Here you will find ... literally ... hundreds (thousands?) ... of exercises, lessons, self-examination opportunities ... and on & on.  Law professors from most of the law schools in the country have collaborated over many years to produce these exceptional electronic study aids for law students.  And best of all?  It's all FREE !!

If asked, law professors often discourage use of commercial study aids (“…the work of the devil…” cautions Daniel J. Wilson, Assistant Director Academic Achievement Program at University of Denver College of Law) – nevertheless, you will find your law school bookstore contains hundreds of volumes of course summaries, sets of flashcards, shelves filled with “canned” briefs of cases, and dozens of hardbound hornbooks written by distinguished legal scholars. 

To buy or not to buy?  The first thing you need to remember is that no study aid can provide you with a shortcut to the most important lessons of law school.  Study aids are designed to do one thing – aid – to assist law students in their rigorous study.  You are not in law school simply to learn laws – you are in law school to develop the skills associated with using those laws to resolve complicated problems.  The only way you will master the skills – at your personal best level – is by practicing the skills.

Study aids that assist you in comprehending some of the difficult twists and turns of the law can be helpful; those that provide hundreds of hypothetical questions can be very helpful.

Here are a few links to commercial study aids – to give you an idea of what is out there.  Read the descriptions carefully, with your study objectives in mind. 

One of the best study aids on “the market” is not on the market at all – it’s free!  Using a password provided by your law school, visit this gold mine of instruction, quizzes, multiple choice tests, and simulated essay examinations: CALI – Computer Assisted Legal Instruction.

This whole series provides all you need as a supplement or study aid for all of the first-year classes (and many more). You will find a wealth of issue-specific questions followed by detailed explanations of how the law is used to resolve problems, simple to complex. One of the better aspects of this entire series is the emphasis on understanding the subtleties and dealing with the "gray areas" of the law. Some students find that reading about a topic in one of these volumes before reading the casebook helps them comprehend the cases better as they read and brief for class.

Remember how much you studied in college? For some, the answer will be "Quite a bit," while for others, the answer will be, "Are you kidding? I didn't even buy some of the textbooks!" Often, both answers (and all others) are based on how much a student had to study in order to achieve the desired GPA.

In other words, for some students A's were easier to obtain than for others; some students were satisfied with several B's. 

Now, the focus is different. 

• There are only going to be so many A's, so many B+'s ... in that sense, you are "competing" with the other students.  When you begin law school, you have no idea how the other students will perform on exams.  Therefore, if earning a slot near the top of the first-year class is important to you, you need to shoot for achieving the best grades you possibly can - your "personal best."
  • Question: Why are first-year grades so important?
  • Answer: The fact is that "rankings" don't change much after the first year.  That is, if you finish in the lowest quartile in your first year, the odds are that you won't finish in the highest quartile overall (on graduation day).  That's just the way it works out.  The first year is the year that determines the "ranking" of students.  Of course there are exceptions.  Don't bet your career that you will be an exception.
• When you were in college, you probably did not perceive yourself as in training camp for your professional career as a lawyer.  As a law student, that's exactly where you are.  Advice: start practicing now for when you will be representing clients; and that representation should be at your "personal best" level.
• Can you think of other reasons?  (Send me a note and I'll add them here.  Use the "contact" link at the bottom of the page.)

That having been said, the question still remains, "How much should one study?"

The answer is, of course, different for different students ... but not as different as you might suspect.  The "rule of thumb" is this: three hours for every class hour.  That means, if you are taking 15 credits, study 45 hours.

That turns out to be a 60 hour week.  That's about one-third of the hours in a week.

You ought to sleep about one-third of the hours in a week (7 days times 8 hours = 56 hours).  That leaves you with about one-third of your week to attend to the rest of your life.  Eating, playing, relaxing, socializing, cleaning, commuting, praying, playing the piano, reading for enjoyment, continuing with hour hobby ... whatever you choose to balance your life. 

The really important question is "How should one use those 45 hours of outside-of-class study time?"  You'll find the answer to that ... from many perspectives ... on these website pages.  You can begin by turning to the Law CATS page, where you'll find a brief overview of what ought to be done each week in each subject.  From there, you can begin to construct your weekly study plan.

Have you ever admired a judge’s chambers or a lawyer’s office, thinking, “This sure is conducive to thinking about the law”? Create an environment that suits your study strengths and minimizes frustration and interruptions related to your study weaknesses. What is it that makes the lawyer’s office so appealing? Why do you get the sense that the judge’s chambers are so conducive to legal thought? The reason is this: they are usually designed and furnished in a way that is wholly consistent with the objective of the lawyer or judge who designed the office.

Design your study space in the same way. Plan proactively to avoid the frustration of not being able to find what you need when you need it. Keep everything you will need handy and easily retrievable. For example:

Computer. Set up your computer and printer so you have access to the keyboard and the printed page without having to walk to another room (or even without having to cross the room).

Writing tools. Your workspaces must accommodate writing—even though you may do much of your composing on the computer, you will need to handwrite often.

Reference materials. During your study periods, you will need to refer to reference material often. Those materials will include: an English dictionary, a law dictionary, all of your casebooks, all commercial study aids you own (“outlines,” hornbooks, and other secondary sources), and handouts related to each course.

Furnishings. You will need shelving, preferably within reach of your production area. Your desk or table area needs to be large enough to accommodate your computer (and, perhaps, your printer), sufficient writing space (so you can shift your chair position and write, without having to rearrange your computer position), space for a large textbook or several to remain open on your desk at the same time, and space for your three-ring binder to sit, open, as you study. Your chair should be the proper height and configuration to allow for hours of sustained use, without inducing fatigue or muscle problems. Obtain a file cabinet right away, and equip it with alphabetized hanging file tabs. Filing strategy is essential to law office management and should be essential to your law (study) office from the get-go.

Lighting and acoustics. Adequate lighting in the room is essential; often a higher intensity desk lamp is helpful to prevent eye strain and fatigue. If you prefer to work in silence, do what you are able to soundproof your work area. Soundproofing is usually much easier in a true office environment than in a home (house or apartment) — therefore, be prepared to mask unwanted sounds in other ways. Some prefer “white noise” sounds—you can purchase compact discs loaded with soothing sounds of rivers, streams, surf, tropical birds, and waterfalls. A great set of headphones to attach to your music source will often isolate you from all outside sounds. Whether you listen to classical music or something with more verve, it should not be music that engages your intellect; the texts you are reading or writing require all your attention. The telephone in your law (study) office should not ring—most of the time your answering machine should act as your “receptionist,” so you won’t be distracted from your work.

Atmosphere. The “climate” in your office should be as conducive to intensive study as is possible. Adequate heating, air conditioning, and ventilation are essential. Distractions. Remove distractions from your line of sight. If you intend to read at your desk some of the time and in a more comfortable “easy chair” in your office at other times, sit in those chairs to see what you will be looking at as you look up from the pages. Prepare your space so distractions will be minimal to nil. Digital distractions. Although useful, engaging, and fun, interactive computer features are notorious time-thieves and distractors. Try to avoid interruptions of your intensive study time by an “instant message,” a tiny sound announcing the arrival of e-mail, or a pop-up invitation to chat. Temporarily disable digital distractions while studying.

Appetite. Although it’s probably not a great idea to keep a refrigerator near your desk, you should plan on having energy-producing munchies, as well as water and other fluids, at hand during every extended study period, to avoid those trips to the kitchen that lead to other distractions.

Spending time (and a few bucks) to create the perfect work environment will pay off as the years tick by.

In the classic, "One L," (1977) author Scott Turow wrote, "Study groups are another of the basics of the first-year life. A small number of students, usually between four and eight, meet regularly to discuss common difficulties which have arisen with course work. There is no set regime for study group operation. Some groups merely hash over random questions; others use their time together to work out formal exercises; some spend the year developing long course outlines which are exchanged among group members before exams. Most of the faculty encourage the formation of study groups. They afford each student an opportunity for extensive talk about legal problems, something rarely possible in class. And aside from their educational value, study groups have a kind of therapeutic function, offering a much valued element of stability amid the uncertainties of first-year life. The other members of your study group are the people to whom you can always go with questions, the only students in the school whom you know have committed themselves to your support."

What has changed since 1977? Is Turow’s report still valid?

Professor Dorothy H. Everson (Penn State University) carried out an exhaustive and empirical study of law school study groups. Before organizing a study group, you might want to read "To Group or Not to Group: Students' Perceptions of Collaborative Learning Activities in Law School," a 2004 article that has been used as the foundation for significant later studies. (Southern Illinois University Law Journal, 28, 343-421)

Here's a short excerpt from Professor Everson's work (pages 395 et seq.), to give you an idea of how this study may help you when it comes to making that big decision.

Part of having the “right stuff” was having the “right number” of members. Formal groups ranged from two to five members. Some groups of three or four “core” members, allowed others to attend meetings. In some cases, they reported not minding if “visitors” or “occasionals” had not done the preparatory work as long as these people realized that they could not enter into the discussion. In most formal groups, however, preparation and participation were required of attendees. A male student at a local-draw school mentioned his group’s mechanism for dealing with non-contributing drop-ins:

We don’t ask them to leave, but we kind of say that we will break for lunch now and meet later. And we know that we are not going to meet in the same place and just go somewhere else.

Some groups adhered to a “no new members” policy, but were willing to make exceptions if it served the collective group interest. A male student at a national-draw school related the story of a woman who had asked to join his group for a very specific purpose:

She approached us with an offer to bring extra. She had been studying a certain area really rigorously because she felt like she didn’t know it very well. She also struck every single one of us as one of the brightest people in our entire class. So we felt that there was something to be gained for us by having her as part of it that would more than offset the disadvantage of having someone who hadn’t worked with us all the way through. And so she joined for just the sessions in which we worked on that area.

One member of an all-male, self-identified “hot group” at a local-draw school told of people calling him up two or three days before the exam asking to participate in group sessions. He reported telling them, “Get out of here. Forget it. We worked too hard on this.”

A female student ... told of being allowed into a “hot group” until it came time for them to work on their “attack outline,” a condensed version of the various outlines they had composed together. She related:

I sat in the computer lab for three days straight by myself and I formed my own attack outline from the outline I had. And I remember that it was my worst grade because I didn’t have anybody to reassure me that what I was putting down was right.

Another requirement of the more highly functional groups was having the “right people.” As mentioned earlier, most students were not sure how ideal working relationships occurred and attributed their successful unions to chance or luck. There was talk of being with “like-minded” people, “kindred spirits,” “not panicky,” “intellectually and socially compatible” classmates.

However, the one factor that was most often identified as a benefit was “diversity.” Diversity related to factors such as gender, race, political orientation, age, ways of processing information, specific cognitive strengths, professional background, and temperament.

___________

There’s more out there – on the information superhighway – to help you in your decisions related to study groups. Let me know if I can help!