If you're going to law school but have no idea what to expect, you're not alone. Law school can be overwhelming. You're learning a new way of thinking and doing an enormous amount of work, and maybe struggling to reach the same level of achievement you have in the past. On top of that, you're still finding your path in a new profession, learning its rules, expectations, and possibilities. The aim of this book is to help prepare you for the challenges ahead. It tells you what to expect and how to make sure that you end up on a career path that you're happy with. Covering everything from preparing for law school to becoming an attorney, this book is your guide to what's really important over the next few years. We'll talk about what law school is like, how to stay healthy and avoid burnout, and how to get the most out of your experience so that you set yourself up for success as a lawyer. Law school is challenging, but you can handle it with strategic planning and advice from people who have been there.
I wish I knew then what I know now! Don't get to the end of your law school career muttering these words to yourself! Take the first step toward building a productive, successful, and perhaps even pleasant law school experience...read this book! Written for students about to embark on this three year odyssey, by students who have successfully survived law school. Law School Confidential demystifies the life-altering thrill ride that defines an American legal education by providing a comprehensive, blow-by-blow, chronological account of what to expect. Law School Confidential arms students with a thorough overview of the contemporary law school experience. This isn't the advice of graying professors or battle-scarred practitioners decades removed from the law school. Fresh out of University of Pennsylvania Law School, Robert Miller has assembled a panel of recent law school graduates all of whom are perfectly positioned to shed light on what law school is like today. Law School Confidential invites you to walk in their steps to success and to learn from their mistakes. From taking the LSAT, to securing financial aid, to navigating the notorious first semester, to exam-taking strategies, to applying for summer internships, to getting on the law review, to tackling the bar and beyond...Law School Confidential explains it all.
Learning the Law is unique among law books. It does not say what the laws is; rather, it aims to be a Guide, Philosopher and Friend to the reader at every stage of his legal studies.
I WISH I KNEW THEN WHAT I KNOW NOW! Don't get to the end of your law school career muttering these words to yourself! Take the first step toward building a productive, successful, and perhaps even pleasant law school experience—read this book! Written by students, for students, Law School Confidential has been the "must-have" guide for anyone thinking about, applying to, or attending law school for more than a decade. And now, in this newly revised third edition, it's more valuable than ever. This isn't the advice of graying professors or battle-scarred practitioners long removed from law school. Robert H. Miller has assembled a blue-ribbon panel of recent graduates from across the country to offer realistic and informative firsthand advice about what law school is really like. This updated edition contains the very latest information and strategies for thriving and surviving in law school—from navigating the admissions process and securing financial aid, choosing classes, studying and exam strategies, and securing a seat on the law review to getting a judicial clerkship and a job, passing the bar exam, and much, much more. Newly added material also reveals a sea change that is just starting to occur in legal education, turning it away from the theory-based platform of the previous several decades to a pragmatic platform being demanded by the rigors of today's practices. Law School Confidential is a complete guide to the law school experience that no prospective or current law student can afford to be without.
Each year, over 40,000 new students enter America's law schools. Each new crop experiences startlingly high rates of depression, anxiety, fatigue, and dissatisfaction. Kathryne M. Young was one of those disgruntled law students. After finishing law school (and a PhD), she set out to learn more about the law school experience and how to improve it for future students. Young conducted one of the most ambitious studies of law students ever undertaken, charting the experiences of over 1000 law students from over 100 different law schools, along with hundreds of alumni, dropouts, law professors, and more. How to Be Sort of Happy in Law School is smart, compelling, and highly readable. Combining her own observations and experiences with the results of her study and the latest sociological research on law schools, Young offers a very different take from previous books about law school survival. Instead of assuming her readers should all aspire to law-review-and-big-firm notions of success, Young teaches students how to approach law school on their own terms: how to tune out the drumbeat of oppressive expectations and conventional wisdom to create a new breed of law school experience altogether. Young provides readers with practical tools for finding focus, happiness, and a sense of purpose while facing the seemingly endless onslaught of problems law school presents daily. This book is an indispensable companion for today's law students, prospective law students, and anyone who cares about making law students' lives better. Bursting with warmth, realism, and a touch of firebrand wit, How to Be Sort of Happy in Law School equips law students with much-needed wisdom for thriving during those three crucial years.
To get straight to the point, Law School: Getting In, Getting Good, Getting the Gold ("GGG") is, without a doubt, one of the most important law school and legal career books currently available. There are, of course, other guides that have made a huge impact in the market for such materials; "Planet Law School" (which is now PLS II) and "Law School Confidential" are two that immediately spring to mind, and which the prospective law student has most likely heard of. But whereas PLS and LSC are rather practical in nature, which is not in itself a bad thing because being led through the practicalities of applying to law school, preparing, studying, finding jobs and so forth are obviously important, GGG offers all this and so much more. Not more of the same, however, although GGG does cover standard material such as rankings and taking exams, and thankfully chooses to omit the tedious and common-sense generic topics such as how to apply for financial aid and how to pick upper level courses during 2L/3L, while emphasizing the important subjects such as the LSAT. There is little room in the market for a mere copycat comprehensive law school guide, and GGG recognizes this. What sets GGG apart from - and above - PLS and LSC is that the author, Thane Messinger, has taken considerable care to help the reader think about the traditional basic (but solid) law school advice, rather than just absorb it, and explains to the reader why the advice is given and why it is important. Furthermore, GGG even encourages a healthy skepticism in its readers, challenging them to explore their own reasons for attending law school, whether they would truly enjoy a legal career, and where they want to end up when all is said and done. In other words, GGG treats its readers like intelligent grown-ups who are looking for more than platitudes and third-hand advice, instead of mere young adults who are too inexperienced to know what they want. This alone is refreshing in a sea of "do this and you''ll succeed" books, none of which actually work in real life. GGG is a lengthy book, coming in at close to four hundred pages. Even for a comprehensive guide, this is a generously-proportioned piece of work. While it can be read in its entirety, as I have spent the past week doing, the author encourages the reader to use the book in a more efficient manner, focusing in on those sections which are most important to the reader at any particular time. Some comprehensive guide books tend to build upon earlier sections in a linear progression, making it all but impossible to dip in and out at will. Readers of GGG will be pleasantly surprised at the structure of the book - discrete sections for each facet of the legal education process, each readable as a stand-alone module or as part of the whole. Modern readers weaned on a diet of hypertext and easy-access to information will appreciate the care that has been taken to make it simple for the book to be used as a brief reference from which information can be quickly gleaned, or for a more in-depth exploration of the topic in question. An example of the author''s attention to efficiency is the summary of each of the three main sections of the book. These elegant summaries barely cover two pages each, but - and I''m not exaggerating here - the summaries are worth their weight in gold, hitting the high points of each section, spelling out what the reader really must know. A law school applicant should, after buying the book, photocopy the summary to the "Getting In" section and tape it to the front of his or her LSAT prep book so it is seen every single day. The same goes for law students, who should tape a copy of the "Getting Good" summary to the wall by their assigned library seat in law school so the advice can be followed each and every time a case book or outline is opened. GGG also stands out from PLS and LSC by virtue of the fact that GGG is a good five years more recent than the others. While much of the advice in PLS and LSC is still relevant, GGG was published recently enough to bear some of the scars of the economic collapse that demolished the legal industry, and from which the legal industry is still slowly recovering from. Not much has changed in legal education over the past decade, but when it comes to legal hiring and how to find work - the goal of every law student - reading up-to-date information is vitally important. Techniques that may have worked in 2000 certainly aren''t as effective today. Think of GGG as a 2.0 version of the standard law school guide. Notwithstanding the foregoing, there''s one particularly compelling reason to buy this book that isn''t mentioned within its pages: The author. Let me explain. Thane Messinger has been heavily involved in the legal education world for many, many, many years. He knows what he''s talking about. He has written books on the subject, edited books on the subject, and seen more great, good, mediocre, bad, and dangerous advice than just about anyone else on this planet. He stands behind his name and stands behind his wisdom. As he states in the introduction to GGG, "it''s difficult to know whether the advice is actually good or not - until it''s taken (or rejected) - by which time it''s usually too late to do anything differently." Thane is your insurance policy against bad advice from an inexperienced author. Law school is an extraordinarily expensive and time-consuming endeavor to screw up. There is so much information available on legal education, both in print and online, and very often, the reputation of the author is ignored in favor of the latest secret tips, techniques and gimmicks for success. There is a difference between taking advice from a recent grad and from a seasoned expert. There''s also a difference between taking advice from an interested party (such as a law school admissions adviser or pre-law counselor) and taking advice from an independent, non-establishment, experienced and impartial expert. GGG is a distillation of Messinger''s expert and independent knowledge, his understanding of what works and what doesn''t work, and his expertise derived from about two decades of carefully watching countless law students succeed and countless law students fail. In short, he knows what he''s talking about, and his advice can be trusted (as can the advice in other books he publishes and edits). And in a modern world where it''s becoming so difficult to figure out who is on your side and who is out to take advantage of you, it''s increasingly rare to find authors such as Messinger who can be relied upon to look after your best interests. If you''re thinking about attending law school, you''re about to make a $100,000 purchase that will affect the rest of your career. Spend the money on this book and give yourself the most up-to-date, independent, insightful and reliable advice available. To do otherwise is madness.
How to Crush Law School(c) is the book I wish I could have read the summer before my 1L year. Great law students do not necessarily work harder than their colleagues. Instead, they typically have an informational advantage to combine with their excellent work ethic. In other words, they are privy to useful bits of wisdom that give them a slight edge over their competition. Unfortunately, only a fraction of law students learn the secrets to success in law school, and thus most law students are at a tremendous disadvantage. How to does one obtain information other law students don't have? How does one gain an edge? How to Crush Law School solves the enigma; it clears up the ambiguities. In this concise book, the author explicitly reveals the secrets to success in law school and shares his most valuable bits of law school wisdom. This step-by-step guide to crushing law school reveals the following: How to prioritize law school tasks and manage time to achieve optimal efficiency; How to manage your mind and utilize neuroscience to perform at your best; How to leverage focus, willpower, habit, motivation, momentum, and positivity to gain an edge; How to approach the various types of law school exam questions, including issue-spotters, traditional essays, and multiple-choice questions; and How to write a perfect answer on a law school exam. ABOUT THE AUTHOR I don't like to brag about myself in the third person, so my "about the author" may be a bit unusual. Here goes. I graduated from the University of South Carolina, School of Law in 2016, where I served as a research editor for the South Carolina Law Review. While in school, I had the honor of working as a tutor of legal research and writing. I accumulated a lot of law school accolades, including CALI awards in legal writing, advanced legal writing, income tax, and criminal procedure. During law school, I received a joint master's degree from the Vermont Law School in environmental law and police. Thereafter, I clerked for Judge Joseph F. Anderson, Jr. in the United States District Court, and then I clerked for Judge David R. Duncan at the United States Bankruptcy Court. After law school, I went back to business school and received an MBA from the University of South Carolina, where I focused on marketing, new venture analysis, and intellectual property strategy. While completing my MBA, I worked as a research editor for one of my favorite professors in law school. If you read all of that, thank you for your interest. I'm flattered, and I hope you enjoy the book and crush law school.
Going to law school has become a very expensive and increasingly risky gamble. When is it still worth it? Law professor Paul Campos answers that question in this book, which gives prospective law students, their families, and current law students the tools they need to make a smart decision about applying to, enrolling in, and remaining in law school. Campos explains how the law school game is won and lost, from the perspective of an insider who has become the most prominent and widely cited critic of the deceptive tactics law schools use to convince the large majority of law students to pay far more for their law degrees than those degrees are worth.DON'T GO TO LAW SCHOOL (UNLESS) reveals which law schools are still worth attending, at what price, and what sorts of legal careers it makes sense to pursue today. It outlines the various economic and psychological traps law students and new lawyers fall into, and how to avoid them. This book is a must-read if you or someone you care about is considering law school, or wondering whether to stay enrolled in one now.
Open Book: The Inside Track to Law School Success, 2E is a book that every JD and LLM law student needs to read, either before classes start or as they get going in their 1L year. Now in an expanded second edition, the book explains in a clear and easygoing, conversational manner what law professors expect from their students both in classes and exams. The authors, award-winning teachers with a wealth of classroom experience, give students an inside look at law school by explaining how, despite appearances to the contrary, classes connect to exams and exams connect to the practice of law. Open Book introduces them to the basic structure of our legal system and to the distinctive features of legal reasoning. To prepare students for exams, the book explains in clear and careful detail what exams are designed to test. It then devotes a single, clearly written chapter to each step of the process of answering exams. It also contains a wealth of material, both in the book and digitally, on preparing for exams. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, Open Book comes with a free suite of 18 actual law school exams in Civil Procedure, Constitutional Law, Contracts, Criminal Law, Property and Torts, written and administered by law professors. These exams include not only questions, but: (1) annotations from the professors explaining what they were looking for; (2) model answers written by the professors themselves; and (3) actual student answers, with professor comments that explain why certain answers were stronger of weaker. As Open Book explains, there is no better way to prepare for exams than by practicing, and these unique materials will enable students to get the most out of their pre-exam practice.
One of the most influential books on chess ever published – now in digital format. The Tiger is a vicious beast. He doesn't care about the aesthetic side of chess. He doesn't even care about making the 'best' moves. All he cares about is winning. Do you want to win more games? Then become a Tiger. 'Chess for Tigers' tells you how to make the most of your playing strength, how to play upon your opponent's weaknesses, how to steer the game into a position which suits you and not your opponent, how to get results against strong opposition and how to avoid silly mistakes. This is a cult classic that is as relevant to today's generation of chess players as the first edition was. Regularly voted in the top 10 best chess books of all time, this book should be read by all chess players, especially beginners who want to win at all costs. Author Information Mr Webb started to make an impact on the chess world in the 1960s. He learned the game at the age of seven and ten years later, in 1966, he was under-18 champion in Britain and fourth in the European junior Championship. He married and moved to Sweden in the 1970s and became one of the few correspondence chess Grand Masters. The first edition of Chess for Tigers was first published in 1978. The sad death of Simon Webb in March 2005 shocked the chess community.
