Tips for an Open-Book, Closed-Notes Law School Final

So apparently when I said no more finals posts for a while, I really only meant 5 days. Sorry. But I was looking at those snapchats about my open book final and realized that I had a lot to say about those. Both of my Contracts finals this semester and last semester were open book so I have a pretty good system down that I wanted to share. PS -- it's hard to see my outlines in the book because I did them in pencil, which I highly suggest because sometimes you get tired and accidentally copy down lines out of order.

First off, let me just say that one thing I learned last semester is do not think that just because it's open book that you won't have to study. I pretty much did everything the same studying for this final as I did all of the other ones, but just skipped memorizing an attack outline since I was going to bring it in to my final. Like I said, in your finals you're going to be rushed for time so really you should only be using your book as something to jog your memory, not as something you'll have to go look up answers in. My professor only let us bring in a book (no notes), and anything we added to the book had to be hand written and couldn't be stapled in or anything.

The very first thing I did was go buy some tabs to separate out the chapters for me. These are the ones I used, and I really liked how big and sturdy they were. This semester, I alternated between pink for odd-numbered chapters and yellow for even-numbered chapters just so that it broke it up from having 9 tabs all of the same color. 

I then put a green tab on the page where my first chapter started in the table of contents. Within the table of contents, I highlighted every Restatement or UCC rule and the page number it was on, in case I had to directly quote it. I did this because sometimes these official rules are long and they would take up way too much space in my outlines. I also wrote these page numbers in my outline in my favorite purple pen so that I knew where to flip to in the book, if I needed to. Then I added an orange tab for the back section where the blank pages start, which I'll talk about more in a second.

My professor warned us last year to be careful when writing our outlines in the books because there's only a few blank pages in the back and we'd have to make those pages last for two semesters. Some people remedied this by writing really small, but in a stroke of genius I realized that there's a blank page right at the beginning of every chapter that I could write on. This worked out great because I can flip to the tab and there was my outline for that chapter. I feel like this saved me time because I didn't have to scan one long outline to find the chapter I needed. 

I also added these bright colored post-its to the page opposite of my outline with just the main points of each chapter, so if I wasn't sure which chapter something was in, I could look straight to that instead of having to skim my outline. For some chapters, the outline didn't all fit so I would just color the edge of the page orange with my highlighter and that told me to flip to the orange tab at the back for the rest of the outline (what I was talking about earlier).

Related: How to Make an Outline

If something was too long to put in my outline but wasn't a rule mentioned in the table of contents like with my green tab that I was talking about, I would write it out on these tabbed sticky notes and put them wherever they were mentioned in the chapter. Last semester, I just would stick a post-it in my book, but I like these better because they have a tab so that I can easily find it. 

The last thing I did was make an attack outline on the inside front of my book. I didn't do this last semester and it really sped things up for this test. I color coordinated the Roman numerals and letters with either pink or yellow to match the chapter tab, or orange to tell me to go directly to the back. 

This was might've been overkill, but I did it because I'm a type A person. I did end up staying up a little too late the night before a test because I underestimated how long it would take me (5 hours to copy an 18 page outline). Copying the outline into the book was a great review for me, but by the end my hand wasn't just cramping—it was throbbing. If I have another open book final, I'll definitely spread this out over a few days instead of treating it like a last minute thing. But overall, I was happy with the results and didn't waste as much time finding things as I did last semester. Okay, NOW I'm done with talking about finals for a while. I won't break this promise again. 

Also, check out my Finals Posts Round Up post for more tips to help with your finals!

How My Finals Went

Last finals post for a while, I promise! My finals were spread out over two weeks, with 2 the first week and 3 the next. Things started out fine, and I fully expected that my finals would be as easy as last semester. However, for some God awful reason, these ended up being worse, even though there was only one more final than what I took last semester. 

I think what ended up being the absolute worst part was that I legit ran out of time on my contracts final. It started out in very in depth paragraphs, I'm talking A material. Then I noticed that I only had 20 minutes left and had really only talked about 1 of the 4 main issues of the issue spotter. Next my paragraphs shrunk down to a few short and unelaborated sentences. When I realized that I only had 2 minutes left, all that I had time to do at that point was quickly jot down an outline of things that I would've mentioned and hope for the best. What's worse, is that after the time was up, all of my classmates and I were complaining about how we ran out of time/discussing what we did have time to put, and I realized that I hadn't put down near as much as I should've. 

The moral of this story is 

1. make the outline of what you'll write first, and then fill it in so that even if you run out of time you've at least mentioned everything 

2. don't talk about your final after you turn it in because it'll make you a nervous wreck for the next month

Right now, I'm not feeling too hot, so we'll see. The good news is that while we were talking about the test, a girl said that she did a GPA calculation and as long as we maintain a C- average we won't be on probation, so hopefully I can at least just get that. 

My First Day of Law School

"Wish me luck, Bruiser. This is my first class as a serious law student."

Originally, I had planned to wake up at 7 and finish my briefs for Torts, but I couldn't sleep last night and ended up letting myself sleep in until 9 because my first class on Mondays and Wednesdays doesn't start until 10. I have an hour and a half lunch so I just decided to come home to eat and finish up. I know eventually I won't be coming home for my lunch break because that'll add up in gas and I can utilize that time for reading when those start piling up. And to save money on paying for a locker, I plan to just keep my day's supply of books in my car and rung out and switch what I need into my backpack since I have plenty of time between classes.

What I Wore

For lack of a better explanation, I'd say a good outfit to wear is something that you'd wear meeting up with your friends for day drinking. Look nice, but don't worry about having to dress up too much or be formal or business-y. I think you might describe this as "snappy casual," if not a notch below that. I even noticed one girl wearing sweatpants and a messy bun, and I'm just going to assume that she's a 3L. Idk though, because according to Pinterest, most other schools take their clothes a little more seriously and business casual is the case with lots o' blazers and some pencil skirts thrown in for fun. Although, all of those posts makes me wonder if these people actually went to law school or if this is just what they assume law students dress like, and if they did go to law school then was it recently or has the typical student outfit shifted towards more casual in the past 8 years? Who knows. 

First Class: Contracts

I rushed to get to class a little early just in case the whole Legally Blonde assign-yourself-a-seat thing happened; however, when I walked into my classroom, none of my section was in there and I started to panic. I walked out and checked that I had written down room 104, walked back into room 104 and like a total first year stood there awkwardly looking for anyone I knew, and then in full-freakout mode I text the one girl whose number I got during orientation. Yep, we were moved to room 106 last week. I rushed over across the hall and found a seat right beside her in the most perfect seat: right in the center of the entire classroom. Turns out I was right in my worrying and we had assigned ourselves to that seat for the rest of the semester so I'm glad I sat where I did. 

Then we went over the syllabus and dived into the readings. My professor used the socratic method, choosing a student per case to go over it with. When one student said that he wasn't sure of the rule of the case, my professor asked us what we thought it was. The next student cited some theory that was mentioned in the text before the case, but really wasn't the rule of the case. I raised my hand and stated the rule and got an "exactly" from my professor. Still so proud of myself like oh hot damn I'm 2/2 in answering questions correctly so far so I'll take it. I was also proud of myself that everything we touched over in class was already highlighted or somehow noted in my book, so at least I'm somewhat on the right track. 

Second Class: Torts

So this class didn't have assigned seating, which is kinda disappointing because again I scoped out the perfect seat and now it's not reserved for me. My Torts professor is super anti-electronics, so I spend the whole class furiously jotting down notes while my professor talked.

Related: How I take notes

A poor girl that was the second student chosen to talk in my Contracts class was the first student chosen to talk about a case in this class. When we saw her stand up again we all felt bad for her, but the students closest to her whispered some encouragement. That's what I like about this school so far— it's more friendly than competitive and the professors seem pretty chill.

Luckily, I don't have any readings for my 3 classes tomorrow, so I'm enjoying a celebratory margarita and finishing The Paper Chase. Maybe it's because I'm also taking Contracts right now, but I like this movie more than Legally Blonde and How to Get Away With Murder because as a 1L I literally know nothing about the law and think it's a little unrealistic that 1L's would be helping their professors with actual criminal cases. Who knows, maybe in a few months I'll change my stance on that. And in the words of my Contracts professor, "This isn't as sexy as criminal law, but it's one of the more applicable are common areas of the law." 

Related: Perfect movies for law students and Favorite law TV shows

$More Books$

The books for my Legal Research and Writing class finally came in at the bookstore and I'll admit, I'm irritated. Why does one 2-hour class require 4 damn books?! I took a picture of the ISBN numbers to try to rush order some from Chegg since I don't have any reading in it this week, and part of me is really tempted to push how much is required. I have a citation book that a professor gave me in my freshman year, and I have yet to use it once. Do I really need a Blue Book? Like will I be expected to bring it and the three other books to class? Chegg only had the first two books, with renting the first one being almost the same price as buying a used one once you add in shipping and taxes, and the bookstore actually had a new Blue Book cheaper than a rented one off of Chegg, so I guess it'd just be easier to get them from the bookstore. FML there goes more money. 

In case you're wondering, in addition to the above required books for my Legal Research and Writing class, I've also paid this much for my other books:

• Property- $175 (used) 
• Contracts- $191 (rented)
• Tort- $95 (rented)
• Civil Procedure- $240 (bundle with a required workbook)

Cheesy first day of school pic 😊 1 Monday down, 13 more to go!

A photo posted by Nikki (@oh.nikki.you.so.fine) on Aug 24, 2015 at 2:12pm PDT