revisions, the better your writing will be in the end.

Contracts. Contracts is taught a little differently at UW. One thing to keep in mind is that you will start with remedies, meaning the first thing you learn is the consequences of breaching a contract rather than the formation of a contract. This is a class where it’s especially helpful to review your notes every once in a while to not lose the big picture of what the class is about.

Property

Learning Legal Jargon

One of the main jobs you have as a 1L is to figure out what everyone is saying. 1L year is often compared to learning a new language. Many students have no experience with the law before law school (I didn’t even know what a court case looked like). But the faster you can learn this “language,” the easier learning becomes.

Read slowly. Look up words. If you’re confused, chances are that most everyone in your class will be equally confused. And keep in mind, it’s not always you. You will come across a lot of bad legal writing in your 3 years in law school. Your first year can be tricky, because all legal writing looks about the same. You should get a pocket dictionary (there is no reason to buy the giant black’s law dictionary), and look up words as you go. It can be annoying at first, because you may look up the same word five times before it sticks. But once you learn it, you will eventually be able to read much quicker.

Words in Latin. There is almost no reason why any legal document needs anything written in Latin. Ever. Yet you will see it all the time. Why? Either it’s just a convention, or a judge is being pretentious, or most often – a judge doesn’t want to give a reason so they just write something in Latin and assume most people will assume it is important. The best thing you can do is have a dictionary handy, learn what the word is and move on.

Interestingly enough, good legal writing is such that lawyers and non-lawyers can understand it well. That’s why good writing can be hard. You want it simple enough that anyone reading it can appreciate what you’re talking about. And someone with legal training can appreciate the nuances. This is why legal writing and writing in general is hard: it takes a long time to do well.

Thinking like a lawyer
There is no right answer . Don’t confuse this with there not being a wrong answer. There are lots and lots of ways you will discover to be wrong. But just because there is some older gentleman or lady at the front of the room speaking who is allegedly your professor, he or she may not know the answer either. And that is sort of the point because you’re always studying areas of the law that don’t have defined answers.

Studying the grey part of the law One struggle common to 1Ls is that in law school, students are always looking at the fringes of the law – the issues that are not resolved or very complex. This is fine, but difficult when you don’t even know the black and white rules yet (black letter law). In other words, there are answers and black letter law for simple concepts. But professors aren’t going to teach you them. They will jump right into the complex ideas—the ones that don’t have tidy answers. Your job is to keep in mind that the reason you’re learning about these complex concepts is usually because it is unresolved and there are arguments on both sides.

A very simplified version of learning law and thinking like a lawyer. Law comes from two main sources – statutes or the common law (developed through the court system). Because of the limitations of language, laws can be only so specific. For example, a state might pass a law that says “A car may only drive through green lights and must stop at red lights.” But for every law, there are millions of possible exception. What about turning right on red lights? What if your tire blows out and you need to safely pull over to the side but that means going through a red light? What if you’re a police officer and have to get to a scene of a crime? Sure, statute books could write every single exception except then law books would be endlessly long. So in the American system of law, the courts are used to develop this law. Every legal situation is unique, but you will find law cases that are similar to your situation. So being a lawyer and writing a law essay is somewhat like writing a giant compare and contrast essay. You want to find law cases that are helpful to whatever you are arguing and say why those cases are similar to your situation. And you want to find law cases that do not help your cause and explain why those cases are dissimilar to your case by distinguishing the situation. Continuing the hypothetical above, let’s pretend you are driving your pregnant friend to the hospital and you run a red light and hit another car. Let’s say that your insurance company will only pay you money if you did not break the law. However, there are no laws about running red lights to drive a pregnant friend. Your job as a lawyer is to find examples of law that support your proposition that it’s okay to drive through a red light in an emergency situation while distinguishing your situation from cases that may say it is illegal to go through a red light (i.e., your case is just like a police officer needing to go through a red light in an emergency, and nothing like the case of a robber illegally going through a red light to get away from the police). Keep in mind that the above example is extremely oversimplified and there are lots of nuances of legal study that you will spend the next 3 years studying. As you start out, just think of law as a compare and contrast essay. For every fact situation you come across, think “why is this similar and dissimilar from the cases we have already read?”

Social Life:
You came to Wisconsin. Have some fun. Madison is a great city. There are lots of shows and lots of things to do (check out our LIST of things to do before you graduate). There are a lot of law related and non-law related activities to every week. Take advantage of them. You might even find that you are more productive when you take time off because it gives you a chance to look at things with a fresh perspective.

Academics
Study Groups. A common 1L question is whether joining a study group is beneficial. I’ll answer with a guarded yes. There are 2 big dangers of study groups. First, many have a tendency to just become excuses of socializing. Productive study groups should actually be at least a bit formal or else they can become big time wasters. Second, study groups can get carried and focus a lot of time on issues that are not so important.

Study Groups should be formal. The problem with most study groups is that they devolve into either social sessions, sessions for complaining, or sessions to talk about hypothetical examples that no longer resemble American Jurisprudence. The cure to this problem is to make sure your study group has at least a few ground rules. First, groups should meet at regular times. Simply assuming you’ll figure out the time later is a big mistake. Everyone gets really busy as the semester progresses. Figuring out a time to meet after everyone has made commitments can be a big pain. Better to set a time early and stick to it.

Study Groups should have a plan. Your study group should have roles, and timelines, and an idea of what you want to accomplish. Again, study groups can very quickly deteriorate into unproductive sessions. If you want to have a study group, make sure it’s productive. As a side note, however, don’t be overly bossy in a study group or threaten to kick people out (yes, this happens for some reason). Everyone is busy and working hard. Respect that and realize people have a lot of things going on you may not know about. Be respectful or when you’re overwhelmed, people may not cut you some slack.

Last minute study groups. If you only have a week or 2 until finals, and you want to meet with your peers to prepare, all the above rules can of course be disregarded. Because of the time pressure, most people get down to business right away. So in an odd way, they naturally organize themselves in a way that doesn’t happen if you start a study group early. In this groups, it is beneficial to do 2 things: go over major concepts and practice exams together.

Study Guides and Commercial Outlines. There are a lot of available guides and resources out there. However, they generally do not help. Law school classes are unique to what the teacher wants you to learn. Most teachers don’t teach black letter law (which is what you find in these study guides). They often focus on issues that are unresolved or novel, so they won’t show up in commercial outlines and study guides.

Moot Court and Law Review
Why Moot Court and Law Review are important. Because someone says they are. Whatever anyone tells you, moot court and law review are no different that any other student organization. You can work hard and get a lot out of them or you can be minimally involved. The only reason they are important is because people recognize them as important. If you want a fancy firm job then you will likely need to be on one of them just so you can say in an interview, “I am on moot court.” But if you don’t want to get a job at a firm, then you actually can spend some time thinking about what organization fits you best. For example, a lot of people are involved in mock trial, the gender journal, a LEO group, the international journal, clinics, arbitration groups, etc. They may not look as impressive on a resume, but they may fit your interests better. Keep this in mind when try-outs for law review and moot court begin and you feel the pressure of “You have to be in this organization.”

Law Review Law review is a journal that publishes notes, comments, and articles from students and professors. The journal publishes 6 times per year. You apply after your 1L finals. It’s a pretty grueling experience because you will have just finished your finals and given 1-2 weeks to write a 10 page paper, and a personal statement, and do a blue-book exercise. It’s not very much fun and the best advice for getting on the journal is to revise your work as many times as possible. The temptation is to take a few days off after finals and work on it latter. If you can, muster up whatever strength is left and start something. Otherwise, it gets put off and the writing can feel like it was done last minute.

Moot Court If you are on moot court, you write a brief and then deliver a 10 minute oral argument in front of a panel of 3 appellate judges during which judges may interrupt and ask you anything they like. The application process changes each year, but it usually falls over spring break. Keep that in mind because some years you may not have much time to write a brief and prepare. Before making spring break plans, ask members of moot court when the try-outs will be. And decide how important getting on moot court is to you.

Study Habits
When does law school get hard? Approximately October 15. Conditions are just right. The newness has rubbed off. Professors take off the gloves. You’re a little less afraid to play solitaire in class. That is why it’s critical you develop study habits early so you have them in place. Otherwise, October rolls around and the amount of work just builds up and the next 2 months are spent just trying to catch up.

Keep up with the Reading This is the absolutely best thing you can do. The worst thing that can happen is that you are always playing catch-up in your classes. If you fall way behind, then you are always struggling to be where the rest of the class is. It’s a horrible situation because you are reading twice as much as everyone else, so you feel like you are working harder than everyone else, yet you will always be behind and trying to learning the old and new at the same time. So READ. If finals are 2 days away and you have done nothing else except kept up with the reading, the situation is salvageable. Briefing, outlining, exam practice can all be done quickly or you can borrow other people’s notes or outlines. Reading is the one thing you have to do on your own and limits your ability to outline or study further.

Briefing Cases A case brief is essentially a summary of a case. After you read a case, you can summarize the following information: (1) facts of the case, (2) history of the case (procedural posture), (3) the issue the court is deciding, (4) the holding of the case, (5) the reasoning for the above decision (6) and concurrences and dissents.

When starting out, this is a fantastic way to understand a case better and focus on the important information. One of the most effective ways to study is to brief a case, and include that brief in your notes. When you get to class, you can update your own notes and brief. The other advantage is that most of what the professor says you will already have written down in the brief. That way, you spend less time taking notes of the case itself, and more time listening and taking notes about the interpretation of the case. It also may be worth experimenting with different colors in your notes. For example, add your briefs in blue and everything else in black. That way, if you make changes in class, you can see the changes you made and areas where you were confused.

Outlining.

When to start? The most common 1L question is “when should I start outlining?” I think this really varies for people, but there’s no reason to start outlining the first few weeks because you really don’t know enough or have enough information to outline. And if its Halloween and you haven’t started outlining yet, you are still fine! But here is the most important thing about you outline: Start outlining so you have enough time to practice using it.

Most Important Rules for Outlining
(1) Make it yourself if you really want to know it. (2) Make the outline usable. (3) Include a Table of Contents (4) Organize broadly by topics. When you’re taking an exam and you spot an issue, you want to be able to turn to your table of contents and quickly find that issue and all the information you need about that issue in one place. Most exams consist of (a) finding the issue, and (b) essentially comparing and contrasting the fact pattern in the exam with cases you’ve learned in class (and should be in your outline).

Organization: How to start? There are a lot of ways to make an outline and it often changes depending on the class. Statute-based classes are usually the most forward because you can organize it by the laws. For classes like torts or contracts, it’s often best to organize by concepts. And you can find those concepts in the table of contents. Classes vary, and checking out the SBA Outline bank is a great place to start. Someone else has usually already figured out a good organization scheme and there is no reason to reinvent the wheel.

Practice exams using your outline. Computers are fantastic and almost everyone will write their outline using it. That’s good news because you will be able to fix things quickly, add and rearrange information. The problem is that on your exam, you are not allowed to have your computer. So you may be an expert using your outline when you’re in front of your computer and have ctrl-f to find that Justice Learned Hand quote, or whatever you need. When you print out your outline, you’ll be amazed how slow you get. You have no idea where anything is and the last thing you want is to be flipping through pages wasting time on an exam. So you need to print it out so you have time to practice with it. Even if you have to print it out before it’s done and make comments by hand, you will be significantly more comfortable using it than if you print it out right before the exam.

Making your own v. Using someone else’s outline Make your own. Definitely use SBA’s outline bank to get started but time during an exam goes by fast, and you want to know where everything is in the outline. If you use someone else’s outline, then you can end up spending much of the exam trying to figure out what they mean. In the end the entire purpose of an outline is to have all your information readily available.

Speaking in Class
Being on call in Class. It can be a nerve racking experience even when you’re prepared. You always do better than you think you did. There are really 3 possible things that can happen. (1) You say something wonderful and are charming and everyone likes you. (2) You are like 90% of the class and you say something pretty decent with a few mistakes and the professor uses those mistakes to have a “teaching moment.” This is extremely common and everyone in the class will forgot you spoke immediately after class except your friends who will likely say “good job.” (3) You completely bomb your time and say absolutely absurd things and embarrass yourself. The funny thing is, people tend not to notice this either. If I think back to the absolute worst cases of students being on call (and I barely remember any), I mostly remember thinking “I’m just glad it wasn’t me on call.” Few people will think less of you and most people will blame the professor for being to harsh on you. So no matter what happens, it’ll be over soon and you’ll likely be a better for the experience.

Asking Questions in Class. If you don’t know the answer, someone else in the class doesn’t know either. There will be a lot of times in class where you are thinking, “I have no idea what the professor is saying. I must be the only one. Everyone else seems to get it.” First of all, everyone else does not know what is going on. In a 1L class of 100 students, on average, there is only one person who really understands what’s going on and that’s the professor. So ask questions. The professor will appreciate it because usually they don’t realize you’re not getting it. And your classmates will appreciate you because they were too scared to ask.

So how do you ask a good question? Here are a few general rules. DO ask clarifying questions such as “Could you clarify that section of the restatement? I don’t understand what this term means?” DON’T ask questions that somehow mention your childhood or a lengthy anecdote. DO ask professors to repeat information they went over quickly. DON’T ask about detailed and complex hypothetical situations. This comes up a lot in criminal and torts classes. People can really get carried away and ask the professor about crazy situations involving aliens and inanimate objects violating the penal code. Believe it or not, it’s not especially relevant to your education.

Keep in mind, the above suggestions are only general guidelines. I’ve heard some very amusing personal anecdotes told in class. And I’ve heard students ask clarifying questions that were simply obnoxious because we had just spent 10 minutes going over that exact question. So there is no bright-line rule on how to ask a good question. The most important thing I can suggest is simply to make the question pertinent to the subject being discussed that day in class. If you want to know something else, you should ask the question after class or during office hours.

What’s a Gunner? A gunner is a pejorative term to describe someone who asks way too many questions, and likes to hear themselves talk. Gunner-ness is usually associated with a disregard for fellow students, i.e. asking questions as though you were the only person in the room. If you asked a question and referenced Socrates, you might be a gunner. If you’re a 1L and you decide it’s your place to teach the class about law, you might be a gunner. If your fellow students hear your voice more than the professor’s, you might be a gunner. Gunners are a fact of life and Mike Hall seems to always admit just enough so that there is at least one per class.

Now I’m confused. Should I speak in class or not? Definitely speak in class. But be mindful there are other people in the class.

Exam Preparation
Know your professor. Get to know what your professor wants in an exam. There is a simple way to do this that only a few people in each class will do: go to office hours. Here at UW, most professors will look at a sample piece of writing. Always ask a professor if they will look at a sample exam. Most professors will look at a sample answer to a project or a paragraph or something. Getting 5 minutes of direct feedback can do wonders for your understanding and grades.

Look at old sample exams. Most professors have a drawer of their old exam with A exams. You should ask your professor if he or she will let you look at them. Interestingly, the best exams have 2 things in common: (1) The answers are often very short and concise, and (2) They’re really not very good. No one writes a masterpiece in 3 or 4 hours, so you don’t need to try. But there are a lot of things you can do:

Take sample exams Check with LEO groups, professors, writing instructors, SBA, and friends. Take as many sample exams as you can and get feedback from whoever will help you.

Go for the B answer before you go for the A answer If a student writes a concise exam answer it will really stick out. But this can be a dangerous strategy. If you’re on point, a professor may love it and you get an A. But if you miss something, you run the danger of getting a much worse grade. So the answer is to go for that B answer first. Don’t try to get too creative too soon. If there is a straightforward answer and a creative answer, don’t jump to the more creative one first. You run the risk of making a professor think you’re reaching for answers rather than positing a creative new theory of law. Get the basics down and then you can get creative.

Practice finishing early. You want to have time to look over your exam. The latest exam software has spellcheck, but you’d be amazed at what silly mistakes you make while taking an exam. Going back, I’ve noticed I make plenty of mistakes like leaving the word “not” out of sentences all the time, completely changing the meaning. If I don’t double check, the professor may think I’ve completely misunderstood something.

MORE COMING SOON Exam prep is a big topic and we’re looking to expand this section. We’ll update it soon, but feel free to send suggestions this way.

General Frustration
You will definitely get annoyed with Law school. At some point, something is going to happen and you will just be annoyed with the whole situation. Better to accept this fact now and be ready for it rather than be surprised.

I am not getting anything out of Legal Research and Writing. LR&W can be a frustrating class. LR&W classes can vary a lot. There are a few good classes, but it’s never a good class at ay law school. The reason is there is no good way to teach someone how to write. Learning in a classroom setting or even reading books about it can only get you so far. You really need to just practice writing and get a lot of feedback. One of the best ways to improve your writing is to take a clinical course and get feedback there. Except you don’t’ have that option as a 1L. So it’s frustrating because you are mostly on your own. And when you do get feedback, it’s often too late.

I am not getting any feedback in law school so I have no idea how I’m doing. This is another huge problem of law schools. In the first semester you really don’t find out how you did until January. And then all you get is a letter which doesn’t even tell you that much. This is why it’s important to make contacts early and it’s often good to join a group like PILF or LEO because they have groups and resources to help give you that feedback. And make friends with 3Ls. They know stuff and are often happy to pass along information and feedback because they don’t have anything else to do.

I understand the concepts, but I don’t know when to use each one. This one hits you about November of 1L year. You’ve been keeping up with the reading. You have all your notes. You’ve even been outlining. Then you look at a sample exam and you realize you have no idea which concept to apply. For example, in a tort exam with a 600 word limit, do you spend 400 of those words discussing proximate cause, or duty of care? You may know both concepts, but which one is more important.

Welcome to life as a law student. Much frustration comes from the fact that you spend 3-4 months discussing individual concepts, and then you’re ultimately graded on your ability to determine which concept to use when – a skill you’re never actually taught.
There’s no simple solution for this problem. The best advice is to know this in advance and keep this in mind as you’re studying and learning the material originally. Two things you can do:

(1) Look back on your notes from time to time. Basically, try to make sure you’re not learning concepts in a vacuum. Contracts and Civil Procedure are two classes this is especially helpful for. In Contracts, you may spend a week talking just about a particular type of remedy. But that’s just one small part of the Contracts as a whole. In fact, most contract disputes settle without getting to court. So even though you spend a week on a particular type of remedy, you may want to spend time thinking about how that particularly remedy may not even be used often. Rather, it’s just something that’s a potential consequence if someone is going to breach a contract The law school cliché is that you want to see the “forest” and not just the “trees.” Looking through your notes is a good way to not lose sight of the big picture.

(2) Take practice exams. The more of these you can do, the more experience you have applying the concepts. The other thing you will notice is that a lot of concepts repeat. If you have done a few exams, by the time you take the real exam it will be easier to apply because you’ve done it already.

My grades don’t reflect what I actually know. As mentioned above, your ability to take law school exams is a completely different skill than actually knowing the material. It is important to develop both skills (see the section on exam preparation).

Grades
Chances are you will not be happy with your grades. The main reason is that for a lot of people, the grade you get in a class often doesn’t reflect your understanding. And almost everyone has a story about the class they agonized over and studied their ass off for and got a B-, yet they got an A in the class that they hardly showed up for. So getting a grade at the end of the semester can be very frustrating to say the least. It is rarely fun to have all the work you did in a semester summed up in a single letter.

It’s especially frustrating because you only have that one semester of grades. And it is important. But also have 5 more semesters to improve. And you have another semester to improve before you even start applying for jobs. And there are definitely people with higher GPAs who are going to get cocky and go down. So there is always room for improvement.

Also, if you are worried you are going crazy because you are repeatedly checking online for when grades are posted, you’re not alone. You may still be crazy, but you’re in good company.

After your Finals
Sell books you don’t need. You can actually make a lot of money back selling the books. The two best sites are half.com and amazon.com. Both allow you to sell books at whatever price you set. Usually, the sooner you can post your books, the better. Books get updated often and editions become obsolete. Also, there is a huge rush for books before a semester starts, so posting books before then can get you more money.

Picking classes for 2L year
Coming Soon!

Asking for a Letter of Recommendation

Make the Recommenders life as easy as possible. Professors are used to writing recommendations. But you should do everything to make their lives easier. Give them a resume, a writing sample, tell them why you liked their class, meet with them in person, email them your outline if you made it entirely yourself. It’s better to give more information. If they don’t want it, they can ignore it. But they will appreciate you trying to make their lives easier.

Use a Dossier Service. Many undergraduate institutions have a dossier or letter of recommendation service. You can ask a professor to send a letter to the dossier service and they can forward it in the future. Some jobs require that recommenders send it directly to them, so a dossier service may not work. But it’s always worth having a few recommendations ready just in case. Check with your undergraduate institution to see if they have such a service.

UW Law School Secrets

Places to Study
Check out the mysterious first and fourth floors. 1Ls don’t always get there for a few semesters and it’s usually emptier.

Where is the Fourth Floor Yes, you think it would be between the 3rd and 5th floors. And it is. Sometimes.

Where are the bathrooms?More stars indicate more privacy.
Locker room Side
Second Floor – Near Hangfiles *
Second Floor (Family Friendly) **
Third Floor (Men’s only) by the stairwell **
Third Floor (Women’s only) **
Fifth Floor (Women’s Only) **
Fifth Floor ***
Faculty Tower Bathrooms ***

Library Side
First Floor Library ***
Third Floor *
Fourth Floor** (End of hallway in Frank J. Remington Center)
Fifth Floor **

Quotes and Advice
Advice from 2Ls and 3Ls who have been through it already:

“Go to office hours and ask professors if they will look at or grade a sample exam problem your wrote. Spending ten minutes finding out what a professor wants can have a significant impact on your performance.”

“Be sure to remember your power cord when you’re taking a final. A ‘friend’ of mine forgot his and had to run back and get it 20 minutes before he took a final.”

“When picking classes, ask 2L and 3Ls about good professors. You might find that the class you really want to take is offered the next semester with a better professor.”

“Don’t go overboard trying to find the “perfect” outline or way to study. There are a lot of effective ways to succeed in law school that are completely different. The most important thing is a consistent effort.”

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