The Law

of
Law School
The Essential Guide
for
First-Year Law Students

Andrew Guthrie Ferguson

and
Jonathan Yusef Newton

NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS

New York
 NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS
New York
www.nyupress.org
© 2020 by New York University
All rights reserved
References to Internet websites (URLs) were accurate at the time of writing.
Neither the author nor New York University Press is responsible for URLs
that may have expired or changed since the manuscript was prepared.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Ferguson, Andrew G., author. | Newton, Jonathan, author.
Title: The law of law school : the essential guide for first-year law students /
Andrew Guthrie Ferguson, Jonathan Newton.
Description: New York : New York University Press, 2020. |
Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: “The Law of Law
School” serves as a guide for first-year law students”— Provided by publisher.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019033352 | ISBN 9781479801688 (cloth) |
ISBN 9781479801626 (paperback) | ISBN 9781479801619 (ebook) |
ISBN 9781479801602 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Law schools—United States—Handbooks, manuals, etc. |
Law—Study and teaching—United States.
Classification: LCC KF272 .F43 2020 | DDC 340.071/173—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019033352
New York University Press books are printed on acid- free paper, and their
binding materials are chosen for strength and durability. We strive
to use environmentally responsible suppliers and materials
to the greatest extent possible in publishing our books.
Manufactured in the United States of America
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Also available as an ebook
 Rule 3

Law Is Personal

Law is human and real. The study of law is going to impact

you personally. Laws may be written in the abstract, but
they have real human impacts. Laws allow state killing.
Laws allow children to be removed from their parents.
Laws cover birth, marriage, death, jobs, property, belief,
and liberty. You must never forget that the law has real
effects on others.
Even as you figure out how to distance yourself from
arguments, coldly apply logic to facts, and be the dispas-
sionate professional you believe lawyers must be, remember
that somebody probably cried because of the case, and they
were right to cry. Somebody lost something precious—
liberty, dignity, property, rights, family— and the law did it.
The law of law school is also personal. It will affect you
and your peers. It will change how you interact with each
other and with your nonlawyer friends. It will cause stress,
sleeplessness, and emotional difficulty. It may try to kill
you. On occasion, these negative emotions can be debilitat-
ing, and you should seek professional help if they become
overwhelming.
At the same time, the law of law school will change how
you think, how you communicate, and how you see the
world. You will become smarter, sharper, and more valuable
in whatever you end up doing. Done correctly, succeeding
in law school can be a positive and personally meaningful
experience. Done successfully, law school can be quite fun.

1L Mind- Set | 15
 Rule 4

Flip Your Thinking

Learning is flipped in law school. Unlike undergraduate or

high school classes, you do not come to class to learn the
material. You come to class to apply the lessons you have
learned yourself through your reading and studying. The
American Bar Association (ABA) standards suggest that for
every hour in class, you should study two hours at home.
Law students are not passive consumers but active par-
ticipants in learning. You are necessarily teaching yourself
the law, because that is what you do as a lawyer in a world
of ever- evolving legal precedent. Lawyers answer unan-
swered questions for a living. This process takes work, and
it also takes a commitment to struggle through the learning
process. You are being asked to do something inherently
difficult: teach yourself a complicated subject. 1L courses
provide examples of foundational legal concepts, but the
goal is not simply to learn the nuts and bolts of contracts
or torts or criminal law but to learn how to master any legal
subject. The skill to teach yourself is the skill you will need
as a lawyer. This is the actual skill you are paying to learn
in law school.

16 | 1L Mind- Set
 Rule 5

Think like a Lawyer

Throughout law school, people will tell you to “start think-

ing like a lawyer.” This is frustrating and unhelpful. It is
usually stated as a criticism, without any clarity of what it
means. The good news is that there is no one way to think
like a lawyer. The bad news is that you still have to under-
stand the concept.
In general, thinking like a lawyer means thinking about
a problem in a particular way— one that involves identify-
ing a precise issue, identifying the rule that goes with the
issue, analyzing it, evaluating the problem objectively from
both sides, and then offering a conclusion. In short:
• Identify the issue.
• Identify the rule.
• Identify the relevant facts.
• Apply the facts to the rule.
• Conclude.
• Argue the other side of the argument.
• Choose the best of those two options.
• Find the next issue.
• Repeat.

You will find that this way of thinking is helpful for re-
solving questions on an exam and arguing about the best
new restaurant or hot- button political issue. It will also
make you insufferable around your nonlawyer friends and
family.

1L Mind- Set | 17
 Rule 8

Visualize the Full Semester

Law school semesters have a rhythm. 1L year begins cha-

otically, with a flood of orientation information and then a
crush of reading and preparing for class. After a few weeks,
things appear to ease up a bit, allowing for a false hope of
balance. Then the testing begins, first with midterms, then
writing assignments, outlines, practice tests, and a host of
other requirements. The semester crescendos with final
exams, and if you do it correctly, there is never a letup until
the final moments of the final exam.
Knowing this pattern (ahead of time) allows you to plan
for the full semester and avoid the pitfalls. You cannot put
off your work until the end, because the work does not
stop. In fact, the readings only increase as professors get
behind on their class assignments and end- of- the- semester
writing projects or extracurricular obligations begin taking
all your time. You must see ahead of the curve to account
for the unforeseen but always inevitable increase in work.
Be prepared for the crescendo that is coming.

Planning to Plan | 23
 Rule 14

Study the Legal Dictionary

Dictionaries— you might remember them as the things you

never used because you could Google the same definition
online. The same is true with legal dictionaries, but they
are more important.
Imagine going to a country where you could not un-
derstand every tenth word. Imagine living in that country
permanently. You could, obviously, ignore tenth
one-of the
substance of what anyone was talking about. Or you could
teach yourself the words that you did not understand.
In the olden days, people would read 1L cases with a
legal dictionary next to them, looking up every Latin
phrase or old- fashioned term of art. They learned the lan-
guage by looking up definition after definition. What they
did not do was remain ignorant or merely skip the words.
They taught themselves, and whether in print or online,
the point is to learn these old-
fashioned legal terms. This is
your new language— all lawyers speak andit—you need to
become fluent fast.
Law is language. Language is power. And mastering legal
language gives you an even greater power. Part of what you
are learning in law school is the terms of art of the profes-
sion. These words are the key to the secrets of your future,
and you need to learn them early.

32 | Books
 Rule 19

Studying Means Translating

Lawyers are translators, and your classes are your first

translation test. The key to being a good translator is to
understand the substance yourself in order to translate the
content to others. You need to begin finding methods of
translation for yourself and others.
Translation is an active process in which you take the
concepts and reformulate them in your own head. To un-
derstand, you cannot simply read and reread a case. Re-
reading without interpreting or contextualizing is a waste
of time. You need to actively take the concepts and make
them make sense to you. After you read a case, imagine
a conversation with a nonlawyer friend— a grandmother,
sister, or uncle. In this imaginary conversation, explain the
case to the person in your own words and describe why the
case matters. What are the legal principles at stake? What
are the consequences?
You can use supplements or outlines or classmates (or
even professors) to help you with that translation process,
but the goal is to make the concepts your own. You need to
be able to use them, play with them, and explain them to
others. Your clients will want to know what the law means,
and it will be your job to translate the legal world for them
to understand.

40 | Studying
 Rule 20

Ask “Why” for Each Case

Simple rote memorization of legal rules is not effective.

Your ability to excel as a student and future lawyer will
depend on your ability to distinguish when those rules
apply to a wide range of factual circumstances. To do this,
you must know not only the rule but the rationale of the
rule— the “why.”
As you study rules from cases, you need to try to inter-
nalize your understanding of them. A great way to internal-
ize the rules is to learn the “why” of their existence. Why
did the judge rule one way or another? What was the driv-
ing rationale behind the court’s support of such a rule? Ask
yourself, “What really motivated the judge to promote the
holding?” Analyzing what the judge thought or believed to
arrive at legal conclusions helps to embed the rule into your
mind. You will not be able to read judges’ minds, but you
should be able to deduce what was influencing their think-
ing on the basis of what they wrote in the opinion. Some-
times it is law, policy, text, history, theory, equity, politics,
or even ignorance or bias. Once you understand the “why,”
you will have a deeper understanding of the outcome—
even if you disagree with the reasoning or result.

Studying | 41
 Rule 21

Read!

Here is an important tip: Read! Read deeply. Read carefully.

Read the cases. Read the notes. You cannot come to class
unprepared. You must read (not skim, not blindly high-
light, but read) and reread each case. Every hour you prac-
tice, you will be improving on a fundamental lawyering
skill: critical reading. No matter what kind of lawyer you
become, you will be reading every day of your career.
Every day in law school, you need to set aside several
hours for reading. If you find yourself routinely reading
in the moments just before class, you are doing it wrong.
Reading the cases is a necessary but not sufficient condi-
tion for success. It is necessary— you need to know what
the case says. But it is not sufficient to master the material.
You need to have time to think about the case, outline the
case, and process the case in the context of the entire class.

Reading | 45
 Rule 22

Read on Three Levels

Class reading requires you to read on three levels:

Level 1: Read for the who, what, where, and why. You
need to be able to tell the story in a narrative fashion.
“What are the facts” means “tell me the story of the case.”
Level 2: Think about fit. How does the case fit within
the class, the course, the subject? What is the central reason
you are reading this case, and how does it fit within other
reading assignments? What is the legal issue that this case
explains?
Level 3: What is my takeaway from the case? How will I
use the rule, remember it, apply it? What are the rules I can
apply for the next case? Why does it matter? What proposi-
tion does the case stand for?
Distilling the facts, issues, and rules in the case are the
key goals of critical, active reading. This may be a different
way than you usually read. We think of reading as an in-
ternal pursuit. But when you are reading for class, you are
reading to do something with the material. You are going
to make external use of this reading material in class, in an
argument, or on an exam.

46 | Reading
 Rule 23

Find the “Takeaway” of Each Case

As you read a case, it is important to have a process to

gain the most from your reading. You will instinctively
recognize “what” has happened in a set of facts, but it is
more important for you to know “why” the case is in the
casebook.
There are thousands of cases one could put in a casebook
to provide a representative example of a crime, a contract,
a tort, or a civil procedure dispute. So why did the author
pick this case? It was not just to entertain you. What is the
reason why this case helps to explain the law?
If you can find the point of the case— why this case was
included in the book to explain a particular point—you
will see the important takeaway of the reading. Most cases
can be distilled down to one point, one rule, one argument
that justifies its inclusion in the book.
Remember, while all the facts, arguments, analysis, and
filler will be fodder for classroom discussion and debate,
the case is included to add one (maybe two or three) legal
principles to your growing legal knowledge.

Reading | 47
 Rule 24

Read the Footnotes, the Concurring Opinions,

and the Dissents

Those pesky footnotes and long dissents are often over-

looked by many overwhelmed 1Ls. As you grind through
page after page, you just want to get your reading assign-
ment over with before class. But there is value in those
footnotes and dissents, and skipping them will be costly.
The footnotes offer enlightenment on the nuances of the
rule being analyzed in the case. Your professor will almost
definitely ask about those nuances in class and maybe on
your final exam.
When you read a case without reading all of the opinions
(concurrences and dissents), you miss a helpful example of
how rules can be interpreted differently. The dissents often
point out flaws in the majority opinion’s reasoning (some-
times using the very same rules). In addition, the concur-
ring opinions often highlight additional perspectives and
rationales for the current holding.
If you study how judges craft arguments using the same
facts and rules but come to different outcomes, you will see
how to do it as an advocate.

48 | Reading
 Rule 25

Simplify Sentences as You Read

The sentence structure in cases is often confusing. Judges

use complex words and phrases. To combat this confusion,
simplify the sentence by rephrasing it into your own words.
Rewrite the ideas in your own words. As they say, “Write,
don’t highlight.” Most of the rules you will learn can be dis-
tilled down to an “if- then” statement of logic. Adding an
exception becomes an “if- then- unless” statement. Decon-
structing the rules so you can understand them will make
it easier for you to memorize and apply them in an exam.
Take the time to write out important rules. Words mat-
ter, and you cannot merely substitute your preferred words
for the judge’s legal terminology; but you can make it un-
derstandable. Find a way to make a precise, concise, and
complete definition of the rule. This rule will end up in
your brief of the case, in your outline, and on the exam.
Make it yours.

Reading | 49
 Rule 26

Briefing Means Decoding and Encoding

During the first week, you will brief every case and prom-
ise yourself you will continue to do so all semester. By the
second week, you will start taking shortcuts, using com-
mercial case briefs, or just underlining extra hard. This is
a common but counterproductive approach. Do the hard
work of briefing your own cases.
Briefing cases matters because the briefing process forces
you to deconstruct the structure of a case. By breaking
down the facts, pulling out the issues, rewriting the rules,
and mastering the holding, you are decoding how the law
is put together, while at the same time encoding it as your
own.
If you merely copy the words on the page, you are doing
it wrong. Briefing involves active learning. The repetitive
process of breaking down cases and building up your own
knowledge is central to being a good lawyer. You are build-
ing the muscle memory of legal reasoning, and it takes rep-
etition, thought, and practice. The goal is that after doing
this for a year, the ability to break down and organize a case
will be intuitive. You will never have to think twice in your
career if you can master this skill now. After a year, the skill
will be in your lawyerly DNA.

Briefing Cases | 53
 Rule 27

Train Your Mind— See the IRAC Pattern

In time, you will sense that IRAC (issue, rule, analysis, con-
clusion) is the secret key to success on law school exams.
On an issue-spotting exam, there are issues for you to
spot. Each issue has a rule. Each rule can be applied to
the facts. This application is the analysis. The analysis leads
to a conclusion. Writing an answer in IRAC format (or
some variant) will become a constant drumbeat as you hear
about ways to succeed on exams.
But if you study your briefed cases, you will also see the
IRAC pattern. Judges routinely start cases with sentences
like, “The issue in this case is . . .” and methodically list out
the elements of the rule. The rule is then analyzed against
the facts, providing the analysis and then the conclusion.
If you start seeing that many cases follow the IRAC pat-
tern and many legal arguments follow the IRAC pattern,
you will see why the framework is also so useful on exams.
Every 1L course teaches you a variety of issues. Again,
each issue has a rule. Your task on an exam (or in life) is to
identify the issue, cite the rule, apply the facts, and come
up with a conclusion. Judges do that every day in their
written opinions. Litigators do it in their briefs. Lawyers do
it every day in solving problems. It is the pattern that links
all your class work and the work you will do as a lawyer.

54 | Briefing Cases
 Rule 29

Use Briefs as a Self- Test

The brief is your take on a case. Use it as a moment to

self- test your knowledge about the issues that arise from
the case.
Most students see briefing as a preparation tool for class,
a security blanket for when the professor calls on you to
give the correct facts, issue, rule, analysis, and so on. But
briefs can also be used to test yourself before class. At the
end of every brief, write down in your own words what the
point of this case is and the rule. Test yourself to see if you
can operationalize why the case is important and what the
takeaway should be from the case. And after class, go back
and see if you were correct.
These case briefs will also provide the source material for
your outlines and studying. There is no way to reread the
entire semester’s worth of cases to prepare for exams, so you
will default to your case briefs. These summaries will be
the way you think about the cases, and thus crafting them
precisely, thoroughly, and accurately is terribly important.
If you misstate something in your brief, you might end up
misunderstanding the law.

56 | Briefing Cases
 Rule 30

Briefing for Context

Briefing cases involves more than understanding the facts

and law. Build a habit of looking at the law from a histori-
cal perspective. Understand its context. What year was it
written? In what court? By what judge or justice?
Doing this will further strengthen your ability to inter-
nalize the law. Knowing where a law came from gives a per-
spective and understanding of what the law was meant to
do. Knowing who wrote the opinion can provide context.
Law is a reflection of social power and social norms. To
understand the law is to see how these forces shape the out-
come. Politics, legal philosophy, and history shape the law,
and these influences should be included in your case sum-
maries. When you learn about the history of a law, you can
visually map out the progression of the law and its effect on
social conditions and other outcomes. You can see the de-
velopment of the law (for good or bad) through your notes.

Briefing Cases | 57
 Rule 31

Class Is like Oral Argument

Law school classes are discomfiting experiences. They tend

to be large and fast-
paced, with sharp and pointed ques-
tions. Professors call on students and demand a response.
To prepare for this experience, it helps actually to be pre-
pared. At a minimum, you can prepare for questions about
the facts, the issue, the rule, the holding, the procedural
posture, and your own evaluation of the strength of the
court’s argument. If you follow through on briefing cases,
you will be 70 percent of the way prepared for any question.
The harder questions in class involve hypotheticals that
make you apply the rules to other scenarios or ask you to
argue on one side or the other. These questions can also be
thought through and prepared before class. Although you
may not know the direction of a particular class discussion,
the questions arising from application of the rules can be
considered ahead of time.
That process of guessing the next problem, identifying
the logical consequences, or seeing the traps of an argu-
ment is part of the skill set you are mastering. The facts will
change, but the rules will remain the same. This is the skill
of an oral advocate. Class is a mini oral argument on a few
discrete cases and issues. And while this skill is not natural
to most people, it can be learned, practiced, and developed.

In Class | 61
 Rule 32

Ban Your Own Laptop

We live and learn in a hyperconnected age. At any moment,

there could be a social media update or news event. Our
addiction to staying digitally engaged makes taking notes
on a laptop in class quite difficult. While you may think
you can focus on the professor while emailing, updating
your social media accounts, and shopping online, in truth
you cannot. Studies show that students who are forced to
take handwritten notes in class have better recall of the
material and are more engaged. By tuning out the distrac-
tions of life, students can focus on the questions in class.
Consider banning your own laptop or at a minimum
forcing yourself to stop multitasking. There will be no so-
cial media or email during the final exam, so train your
brain to focus. If you must use a computer in class, ban
email, ban instant communications, ban the internet, and
ban social media during class time. You will not miss any-
thing important, and you will gain a level of deep focus
necessary to master the law.

62 | In Class
 Rule 33

Notes Should Be Reflection, Not Transcription

Taking class notes is an exercise in reflection, not transcrip-

tion. You need to be actively thinking about engaging in
the ideas, not simply writing down the words or copying
down the slides of your professor.
Your task is to distill the ideas, issues, rules, and debates
into usable frameworks for analysis. When you go back to
review those notes after class or before the exam, a tran-
script will be less helpful than a few key points about the
issues discussed, the rules, and any elements of those rules
that can be applied to future cases.
Class notes are poetry, not prose.
Just as reading for class is not an internal pursuit, neither
is note- taking. You are not taking notes to keep the ideas
hidden for yourself; you are taking notes to be able to apply
them in the future. The goal is to find the core rules that
will be applied later, in class, in a conversation, or on an
exam.

In Class | 63
 Rule 39

Ignore Social Media

Reading, thinking, and applying the law can be hard, dare

we say, boring. The temptations of our hyperconnected,
ever-changing world can cause you to lose focus while
studying.
Law school was designed in a digital
pre- age and hasn’t
quite adapted. Reading books is old- fashioned. Writing
long legal briefs is old- fashioned. Arguing before a judge
is old- fashioned. But even in our current digital era, those
traditional skills are necessary. You must develop the skills
to thrive in that pre- digital world because many of the se-
nior lawyers and judges still live there.
Turn off the social media world when you study. Put
your smartphone away. Ignore the next update by a friend.
Shut out everything but the law. Your phone and digital life
are addictive. You must find a way to remove yourself from
those distractions. At least during your studying time, you
need to focus on only one thing. Make studying and class
a distraction- free time.

72 | Habits of Success
 Rule 40

Prioritize Time Management

Time management may be the single biggest reason people

underperform in law school. Students do not leave enough
time to study, to outline, to take practice exams, or even
to take the actual exam. Understanding how much time it
will take you to accomplish a task, master a skill, or prepare
for an exam is something many people learn the hard way.
They fail.
Focusing on time management at the beginning can
make all the difference in the end. You should create calen-
dars and charts of your days, weeks, months, and the time
you will spend doing the tasks at hand. You should time
yourself taking practice exams to see how long it takes you
to write out an answer. You should block out more time
than you need to rewrite legal writing assignments.
At the beginning of every week, you should block out
the time you will be studying, reading, outlining, or com-
pleting other assignments. Study how long it takes you and
adapt. Everything will take longer than you think, so plan
your time accordingly.

Habits of Success | 73
 Rule 41

Get Your Mind Right

Before any challenge in law school, you need to deal with

mental impediments to success. All the negative thoughts,
most of the fear, and every self- doubting echo in your head
must be silenced before you can move on to your activity.
Self-doubt leads to self-
sabotage, and many great students
stop themselves before they can begin.
In writing this book, we asked lots of lawyers how they
experienced the first weeks of law school. All said they
had no idea what they were doing. Top students, brilliant
lawyers, and some of the most truly impressive people all
agreed that 1L year is baffling, humbling, and not easy. Re-
member, no one comes to law school fully prepared. Even
your most confident classmates have no idea what they are
doing. They are bluffing. But they have their minds right.
So get yours right too.

Confidence | 77
 Rule 42

You Belong in Law School

Understand that you are fully capable and ready to under-

take the challenge ahead of you. Regardless of your past
failings and the current immensity of the work ahead, you
will survive law school.
Your adaptation to this new environment depends on
your understanding of yourself, your habits, and the way
law school really works. But remember, you wouldn’t be
occupying one of almost forty thousand seats at an ABA-
accredited law school in the United States if someone in
power (and with experience) didn’t think you were capable
and ready for this. You have grit and creativity, and you
know how to struggle, which are all positive skills for law
school.
Anyone who walks through the door as a 1L can gradu-
ate and pass the bar exam with enough work and dedica-
tion. Remember:
• The best lawyers are not the smartest but those who work
the hardest.
• The best lawyers are not the quickest but those who think
the deepest.
• The best lawyers are not the most pedigreed but those who
are the most prepared.

78 | Confidence
 Rule 43

Accept the Learning Curve

Just like in any new endeavor, whether it’s running a

business or riding a bike, you should expect there to be a
learning curve or time period before you really understand
what is going on. Becoming a law student is no different.
You should expect that it is most probable that you will
not do everything right the first time out of the gate in
law school. However, failing until you get it right is part
of the learning process. Own it and expect this. Don’t beat
yourself up when you miss a small detail in a fact pattern
or forget an argument in a case. Even if you flop big by
failing a class, remember that you can master the material
with enough work.
Some students will take longer to get it. The point is
to expect mistakes and not to feel like you are slow or de-
ficient in learning the process because of them. It’s your
learning process, and your steps to becoming a successful
law student may be at a different tempo than others’.

Confidence | 79
 Rule 44

Law’s Disorienting Effect

Law school can be a disempowering experience. In addition

to the workload, the stress, and the challenge of learning
new and difficult material, you must face the reality that
the law perpetuates inequality.
For much of history, law was written by white men of
power deciding the fates of women, people of color, and
the poor, while maintaining power and property for them-
selves. Case outcomes are unfair, cruel, and biased and yet
can be perfectly legal. For students who see (and feel) the
injustice of the outcomes, law school can be a disorienting
and dispiriting time. What is the role of a lawyer in a sys-
tem that perpetuates inequality and injustice? What does it
say when the law ignores the powerless or voiceless? Recog-
nize that only those who can see the injustice in law will be
able to change it. It is absolutely critical for law students to
question, challenge, and improve the system of structural
power that we call the law.

80 | Confidence
 Rule 46

Distill, Distill, Distill

Outlines are critical to mastering a subject. Outlines are

the distilled points of a course broken down by issue and
rule. A good outline provides a visual framework for how
the issues in a class should be organized. Large topic areas
are subject headings. Relevant issues fall below those topics.
Rules are broken down by elements for analysis to follow
the issues.
1. Issue
2. Rule statement and elements of rule
3. Cases and facts to remember
4. Exceptions
An outline is not a series of case briefs. An outline is not
a repetition of class notes. An outline is a distillation of
core points that can be applied to an exam question or legal
problem. Find an example of an outline for your course.
Read it, and then draft your own.

Outlines | 85
 Rule 47

Begin Outlining Immediately

Outlining involves distilling ideas, so it is hard to begin

outlining before you see how the issues fit together. For
this reason, people suggest waiting to outline. This is good
advice for some students and bad for others.
Those who counsel waiting are absolutely correct that a
good outline involves being able to see what matters with
regard to issues and rules. At the beginning, everything
seems important, so everything gets included. Of course,
an outline that includes everything is not an outline. But
for many students, the waiting approach means waiting
until it’s too late. If you wait until midterms, too much
material has been covered. Worse, class readings will not
stop, and writing assignments will increase; plus you have
to study for midterms (and finals).
The hardest part of outlining is just starting. Once you
start, you will see that the material just fills in itself. But
you have to start setting up the framework to fill in. If you
get behind, you really get behind. So if you begin early,
even with just a limited, not- so- good outline, it becomes
much easier to fill in the gaps. It becomes much easier to
keep up with the material. Start early, and do a bit every
day you can.

86 | Outlines
 Rule 49

A Mind Map

No matter how you create your outline, it should do one

thing for you: it should create a mind map of a subject. A
mind map allows you to see the organizational structure
of a subject— for example, how criminal defenses apply to
elements of criminal offenses or how “acceptance” is related
to an “offer” in a valid contract.
The key to a mind map is flow. Some maps are horizon-
tal, so the entire class spreads out with decision trees of is-
sues, elements, and possible analytical choices. Some maps
are vertical, with subjects listed by issue in more traditional
outline form. Others are almost artistic, with a host of cir-
cle diagrams and arrows and textboxes. Whatever way you
choose, you must “see” the totality of a class and connect
the different issues together.
Mind maps are important not only for spotting issues
and defining rules but also for seeing the organizing struc-
ture of the class so that your exam answers will flow from
this structure.

88 | Outlines
 Rule 50

The Front Page

Your outline may be long or short. Some are ten pages,

some are sixty. The outline may cover every single word of
your notes or be a distilled version of the rules. But at the
front of every outline should be a page
one- summary sheet.
Think of this front page as the table of contents to your
outline, or perhaps the outline of your outline. This front
page should be the distilled organization of the class mate-
rial. This is also your issue- spotting guide. This one page
will be the key to whether you can see all the issues in a
class jump out from the page. If the secret to exam tak-
ing (and lawyering) is issue-spotting in a quick and logical
manner, then this is the secret to the secret.
If you have outlined correctly and if your outline created
a mind map, you will probably not ever need to refer to
anything besides this first page. It will guide you through
the issue-spotting and trigger your rules and answers.

Outlines | 89
 Rule 51

Test Yourself

If you simply read and reread the cases assigned, you are
likely to do poorly in law school. Reading is not the same
thing as applying the law. You have to find ways to test
yourself. If you simply memorize the rules, you will think
you know the law, but you will only be half ready for an
exam. You need to test those rules on new facts.
Find supplements, tests, or quizzes and force yourself to
apply the rules you have learned from the cases. You will
see that reading provides only the basic knowledge, with
none of the nuance you need to master the course.
Only by testing (and getting the answers wrong until
you get them right) will you start to see the level of de-
tail needed to master the course. Application, application,
application is really repetition, repetition, repetition, and
the key to success. This cannot be emphasized enough. Ap-
plication means taking practice exams, studying practice
exams, and taking them again. Application means challeng-
ing yourself to fail in your first few attempts. Application
means testing yourself so hard that the final exam seems
routine. There is no substitute. There is no other way.

Application, Application, Application | 93

 Rule 52

Find Hypotheticals in Life

There is a reason your professor uses hypotheticals to teach.

Hypotheticals force you to apply your knowledge. Class
would be pretty boring if all anyone did was recite the facts
that everyone else had already read.
Hypotheticals are about applying rules to new facts. And
you do not have to wait until class to get into the game.
You can find other hypothetical questions in books and
supplements. You can create your own. You can annoy your
friends with creative examples. You can imagine how a rule
might apply to a slightly different situation.
If you can see how your rule applies to the next hypo-
thetical, you will be ready to apply your knowledge on an
exam— which is, after all, just another hypothetical.
But this skill goes beyond the test. You need to be pre-
pared for the day when a client walks into your office and
tells you a story. The story will be about their legal troubles,
and your job will be to spot the legal issues that you can
help them with. The skill of issue spotting from a hypo-
thetical story becomes all too real when that client looks
into your eyes and asks for legal help. The same process of
looking at the facts, spotting how the law interacts with
the facts, and then thinking about the consequences of that
legal analysis is the skill of lawyering.

94 | Application, Application, Application

 Rule 53

Mastery Requires Repetitive,

Iterative Practice

Human beings do not learn anything without practice.

This includes law students. Our brains retain informa-
tion most effectively when we see the information again
and again. We need to find the patterns. Law is filled with
patterns.
Law school should be understood as an iterative learning
process, in which you build up your knowledge bit by bit,
relearning, and repeating what you know by putting it in
context for better comprehension. The daily tasks of brief-
ing, note- taking, and outlining are designed to mirror this
repetitive, iterative process of learning.
But you also need to review the material yourself. If you
only look at your notes after the course has ended and try
to remember everything over the past three months, you
are doing yourself a disservice. Review every week (if not
every day). Build in a practice of skimming through your
notes and case briefs to remind yourself from where you
started. You will see the patterns emerge. You will see the
connections link together. You will see the intersections
with other classes. The patterns in the law repeat. The pat-
terns of learning repeat. Start looking for patterns.

Application, Application, Application | 95

 Rule 54

See the Connecting Thread

1L year feels fragmented. You are learning different sub-

jects. You have different professors. Each one seems to have
a different style or method. In your head, you focus on the
particular demands of particular classes, but remember that
there is a thread running through these experiences— they
are all asking you to do the same thing: spot the issues,
identify the rules, analyze the law, and give your legal
opinion.
In a year or so, you will look back on 1L classes and
realize that they were not all that different, that you were
learning the same thing just through different means. You
will see that the focus on mastering different substantive
classes masked the similarities of the approach. The basic
skill set is transferrable to any other class.
In a few short years, you will have mastered other sub-
jects, worked in clinics, helped clients, passed the bar exam,
and started your professional life. 1L year will be a blur.
But there will be a connecting thread through all of these
experiences. Each one will require you to apply the law.
The facts will change. The law will be different. The law
you will be applying may not even exist now. But when you
are asked to use your lawyering skills, it will be about doing
the very thing you are learning right now. You will see that
what you learned is not just a subject but a way of thinking
and problem- solving.

96 | Application, Application, Application

 Rule 55

If There Is an Answer, They Don’t Need

to Hire a Lawyer

The simple reason to focus on applying the law, rather than

memorizing the law, is that, in application, lawyers show
their value. Despite the term “black-letter law,” in truth
the law is gray, blurry, and sometimes a rainbow of con-
trasting shades. Almost every case has at least two sides and
more than two possible outcomes. Lawyers take from what
is fixed or settled in the law and then apply those principles
to the question at hand. If there already was an obvious
answer, no one would hire a lawyer. But there rarely is an
easy answer, which is why lawyers must apply the law to
the facts at hand.
When you pick up a casebook, “creativity” might not
be your first thought, but lawyers have creatively shaped
the law through argument. Every argument, distinguishing
factor, analogy, and historical fact has helped literally to
“create” the law. Law is a living organism that is created and
re- created every day by lawyers applying the law.
The biggest takeaway for 1L year is that you must be able
to apply legal rules to the next problem. That’s your value.

Application, Application, Application | 97

 Rule 56

Pay Attention in Legal Research Class

Among many overworked 1L students, there will often be a

strong inclination to diminish the importance of your legal
research class. Resist this urge. The skills gleaned from a legal
research class are among the most important and widely used
skills you will possess as a law student and lawyer.
One day, you are going to be sitting in your office, and
a client is going to approach you with a legal question. You
will not know the answer. It will not have been covered in
a law school class. There will not be a textbook directly on
point. But the client needs an answer. You must be able to
conduct legal research about an area of law that you know
nothing about. You must be able to find, digest, distill, and
apply that law on behalf of a client. You must be able to
research new areas of law.
Throughout your entire legal career, your ability to find
the applicable law, properly state it, and cite to it will be
used over and over again. Legal research class will hone that
set of skills. If you fail to grasp this skill, you will unnec-
essarily waste valuable research time. Moreover, you will
handicap yourself going into your second- year classes.
The skills learned in legal research are foundational, and
the importance of participating wholeheartedly in these
classes cannot be stressed enough. Every single day in law
school and after law school, you will be a legal researcher.

Legal Writing /Research | 101

 Rule 57

You Cannot Write

You think you can write. Sure, you have been writing your
whole life. Sure, legal writing seems just like normal writ-
ing and should be easy. You are wrong.
Legal writing is not more difficult than other types of
writing. It is not more complicated. But it is different, and
that difference must be understood and accepted.
Once you accept this truth, you will also accept the
constructive criticism coming from your legal writing pro-
fessors. Be kind. Legal writing professors have the hardest
jobs on the faculty because they must tell you to improve
your writing to your face (not hidden behind blind grading
rules). No one wants to hear they could do better, espe-
cially at something as personal as writing, but you should
listen to the hard truths your professors share.
Once you accept these truths, you will start to see the
structure, form, language, and conventions that distinguish
legal work. You will distinguish between legal writing as ad-
vocacy and legal writing as advice. You will see the style of
judicial opinions as opposed to legal scholarship. You will
see that lawyers write a lot and that plenty of examples exist.
Once you accept the truth that you cannot write, you can
start studying the craft of legal writing. No one is born a
great legal writer. It takes work, study, practice, and editing.

102 | Legal Writing /Research

 Rule 58

Proofread for Precision and Perfection

There are remarkably few typographical errors in published

legal writing. And when an error is spotted, it becomes a
big deal. When a Supreme Court justice misspells a word,
it becomes a national news story. Law review articles—
the
kind your law professors write for a living— are usually
edited dozens of times even after the final (supposedly
perfect) draft is submitted. A single misplaced comma or
typographical error is grounds for shame. The audience
that will read your written work expects perfection in spell-
ing, grammar, and logical structure.
1L year is a time to develop your proofreading skills.
Any final paper should go through multiple drafts. Read
your writing aloud. Read it backward, sentence by sentence
(to break up the flow). Read it for structure and transitions.
Spell- check.
Do not send anything to anyone without proofread-
ing for precision and perfection— not even an email or
informal note. This is a fundamental rule— again, do not
ever send anything to anyone without proofreading for
precision and perfection. You will be judged, dismissed,
and not taken seriously if any error makes it into the final
product.
Mistakes will happen, but proofreading for precision
and perfection is the norm of legal writing. Professional
lawyers are perfectionists, and you must become one.

Legal Writing /Research | 103

 Rule 62

To Impress, Engage the Law

Professors routinely have to write recommendations for

students, forcing them to think about what makes a good
student. In a class of one hundred or more students who all
read the same material and who all more or less answered
the questions, how can anyone stand out? What would
make a student stand out?
The answer is engagement. The best students are those
who are excited by the law, curious about its intricacies,
and inspired by the process of learning. It is not about
grades or background or charm. Those students who tend
to shine are those who are not simply prepared but engaged
in the process of discovering the law.
How do you show engagement? Ask questions. Think
hard about the implications of the legal rules. Question the
doctrine. Read outside the textbook. Think about it this
way: your professors have devoted their professional careers
to a particular area of the law. They think about the issues
all the time. For whatever reason, they find it fascinating.
Any student who chooses to think about these issues and
talk to professors about what they love is going to be well
received and well regarded. To you, it is just a class. To your
professors, it is their life’s work.

110 | Professors
 Rule 66

Motivate Yourself with Idealism

Many law students come to law school to make a differ-

ence. Being in law school actually allows you to make that
difference. You can use the law. You can volunteer. You
can work in clinics. It is exciting, seductive, and far more
engaging than reading a casebook for class.
Do not ever lose your idealism, and use it to motivate
yourself to study. The reason you are learning these skills is
to help others— others who will rely on you to help them
navigate the legal system. Use your idealism to fuel the fire
of long nights, hard work, and a bit more reading.
Here is the truth about lawyering on behalf of other
people, especially those without power: it’s hard. It’s hard
because the law is written for the powerful. It’s hard be-
cause there are few resources. It’s hard because legal practice
is tough even in the best of situations. But those people
now depend on you— the same you who has a choice about
how you want to approach law school. You can approach
law school to get the most out of it or just get by. You can
approach your legal education with seriousness or not. And
while it might not matter all that much to you at the end of
the day, it certainly will matter to your clients.

Extracurricular Activities | 117

 Rule 70

To Be a World- Changing Lawyer, You Have

to Become a Lawyer First

There exists a hard balance to strike between activism in

law school, intellectual engagement, and studying. Don’t
forget school comes first.
When you arrive at law school, there will be plenty of op-
portunities to engage in activism. Most will even center on
noble and worthy causes. The problems are undeniable and
urgent, and the cost of not engaging seems almost cruel.
As stated, there will also be amazingly interesting programs
of scholars, speakers, and issues. Every day there will be a
distraction—and a choice about whether to engage in ac-
tivism or study. You should participate. You should engage.
You should learn. But understand that the costs are real.
It is not an easy choice about what to prioritize. But
remember, to be a world- changing lawyer, you have to be a
lawyer first. At least as a 1L, you need to focus on being a
student first. You will not develop the skills to change the
world without the hard and, honestly, more boring work of
studying. That is your task. These are your tools.

Extracurricular Activities | 121

 Rule 72

Expectations of Excellence

You have one chance to learn the law. Why would you
shortchange yourself and your future clients? Every time
you skip a class or a case or do less than the best you can
do, you undermine your own expectations of excellence.
Help build a culture of excellence. Make it unacceptable
to be unprepared for class or late. Make it a practice to join
the debate and speak. Make it a habit to engage the mate-
rial at a level of precision, depth, and nuance so that you
feel like you own it. Set aside enough time to do the assign-
ments in a way that will make you feel proud. Last- minute
efforts or halfhearted attempts are not excellent and are not
the stuff of excellent lawyers. They are not who you want
to be as a lawyer.
Any lawyer in any law school can be the best lawyer
in their city if they work hard enough. You must estab-
lish your own internal standards of excellence and work to
achieve them. You are building a “brand” as a lawyer, and
it starts in law school. You may not be able to change your
peers in law school. You may not be able to change your
law school. But you can change your own expectations and
raise them high enough to excel.

126 | Culture /Community

 Rule 74

Build Bridges to the Community

Law schools exist within a larger community. Yet, as a

result of the pressures that come from studying, working,
and learning the law, it is incredibly easy to ignore the sur-
rounding world. Don’t. Don’t close off the community.
In law school, make two commitments to your com-
munity. Promise yourself you will attend at least one law-
related community- based event a year and join one event
that brings people from the community into the law school.
You can do more, of course, but try to maintain some con-
nection to the community that supports the law school.
Find ways through community service or volunteer op-
portunities or just human conversation to engage those
who live right outside the law school. A law school educa-
tion can narrow your vision to books, rules, and exams.
But it can also expand your vision to how the law impacts
the lives in the surrounding community. Building bridges
to that community will enrich your legal education (and
provide a bit of perspective).

128 | Culture /Community

 Rule 77

Find Perspective

Law school is all- consuming. Classes, exams, a new career,

and a thousand different things pulling at you can make
it feel like you are losing control. Before you lose it, take a
step back.
First, you are in law school— its own accomplishment.
Second, you will have a long legal career. An awkward
answer in class or a bad grade in 1L year is not disqualify-
ing from anything. Many amazing and successful lawyers
messed up a class or two.
Third, the work is manageable. Yes, it is a lot. Yes, the
demands do not let up. Yes, it takes effort to manage the
flow. But every year approximately forty thousand students
do exactly what you are doing and survive. You can do it
too.
Fourth, the traditional success metrics in law school
(grades, law review membership, awards) do not define you
and do not mean that much over your career. They are like
decorations on a birthday cake, nice but not the reason you
want the cake. Work hard but keep perspective. Also, eat
some cake.

134 | Self- Care

 Rule 78

Find Balance Every Day

You entered law school an accomplished person with a

(somewhat) balanced life. The pressures and priorities of
studying and other law school demands will erode that bal-
ance if you let them. Don’t.
Find and maintain your balance. Find a moment of
balance every day. Once a day, do something for yourself
that has nothing to do with law school. Exercise, meditate,
walk, sing, eat a cookie, call a friend, laugh, watch a TV
show. Every day, find one thing that symbolizes balance in
your life. Don’t forget to prioritize these moments of bal-
ance every day.
Importantly, look for balance with the people you love
(especially spouses, significant others, children). Law school
kills relationships; it creates resentment, jealousy, and frus-
tration. If you came into law school connected to someone
you love, make a special effort to keep that bond strong.
Law school will try to sever it. Finding time away from law
school to reconnect and heal that bond is important if you
want to keep it. If you are not intentional about strength-
ening this bond, the other pressures and demands that arise
from the 1L experience will take over.

Self- Care | 135

 Rule 79

Avoid the Temptations

The statistics about lawyers and substance abuse are

depressing. More than most professions, lawyers abuse
drugs and alcohol. This substance abuse starts in law
school. This substance abuse does not end in law school.
Part of self- care is seeing the temptations and justify-
ing to yourself why they are not in your interest. There
are drugs to focus, drugs to relax, drugs to escape. There
are reasons to drown your sorrows. But remember that the
lessons you learn to cope with law school stress will fol-
low you as you cope with professional stress as a lawyer.
You need to build constructive ways to handle it now, as a
foundation for the future. The intensity of the 1L experi-
ence will wane, but other pressures will fill its place: the bar
exam, your first job, your next job, the realities of clients,
work, life. You must begin to establish your ability to suc-
ceed without the temptations of drugs or alcohol.
The legal profession has lost too many good people to
addiction.

136 | Self- Care

 Rule 84

Understand Issue- Spotting Exams

Not all midterm exams are issue- spotting exams. Some pro-
fessors use multiple choice, essay, or a problem approach.
But issue-spotting exams cause problems for 1Ls because
they are unlike other types of exams you might have had
in college.
Issue-
spotting exams involve a hypothetical fact pattern
in which students are expected to find the legal issues and
analyze the applicable law. When you first come across such
an exam, you might be paralyzed with trying to figure out
where to start. So here is a guide.
The overall goal is to spot the legal issue, demonstrate
you know the legal rule that governs the issue, analyze the
rule on the basis of the facts given, and conclude with an
answer. This is the IRAC method. Here is a handy way to
think about the task at hand:
I: In every fact pattern there will be legal issues.
R: Every legal issue spotted has a rule. Every rule can be
broken into elements.
A: Every element needs an argument from the facts.
C: Your argument needs a conclusion.

Just repeat this process over and over as you work through
the facts.

144 | Midterms
 Rule 87

Practice Taking Practice Exams

The best way to practice taking an exam is to take an exam.

Practice exams are critical to turning background knowl-
edge into exam answers. Just as you did with midterms,
you must do so again with finals.
You must leave time to take, study, deconstruct, and re-
view as many practice exams as you can. Let’s put it even
more bluntly: if you do not practice actually taking final
exams, you will do poorly.
Everyone can remember the first time they sat down and
looked at their first law school hypothetical exam question.
It involves a feeling of paralysis, confusion, and wonder.
You do not want this feeling in the actual exam. You want
to study how exams are constructed. You want to study
how answers are organized. You want to have gone through
the humbling failure of answering an exam question well
before the actual final exam. You want to master the game
of taking law school exams before exam period.
And it is a game. Figure out the game of what the profes-
sor is asking for and win. Exams are not about intelligence.
They are not about naturally talented lawyers. They are a
game that you can master. By studying old exams (from
any professor), you will begin seeing how the subject flows,
where the issues lie, and how to apply the law you know to
the facts you have just read.

150 | Reading Period

 Rule 91

A Word about Stress

Exams equal stress. You can feel it in the air of a law school,
when for several weeks the final-
exam- generated tension is
palpable and unavoidable.
There is a reason for the stress. You are being asked to
synthesize too much information about too many subjects
in too little time. Even if you have followed all the rules in
this book, you will be stressed. No one can tell you to avoid
stress or use stress to focus in a way that will be helpful.
Stress is not helpful or avoidable.
But you can plan for it, put it in context, and not let
it take over your life. You will walk into each final exam
stressed. You will also walk out of that exam. And no mat-
ter how you do on the actual exam, you will be fine. Mil-
lions of lawyers have done it, and you will too.
Taking care of yourself as you approach exams is criti-
cally important. It seems cruel to suggest getting enough
sleep, eating right, and exercising at a time when everyone
knows those luxuries of life are nearly impossible with the
amount of work expected. But sleeping helps your think-
ing. Exercise clears the mind. Eating is necessary for your
body. If you plan ahead, you can find ways to destress and
take care of yourself. And if you didn’t plan ahead, don’t
worry; you will survive.

Final Exams | 157

 Rule 92

The Call of the Question

Read the questions before you read the facts. When you
first read the exam, skip to the actual questions at the end.
How many questions are there? How much time per ques-
tion? Read the call of the question carefully. Take a moment
to think. Strategize an answer. Don’t jump right into the
facts before you have thought through your strategy based
on the questions. Don’t skip over a question. (It happens.
It shouldn’t.) Five minutes of strategizing is worth twenty
minutes of panicked writing.
Words matter. Your professors have spent time crafting
the questions to test your knowledge. They have added
time suggestions to indicate what type of answer they ex-
pect. They have written the questions to keep you from
complaining that they were unfair after the fact. They have
written the questions carefully to get you to see certain is-
sues and make certain arguments. Exam drafting is a skill,
and the words chosen matter. Read carefully and think
about why the words were used. The call of the question
can be a helpful clue.

158 | Final Exams

 Rule 94

Packaging an Exam Answer

To succeed in class, you need to know the facts, the issues,

the rules, and the outcome for every case. As we discussed,
the rule is buried like a well- wrapped present inside the
cases you read.
To succeed on the final exam, you don’t need the wrap-
ping, just the gift inside. You need to invert the focus of
your reading to pull out the rule that you will apply when
you see the issue in the facts. Too many students think in
terms of cases rather than rules. Cases are nice to cite to
show that you understand where the rule came from, but
for exams, rules matter.
After the rule, you need to analyze the facts. Do not for-
get the analysis part. Too many students assume the analy-
sis without showing their work. You don’t get credit for the
right answer unless your analysis shows why you got to that
right answer. As stated, some of this can be done before you
see the exam. Think of it as prepackaged IRAC answers for
the legal issues you know you are going to be tested on.

160 | Final Exams

 Rule 96

Review the Semester

Once you survive the fall semester of 1L year, you never

want to look back. This feeling is completely understand-
able and completely counterproductive. You just learned a
ton. You learned a new language, a new way of thinking,
new substantive rules, and new professional expectations all
in a few short months. Now is the time to reflect on how
you did it and how you can do it better.
• Did your outlines work for you?
• Did you save enough time to take practice exams and
study?
• Did you lose time on something not productive?
• Did you manage the stress?

Take an hour of your winter break and reflect. Talk to

others about what worked for them. Make another Day
One plan for next semester. You will not make the same
mistakes the second semester if you take a time- out to re-
flect now.

Second Semester and Beyond | 165