Acing Your First Year of Law School. The Ten Steps to Success You Won't Learn in Class

Customer Reviews

Very useful

2007-01-07
One of the blogs I read in anticipation of my first year was authored by an obviously succesfull student and he recommended this book. Shame he is a commie. An outline on your first year with a solid emphasis on legal writing, outlining and exams. I found the legal writing section to be very useful because I didn't have a very good legal writing professor. Some cold hearted conservatives argue that academia is where professionals who couldn't hack it in the big times end up earning their bread. If law school professorships are where dejected high power attorneys get banished, then the dregs of this barrel of dejection are inhabited by your legal writing professor and probably your career placement director. The greatest academic surprise I encountered my first semester of law school was how much effort and time learning legal writing would take on my own. This book will help you learn the formula your whacky and/or drunk legal writing professor is looking for. Unfortunately, legal writing professors are zany and ineffective in their own individual ways so the help this book provides will be minimal. Legal writing's importance cannot be overrated, any help is good help. The glossary found at the end of this 130 page outline should supplement any need for a copy of Black's Law Dictionary but waste your money if you want; Westlaw has a copy online.
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Just get it - great intro!

2006-06-15
This book is great for someone who is just learning how to think while in law school. While some of the reviews claim that it lacks substance, this book is not trying to lay out for you everything you should do in law school. It is sensitive to the fact that different people learn differently and so some things are going to be different. However, the basic tools it is laying out for you are the necessary tools to have a head start. I found that each page was jammed packed with tid bits on what not to worry about, what to focus on, what little things mean that will just make it easier when you get your books and feel overwhelmed... basically, it is not a step-by-step guide on how to be the best law student possible - that is up to you, but it gives you the tools to understand what you are supposed to be looking for and what not to stress about.

Get it, if you are a worrisome person like me who likes to plan ahead, this book will help you create a clear vision of the basics, tell what not to worry about, and one of the most important things, show you how to write a brief. I found it very useful and am glad I read it!

p.s. I am only giving it 4 and not 5 because I would have liked for them to come up with more examples than they did, but if you are an intelligent person (and you obviously are if you are going to law school) then you will be able to figure these things out and remember them for yourself.

Good, but consider 'Law School Confidential' instead

2006-04-16
This is a good book --- but as a current law student, the best book I've found was "Law School Confidential (Revised Edition): A Complete Guide to the Law School Experience: By Students, for Students," written by Robert H. Miller; ISBN: 0312318812. That book covers every stage of law school. It is organized so students can read relevant topics at the precise period a student needs to know the information. For example, the middle of "Law School Confidential" addresses issues faced by readers in the second-year of their law school career.

Law school tips and advice can also be found numerous places on the web, including www.toplawstudent.com.

That said, this book has some great advice and is easy to read. As a gift to an incoming law student, it certainly wouldn't disappoint.

Lots of fluff and little substance.

2006-03-04
This book is written on the level of People magazine and has a very trendy feel to it. I used this book at a top 25 law school and found it to be largely useless, if not detrimental.

Not worth it

2006-02-06
At BEST this book will give you some idea as to what law school work will sorta maybe look like. Otherwise, I think there's absolutely nothing good in this thin volume that you can't get in more detail in a ten minute conversation with someone who's already in law school.

In Hindsight

2005-11-08
Most first-year law students waste a tremendous amount of time learning piles of information they don't need to know, because they have no one to guide them. This text, in ten easy-to read chapters, is the guide for students entering or contemplating law school. After reading the ten chapters, set up as lessons, student will know how to study the law.

Helpful, not groundbreaking

2005-09-09
I have only recently started my first year, so I can't say that it helped me ace my first year, but I did think that the book provided a number of helpful tips. Since there is an auro of mystery surrounding the first year of law school, the sections on the socratic method, briefing cases, outlining and studying for exams provide direction as to how to spend your time wisely, and to stay on top of your reading by directing your study efforts. Again, not groundbreaking advice, but helpful.

Basic, Useful, Anxiety-Inducing

2005-08-21
I'm an incoming law student currently working my way through the book. The book conveys basic success strategies for law school in a very straightforward manner. The chapters ("steps") are short and easy to digest in one sitting.

However, the authors seem to buy into the "Paper Chase," "1L," "Law-Review-or-Bust" view of law school and don't offer advice on how to cope with the inevitable stressors of law school. Quite simply, they could be kinder and more human.

A useful resource, but I doubt reading the book will increase my overall success in law school.

What to study and what to skip

2003-11-30
This book teaches you what you need to focus on in your first year of law school, but even better, it points out all the things you should ignore. For example, the author recommends using electronic databases to cross-reference topics for legal research and warns how counter-productive it is to wander through a legal library without first using the databases to narrow your search. The subjects are thoroughly covered and at the end of each chapter there is a "Dicta" column that sums up all the things that rookies waste time trying to learn.
It's a heck of a value and a good guide for your first year preparations.

Great for beginners and a quick read

2003-08-19
I read this book in one day because I couldn't put it down. It is a really helpful book for pre-one L's, and for one L's. It contains great explanations about course work and tests in law school ,that are not typically taught by Law Professors. I am so much more aware of what to expect during my first year.