Ask The Professor: A Day Late And A Dollar Short
How can you get ahead of your peers during every law school class? Here are some tips and tricks.
“A day late, a dollar short” is an expression you have heard, and it’s applicable to first-year law students. By the time you recognize that “context” is your way to an “A”, it may be too late.
Unlike college and high school classes where your professors explained everything you needed to know in a particular subject area, in law school, you have to take responsibility for your own education.
While law school education is enjoying a creative rebirth, by and large the decades-long dominant pedagogical approaches for teaching first-year students is still through case briefing and the Socratic Method. These approaches teach critical thinking and legal reasoning skills while incorporating substantive concepts, but do not teach you all you need to know to get an “A.” Critical thinking and legal reasoning provide a foundation to learn from, but the rest is on you. You must navigate your own way through the substantive law.
The problem most first-year students have is a lack of context as to exactly what is happening in the classroom. Many students struggle because they only grasp the very narrow discussion associated with each particular case and fail to see the larger picture.
A law school class is like a jigsaw puzzle. If you take the pieces out of the box as taught, you will need many pieces before you begin to see the big picture. But if you create context by building the border first, you will know where the next piece fits in.
My advice to you is to go into class with enough context to appreciate what the professor is teaching by knowing where it fits into the puzzle, rather than waiting to figure it out after class from a hornbook, commercial outline, or a second-hand class outline.
For instance, in most law school text books you may find one or two cases on battery. Many use Mohr v. Williams, 104 N.W. 12 (Minn. 1905). Mohr illustrates that an offensive contact could, in fact, be helpful and not harmful. But that is not all of battery — only one small piece. Without understanding the elements of battery, it would be hard to see where that piece fits in. However, if you understood the proper context before going over Mohr in class, then you would see where the case and discussion merge into the overall concept of battery.
Don’t wait until after class is over to figure out the proper context.
Get ahead of your peers by looking over your syllabus to see what will be covered next. Create that context before class by reading about what the professor will cover to better appreciate what is being taught.
To help you with getting the “A” you want, I have created a FREE First Year Study Program. It is entirely online and on-demand. It includes:
*Subject Outlines: Contracts, Torts, and Federal Civil Procedure.
*Memory Boosters™: These are condensed outlines that promote memory and recall.
*Memory Drill Lectures: Short, substantive lectures on each subject.
*Multiple Choice Workshop: Learn how to effectively answer multiple choice questions.
*Essay Workshop: Learn how to structure and approach your law school essays.
To access the program, just go here.
The program is really FREE and will give you the advantage you want.
It is my way of wishing you good luck in your first year.
Professor Joseph Marino has been a fixture in the world of legal education for the past 40 years. Whether you’re just starting law school, about to take the bar, or an attorney in need of CLE, he and Marino Legal Academy are here to help. He is the Director of Marino Bar Review and the Marino Institute for Continuing Legal Education. He writes a bimonthly column, Ask the Professor. Visit the Marino CLE page on ATL, connect with him on LinkedIn and Facebook, or email him via info@marinolegal.com.
