2) I know "0L prep is worthless"

3) I know "being a lawyer sucks"

4) I know "each professor has his own view of the law so anything you teach yourself in preparation will be worthless"

That being said, what general introductory material could be helpful for the incoming law student? I saw in another thread someone mentioned The Common Law by Holmes. Maybe something like Law 101 by Feinman?

(https://autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4721827&forum_id=2#41624917)

Something more helpful than Holmes would be student-made outlines for whatever classes 1Ls have at your school. Likely candidates are torts, civil procedure, criminal law, contracts, and property. Property might be the hardest to understand just from an outline. You still have to go to class and make your own outline, but reading them beforehand means you can get more out of the lecture and won't feel confused or lost.

Also, get the Examples and Explanations book for legal writing if that's graded at your school.

(https://autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4721827&forum_id=2#41624940)

Outlinedepot is another option: https://www.outlinedepot.com/Home/SchoolOutlines/113

And if you still can't find anything the NYU ones are decent

https://www.law.nyu.edu/students/studentbarassociation/courseoutlines/firstyearoutlines

(https://autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4721827&forum_id=2#41624993)

https://www.barbri.com/1l-mastery/

(https://autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4721827&forum_id=2#41625079)

Date: September 28th, 2010 1:07 PM

Author: hyperventilating space tattoo

not really a good idea. law school exams test your ability in part to analyze & wrestle with various issues (majority / minority distinctions, old / new, and some policy). the bar is not like that at all - there is one rule, and you need to apply it exactly.

there are much better 1L supplements out there. i've posted this list before, but:

Conlaw - Chemerinsky

Contracts - the sailboat book (author's name begins with a C)

Crim - Dressler

Torts - Emmanuels or Gilberts

Civ Pro - Glannon E&E

Property - Emmanuels or Gilberts

(rate this idea for 1L's: buy old BARBRI book)

(https://autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4721827&forum_id=2#41625332)

Have you seen the size of this book? I have a copy and this is stupid advice. That's what you use after you've gotten the barbri stuff down and want to shore up or because you're bored or something. This "wrestle with various issues" is just bullshit you spew on your exam after you've got the easy points down. Law school is easy and dumb and you'll be much better off if you don't overthink it and start looking for shortcuts instead.

(https://autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4721827&forum_id=2#41625368)

get across the easy stuff fast and with minimum effort, everything else is just padding

(https://autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4721827&forum_id=2#41629679)

Only did work outside of classroom in the last 6 or so weeks of semester.

I doubt that the same approach would be necessary/fruitful at a place like Hofstra. From everything I’ve heard, it seems like 90% of the game there involves learning BLL, for which commercial outlines are supposed to be quite useful.

(https://autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4721827&forum_id=2#41625728)

Right before I started HLS they recommended we all read "The Anatomy of the Law" by Lon Fuller. Maybe they even sent me a copy. I don't remember. I had always thought that "History of the Peloponnesian Wars" was the most soporific of all books. I was wrong. I could sometimes get through three pages of Thucydides before nodding off, but I don't think I ever got through even one full page of "Anatomy."

Depending upon where you go to school many people may come in seemingly pre-marinated in the majesty of law with their economics, political science, government, and philosophy degrees. None of it matters. Law school is not intellectual or hard. You will spend one year suffering some version of the Socratic method, then two years in boring lectures. Do some clinical stuff if you can - that is more fun.

P.S. Don't go to law school.

(https://autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4721827&forum_id=2#41625328)

(https://autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4721827&forum_id=2#41625389)

"Because law school is all about not flaming out and memorizing an outline during finals."

and

"You only need to make outlines and memorize material for a week during finals."

LOL

(https://autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4721827&forum_id=2#41625624)

sorry about your tiny pink attempt to reason.

(https://autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4721827&forum_id=2#41625768)

“Lots of smart people say this but provide no explanation as to why 1L differs from every other intellectual activity known to man. If the argument is that the potential gains that could be made from substantive prep are more than offset by the losses to one's sanity and enjoyment of life than that makes more sense. The blanket statement "OL prep doesn't work" isn't helpful or insightful.”

Answer:

Preparation is not conducive to success in 1L. The requirement for success in 1L is a week of focused outlining and study time. Your time is better spent building physical wellness and healthy habits.

(https://autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4721827&forum_id=2#41625969)

Main Conclusion: Preparation isn't conducive to success in 1L.

[Note that the phrase "isn't conducive to success" is vague and therefore pointless in this context as it has no logically precise meaning.]

Premise: The requirement for success in 1L is a week of focused outlining and study time.

1L Success ----> 1 week of focused outlining and study

[Note that this premise has no connection whatsoever with your conclusion. An infinite number of things are necessary for doing well in 1L. For example "not being abducted by aliens prior to your exams" and "not dying from a black widow spider attack" are also necessary for 1L success. However only a true retard could think that either of those necessary assumptions support the conclusion that "prep is not conducive to 1L success." I'll leave it to you to sort out why this is the case.]

[It's also possible that you are dumb enough to think your statement means: 1 week of focused outlining and study ---> 1L success. This is not what you said, of course, but it is also demonstrably false since many many people do 1 week of focused outlining and study yet do not have 1L success.]

Premise- Your time is better spent building physical wellness and healthy habits.

[Possibly true but as an unsupported assertion it certainly supplies no "explanation as to why 1L differs from every other intellectual activity known to man" which was the relevant part of OP's question. It also has no link to the previous premise and your conclusion doesn't follow from it, even if we assume that this premise is true. Clearly it is possible that one's time would be better spent building physical wellness and healthy habits than it would prepping for 1L, and that prepping for 1L is conducive to 1L success.]

I sincerely hope all of this helps and thank you for making me relive my time spent tutoring LR to mouthbreathing undergrads.

(https://autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4721827&forum_id=2#41632022)

EDIT: Real talk, most important thing is to get your typing speed up unless it's already god-tier

(https://autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4721827&forum_id=2#41625634)

If your goal is to get the best possible grades you can -- I can understand why that'd be your only goal, and you're probably even right, from your current POV -- then I regret to inform you that I didn't do any of the shit listed ITT and graduated law review and magna (at a school with no summa), because I scored in the high-170s on the lsat w/o prepping at all. This is unfortunately what actually matters.

(https://autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4721827&forum_id=2#41625775)

Start taking practice exams after 1 month. And take a few every month for each class.

(https://autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4721827&forum_id=2#41625838)

If not, do some readings about what's the difference between the three branches of fed gov (exec, leg, judicial), and about the division of power between fed gov and state gov.

And read about the difference between district courts, appeals courts, and supremes court. (again both for fed and state -- depending on your state you might have a few extra courts.)

Also learn about the difference between Article III and Article II Courts.

(https://autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4721827&forum_id=2#41625878)

His last suggestion won't matter until you take Admin law or fed courts, or one of the hard 2L/3L classes and then you'll spend weeks on this issue.

So his advice is terrible.

(https://autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4721827&forum_id=2#41631623)

Since you’re asking why it isn’t helpful to do it:

1) classes, cases and methods are variable from prof to prof.

2) it’s hard to retain highly detailed information 12 months out. Even if you ace a civ pro exam you will likely forget most of the rules, cases and stuff a few months later. You’ll just be learning stuff twice for no good reason rather than reinforcing what you learned. This is because it is reading and memorization, not complex theories that you need to grapple with over and over to get. The long term memorization problem comes with the density of material. You’ll be doing 8+ hours of reading and listening a day.

(https://autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4721827&forum_id=2#41625996)

If one could remember this stuff for long, we wouldn't do BARBRI/Kaplan/Themis after 3L.

(https://autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4721827&forum_id=2#41628363)

even if you have the Mind of A Legal Scholar, you only get credit for what you have time to type out

duckduckgo, racehorse exams vs. issue spotters

(https://autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4721827&forum_id=2#41628378)

I’d read Getting to Maybe. A lot of 1Ls are stupid and don’t understand how law school exams work, despite that 1L exams are probably the most important thing you’ll do in the first 10 years of your career. You need to understand that it’s generally not about what answer you get to, but showing your work and writing how the professors expect you to write. This book does a better job than any other I know. You also might buy examples and explanations for contracts and torts. Don’t read them in detail yet, but just skim and IIRC they have some exam question prompts. Read them and try to understand what the end goal of your year of law school is going to require of you. This will help with your note taking etc.

It is crazy, but I also agree you need to get your typing words per minute up. I went to law school a long time ago, but nontrads and people who were engineers and other majors that didn’t require tons of writing were at a distinct disadvantage on exams. (I went to college at a time when people didn’t bring laptops to class, but everyone in law school did.) Maybe this has changed a bit since everyone is online all the time. But I type 100WPM and it was a huge advantage on law school exams.

I’d also get your resume up to date and start getting an idea of what kind of summer internship you’d like to do. The application dates will creep up on you while you’re busy cramming for exams and you’ll be at an advantage if you can spam potential internships on the first day you can do so. It used to be December 1 I think, but maybe it has changed given NALP guidelines.

The only other thing you can do is earn some extra money before law school starts, find an apartment where you’ll be comfortable, and deal with any lingering personal/relationship issues that might distract you during the first year. You aren’t going to do well on an exam if you are in the midst of a messy break up, etc.

(https://autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4721827&forum_id=2#41629607)

/thread

(https://autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4721827&forum_id=2#41629681)