Law Schools

1Ls: Spring Break Over? Then On To The Finish Line

To get ready for finals (yes, it is time to start thinking about them), here are some things you need to do.

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Book dunceDear 1Ls,

Congratulations on surviving your spring break. If you did it properly, you managed to relax some and not worry about law school all the time. You also probably managed to drag your books everywhere you went, but didn’t open them once. For that, your muscles thank you. I’m also hopeful you didn’t do anything you’d have to disclose on your character and fitness application.

You might have told your professor in advance that you were going to read and catch up before you left for spring break. If you were my student, I told you that I was going to carry a rolling pin on my spring break, with an equal chance of it being utilized as your casebooks.

Upon your return to the law school campus after spring break, you probably felt a little listless. You weren’t ready for things to start up again. Perhaps like you had some unfinished business before classes started vying for your attention.

You did. You did not mentally prepare for the final stretch before finals. To get ready for finals (yes, it is time to start thinking about them), here are some things you need to do.

Learn from your past. If you didn’t already go over your final exams from last semester, do it soon. You probably have already forgotten the exam prompt, and the professor will have to dig up your final from the swamp that is his or her office organization, but do it anyway. Grades weren’t stellar? Then you should at least make a learning experience out of the pain that was inflicted upon you. Chances are you’ll find some commonalities in terms of what you did wrong across all of your exams from last semester.

Prepare for your future. Start taking practice exams. Get familiar with the types of exams your professors are going to throw at you. Don’t just look at the exams, write them out fully and completely. At the end of the semester, look over those sample exams again to see if you uncover new issues and whether your take on the exam answer has changed. A sample exam question isn’t just useful once. It is useful multiple times over.

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Consult the sages. As you review your notes and outline and write sample exam answers, you will come to discover holes in your body of knowledge. Write those queries down. Then take those questions to your professor, and get answers or clarification. If his or her answer doesn’t seem helpful, then consult the hornbooks. Specific questions always sit better with professors than broad questions.

Consult the apprentice (no, not Trump). If your classes have upper-division teaching assistants, then avail yourself of their time now. Keep in mind that they, too, will have finals. Waiting until the last minute while they are studying for finals is a sure-fire way to annoy them and ensure your search for last-minute answers will be ignored.

Plan. If you have ignored all advice and now feel overwhelmed because there’s too much to do, then the first thing you need to do is create yourself a schedule and stick to it. Plan for some rest, some exercise, study time, assignment time, etc. Plan to do any writing or outlining first thing in the morning, if possible, not late at night when your brain is fried.

Don’t become a pack rat. Yes, having some materials available is useful, like sample exams and answers. However, buying every possible student supplement available at the bookstore, getting every 2L’s course outline, and raiding the library of treatises is a sure-fire way to overwhelm you. First of all, you’re just accumulating security blankets. Second, you’ll feel like you should read all of that. You just assigned yourself more reading and fueled your feeling of being overwhelmed.

Don’t give in to the paranoia and insecurities of others. As exams approach and you start to feel more stressed, fellow students will sometimes exacerbate that. They will boast about how much they’ve done. Or they will freak out in a completely different direction about how little they’ve done. Pretend you are watching them at a distance, like watching them on stage from a balcony. Don’t give in to their feelings. Be mindful of yours.

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Study when you study. Ever been in a study group that never studied? Did they just complain, gossip, or register defeat? Yeah, leave that group. Your brain will try very hard to distract you from studying. It will make you afraid, and it will distract you with shiny metal objects (or Netflix). If you’re studying in a group, set an agenda before you arrive at the group. Meet to discuss a sample problem, and expect everyone to have arrived prepared with an answer. Stick with that agenda, and do not deviate.

If you are studying alone, set an agenda for yourself as well. Focus on a particular course or subject. Do not deviate. During that time, also avoid checking in with friends in law school. They will likely be doing something different and you’ll feel that they are on a better study pattern than you, even if they aren’t.

These are the things you’ll try to avoid doing, while reading for classes and keeping up. However, they are equally important to your success at the end of the semester. Finals are not sprints, but marathons. You’re halfway there.

LawProfBlawg is an anonymous professor at a top 100 law school. You can see more of his musings here and on Twitter. Email him at lawprofblawg@gmail.com.

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