Law School Supplements Explained

Being a blogger is so weird sometimes. The other day I was getting into my car to go to work and I thought wow how have I never written a post about what people are talking about when they're referring to supplements? and so here we are! I'm going to cover all of the ones that I can think of, but if I miss something please comment below so that I can update this! I just want my readers to be the most in-the-know students 💁🏻

Outlines

Outlines are the #1 study method in law school and because of this, everyone you meet is going to have a different opinions on outlines. So here's mine— outlines you make > outlines you get from upperclassmen > commercial outlines. Outlines are very casebook and professor specific. Outlines you make are the best because you're going to have a shitton of information to memorize for your final, so by re-reading your notes and re-writing the rules you're actually reviewing and working on memorizing the information. Outlines from upperclassmen can be helpful but only if they've had your same professor and book. If your class doesn’t use a book then the outline to that book would be full of cases that you didn’t even read and missing on a lot of cases that you are expected to know. I even have friends who have offered me their outlines because we had the same book but because they had a different professor than me, I don’t even bother because for all I know, my professor really emphasized Chapter 21 because he thought it was important but her professor only assigned 10 pages from Ch. 21 because he didn’t think it was important. That’s another big reason of why I don’t trust commercial outlines.

If you’re stressing about outlines or just want a little guidance, the best thing that you can do is join a student organization. Ask before you join what outlines they have because a good one will have an outline for almost every from a student who at least got a B. That way you know you’re getting the relevant information. My advice to you so that you don’t end up with a C- in every class is that if you do get ahold of an outline, don’t just study that! The best way to use someone else’s outline is to print it out with you (preferably double space) and then fill it out during class with any information you think should be added. That way you have less notes to take during class and can focus on listening, but then still get a lot of information in your class. And then take that filled-out outline and use that along with your other in-class notes to make your own outline. 

I know a lot of new 1Ls stress about what an outline should even look like or how to structure them, so I've uploaded my Civ Pro outline for y'all to see as an example of what you can do. Mine tend to be bare-boned and just what I want to memorize, but I know a lot of other students feel like they benefit from having full sentences and more information in theirs. Also, if you read through this after you finish your own Civ Pro class, you’ll see what I mean about how it really helps to have the same book and same professor for an accurate outline. You can view my outline example here. But if you're still stressing, Quimbee's outlines that they just came out with look like they're very straightforward and I personally do trust this company. I also know that a lot of my classmates prefer to use the Emanuel's outlines to help them.

Related: How to turn your class notes into an outline

Scripts

Another thing that organizations sometimes have for upper level students is what’s referred to as a script which is basically a whole bunch of people got together and wrote down everything from that class, that you can use to follow along and build your own outline from. Those are more helpful once you’re a 2L/3L because then you can just read their 4 pages over chapter 1 instead of all 42 pages of chapter 1 and still get the main information.

I started using scripts that I was given this year and they definitely are a big help. I read them before class and then I'm prepared for questions that my professor might ask me (you never actually look forward to the Socratic method) and it allows me to be able to juggle preparing for class, working, and mediating. The one thing that I've learned since using these is don't think you won't need to take notes since you basically have what the professor's going to talk about. I still take notes just as if I didn't have the script or else it would be really hard for me to take all 220 pages of the script and turn it into an outline. Plus, it helps you pay attention in class because it can be extra tempting to zone out when you have the script right there.

Case briefs

Case briefs are another thing that are basically essential to survive in any law school class. The usefulness of these is that it forces you to pay attention as you're reading. The bad part is that they can take a really long time when you're having to stop what you're reading and write it down. I always say that for your first few months of law school, you really should be practicing your briefing skills because you will need these as an actual lawyer. But once you've practiced enough and really just need the briefs for the Socratic method, you can use commercial briefs. 

I personally recommend using Quimbee because that's what I've been using and I think their briefs are great. Quimbee will have subject-specific briefs. If their subject matches your subject, this is really helpful because it’ll cut out all the crap that you won’t need. They have all the major books and the only one they never got was because it was one that a professor from my own law school had written so they never got that. If Quimbee has your book, then you’ll be set and it’s amazing. Even if they don’t have your book, they might still have some of the cases. So like the book they didn’t have but then got was my contracts book but I would just search for the case and then sometimes they’d have it because it was in another contracts book. 

Related: Using Quimbee to help understand law school subjects

You do have to pay for Quimbee (put I seriously believe that you get what you pay for) but there's also OneL Briefs (free)  Casebriefs (free) and Oyez (free). Oyez is just better than Casebriefs, but neither are subject-specific so you will get all the information. But both will give you the facts of the case and the issue and the holding. 

Practice problems

E&E stands for Examples and Explanations. All they are is practice problems and answers. The practice problems will really help you see how to best answer a question. And yes they're a "commercial supplement" but y'all my commercial law professor had us doing Bar prep questions as practice problems and I could easily tackle them because I remembered what the E&E had taught me. If you spend the majority of your time going through these practice problems, it will really help you understand your outline as your review it. When I study, I do about 50% practice problems, 30% memorizing flash cards, and 20% reviewing my outline. In my opinion, E&Es are right up there with outlines as far as what you have to be doing for finals. Another great practice problems options are the Q&A books. Either way, I strongly suggest you either buy some practice problem books or see if your library has any to rent. I'm not kidding when I say doing these practice problems will really help you prepare for the final and help with your timing. And if you're a 1L who has no clue what type of questions to expect on your final, these are pretty close to what you'll have.

Summaries 

Another thing that is common for people to use to study with as it gets closer to time to study for finals (which starts 6 weeks before dead day) are summaries. The reason for a summary is that you can read a quick condensed version of your class to refresh your memories. But also I know some students actually prefer to read these before class starts so that you know what you're going to learn. While I don't think this is necessary in any way, I can see how it will help calm your nerves a bit when you've already started tackling understanding the tough subjects, so it's totally up to you how extra you want to be. One of my friends had to miss about a total of 2 weeks throughout the semester because of a family illness and he used the Short and Happy books and got the exact same grade as me so even though I've never personally used a summary, apparently they can help. Another popular summaries brands are the CrunchTime books and Gilbert's Law Summaries.

Flashcards

Lastly (well of what I can think of) there's flashcards. I like to make flashcards on Quizlet of the rule with the elements on the back or the case name with the rule on the back. But I know that one thing that's really popular for 1Ls are commercial flashcards like Law in a Flash. Commercial flashcards usually go beyond what I put on mine and even have hypothetical questions with the answers on the back. The only downside to this is that they don't have explanations for why the answer is right quite like E&E or Q&A books do. But they're great to review with either on weekends or at the beginning of studying for finals. 

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How to Turn Your Class Notes into a Law School Outline

Well now that I'm through about a chapter and a half in all of my major classes, I'm starting to work on my outline. The reason why I wait so long to start is because my professor last year actually suggested that it's easier to start on an outline once you're a couple weeks in and have enough puzzle pieces that you can get an idea about what the finished product should look like. 

I know that how to make an outline is a really stressful thing when you first start to make one, because you've never done this before so you don't know if you're being over or under-conclusive. This is just a general guide of what I do, but I highly suggest that you schedule an appointment with your professor during office hours here in a few weeks and have your professor look over what you have in your outline so far. Since they're the ones who actually make the test, they'll be the best person to tell you what you can cut down on and what you need to beef up. 

If for some reason your professor isn't on board with helping you out a little, my suggestions would be to 1. ask your TA if that class has one, 2. ask an upperclassmen who took that class with the same professor before (make sure you ask what grade they got! don't want to borrow notes from a C- student), or 3. check out this website. I found these outlines last year and what's great is that they are book specific so you can make sure the information is right. I personally feel like they have WAY too much information so I don't actually study from these, but at the end of the year I do use them to see if there's anything they have on their outline that I learned in class but forgot to include in mine and then will gap fill.

The best way I can think to show how to make an outline is to just go through an example of what I did for one Contracts case. For this example, the rule of the case (mailbox rule) was actually an exception to a rule (an acceptance must be communicated), so hopefully you can see the progression. Also, sometimes you’ll read more than one case that explains the same rule but in different ways so that you can fully understand it.

Step One

Step one is to read the book which I'm guessing you've already completed so yay! Hopefully when you're highlighting/underlining in your books, you're doing it sparingly to only get the relevant information. If you find yourself highlighting like five straight lines, I suggest that you be a little more picky and only highlight what is absolutely critical in each sentence. 


Related: How to Highlight Efficiently

Step Two

Step two (optional) is to turn what you read in your book into an IRAC. As I've mentioned before, I've stopped making briefs for each case and instead rely on my highlights as a book brief. I've also stopped the blue/black coloring in my notes because it ended up just confusing me. 

Related: How to read a casebook to make a case brief (IRAC)

Step Three

Step three is looking at the cases that you've been reading and seeing them as part of the big picture that is your class. What I include in my notes is 1. the rules of the cases, 2. important information in the book between the cases that I highlighted as I read, 3. info from slides the professor puts up, 4. notes I take as my professor talks. 

An easy way to organize your notes before you get started is to write down the headings and subheadings of your book, and then go back through and fill it in with the information as you get it from 1-4 (^^). It's just an easy way to keep all the relevant rules and slides and professor tidbits clumped together.

Step Four

Step four is the actual outline. If you organize your notes like I do, it's actually really simple to create your outline because you follow the same method:

• Roman numerals are the chapters 
• capital letters are either the subheadings in your book and/or important information that your professor has stretched
• lowercase Roman numerals are the main rules for each subheadings
• lowercase letters and regular numbers further explain or give examples 

This is called a skeletal outline, which is also how I came up with my attack outline that I memorize to help me not miss any points on a final.

As for the chapters you can either go in the order that the book has them, or if your professor skipped around then you can go in that order. Just pick whichever order makes the most sense to you. Once you've finished your outline completely (when class is over), go back through to rearrange and edit it to make sure that it makes the most sense to you.

Final Thoughts

Here's some things to keep in mind as your do your outlines. 

How often to update your outline: I recommend doing it as you finish each chapter once you can get the big picture from your book, class, and notes at first. Once you get the hang of it, you might be able to work on it every other week like I'm trying to do. 

What to put in an outline: Doctrines or legal theories, definitions, rules, elements/factors to consider, exceptions to the rules, variations on rules (majority/minority), steps or analysis, policy arguments, examples when needed, major cases, flowchart/spider maps/tree diagrams are all great information to help make sure you understand the legal concepts. 

What not to put in an outline: Full case briefs, trivia from cases, and information not relevant to the course are all just a waste of your time. 

How long to make your outline: Keep the skirt rule in mind, "long enough to cover what needs to be covered, but short enough to keep your attention." Remember that at the end of the year you will be trying to memorize this, so putting unnecessary information in it will just hurt your brain. Mine were generally between 10-15 pages. Again, if you're unsure make sure you make an appointment with your professor around midterm to review your outline. 

How to know your outline has enough: Simply put, check around. Email your professor (I suggest either the half-semester mark or about a month before your final) and have him/her go over it just to see if you've been too broad or too specific. If you're in a study group, see if y'all can compare and share outlines. Ask your classmates or upperclassmen if they know of any old outlines that you can compare your to. Compare your outline to one you can find online. I found these free outlines that are sorted by subject & book and are what I've used as a reference in making my outlines. Quimbee has these paid outlines. And the company who I did my podcast with also has paid outlines. 

What I did when using other outlines to make mine was after I was done I would have mine and their side by side and I would see if there was an area where they explained something better than I did or if I completely forgot a concept then I would add just that little bit of extra information to mine. Remember that professional/online outlines will have way more information than you'll need so don't feel like you have to make yours as expansive as theirs! Most of my outlines ended up being between 10-20 pages and that was because sometimes a whole line would just have a few words on it. Don't think that you have to make yours full of complete sentences! Just make sure it has only the information that you need.

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

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The Different Types of Law School Finals Questions to Prepare For

I know that most of you reading this won't have to worry about law school finals for another 6 months, but I thought I'd write about it now while it's fresh on my mind. Maybe it'll end up helping you feel prepared when you start law school knowing what to expect at the end. Warning: this is a little lengthy but I'd rather someone feel over prepared instead of just skimping through this. 

There's been three types of questions that I've had so far on my law finals -- multiple choice, issue spotter, and deep think. Most of my tests have ended up being about 2/3 issue spotter and usually 1/3 multiple choice.

Multiple Choice

Yeah you've spent your whole life taking multiple choice tests and even had to take one to get into law school, but these are NOTHING like those! I remember my Kaplan instructor going over this "pick it and quit it" mantra when I was studying for my LSAT. You've probably been instructed your whole life that multiple choice questions are made up of 3 wrong answers and 1 right answer, so all you have to do is find the right one and move on. But for law school, you're instructed to choose the most correct answer, so your choices might be 1 completely wrong answer, 2 answers that seem very plausible, and 2 answers that are correct. Sound confusing? Here's the best way I can think to explain it.

Which of the following the best way to add and get the number ten?

A. 2 + 9

B. 1 x 10

C. 11 - 1

D. 5 + 5

E. 0 + 10

Obviously A is wrong because it doesn't even make 10.

B and C both make 10, but not through adding.

D and E both make 10 through adding, so you would have to think back on the rule.

So for this hypothetical math problem, say your professor said that the majority rule is to always add to get a number by using 0 and that number, and the minority rule is that you just add any two numbers to get that number. You'd have to not only not both rules, but also know which is the majority and minority to know which rule to apply. If you use the "pick it and quit it" rule, you would've just seen that 5 + 5 = 10, chosen the correct yet not the most correct choice, and gotten it wrong. This doesn't mean that you can think that you'll only need to know the majority, because sometimes they'll throw in a little sentence about how you should assume you're in a minority jurisdiction on some questions.

Of course, law school tests can't be that straight forward, so don't expect your questions to simply be one sentence. What they're more like is a whole paragraph or maybe two giving you a little scenario that you have to read and THEN go through all of the multiple choices. Don't think that having a multiple choice test on your final will take no time at all. For one of my finals, there were only 15 multiple choice questions but it still took me a little over an hour just because they're so thorough. For my Torts final last year, the entire thing was 100 multiple choice questions worth 100 points of my grade. This was super stressful because when I was stuck between two answer choices, I knew that if I guessed wrong I just lost a full point off my total grade in that class.

Issue Spotter

These are by far the most common type of questions that you'll have on a test. In fact, I've had a test where the whole thing was just three pages, with each page a different issue spotter. The very first time I had one on a final last year, it psyched me out. My property professor basically just gave us 5 sentences and then said, "Discuss all legal relevant factors." That was it! I wasted a whole minute panicking because I didn't even know where to start or what all to write about. I had expected some guidance after the fact pattern like "does Joe have a claim for breach of quiet enjoyment?" but I was given none of that. 

This is where your attack outline that you copy on the back of your final really comes in handy. My short outlines are broken down into a chapter per Roman numeral, and the main points of each chapter being a letter beneath that. Start with this and answer your question. Go through each chapter one by one. If a chapter is completely irrelevant, you can write a few sentences over why this doesn't apply and move on (but think of this as a little something extra that you shouldn't even bother with until you've exhausted everything that is relevant)  But if a chapter is relevant, you need to touch on every single letter you have under that Roman numeral. If you have time, aim to make a paragraph going over each point. 

But make sure that you're connecting these points to the fact pattern you were given! The easiest way to do this is through a good ol' IRAC. It doesn't have to be as in depth as the ones you do for class. It can be as simple as "The issue here is whether Joe has a claim for a breach of quiet enjoyment. The rule for QE is ... Here, X happened which is one of the requirements for QE... Because X, Y, and Z, Joe does have a claim for a breach of QE." I bolded because since that is the most helpful thing to remember. You should be throwing because's in there like it's candy at a parade. If you do this, you're going to be making yourself analyze the issue more thoroughly. The least important part is the conclusion, because you can usually argue it either way. But don't fall into the trap where you just say it depends! If you say it depends, you need to explain how/why the circumstances could end up one way, and also how/why they could the other way. 

Because you really have to master IS questions to pass, I'm adding a picture of a practice problem we went over in my Crim class. The pink are notes that I made before class about what I would discuss if this was a real test. The blue is what my professor went over in class of everything that we should've included. It's a lot of writing for not a lot of prompt! 

Deep Think

None of my professors have even mentioned this type of question except for my Crim professor, but I've had it so I might as well talk about it. These are where you don't get a fact pattern like in an issue spotter, but instead have to think about the philosophies and reasoning behind the law. He explained that he's liked these type of questions ever since he got one when he was in law school. He told us about how he got an A on his Family Law final because the last question was "Pose a question and answer it." He chose to ask whether or not gay marriage should be legalized, but didn't take the moral/religious response like you'd expect. This was way back when not a lot about AIDS was known, and really only the gay community was being affected by it. His argument was that gay marriage should be allowed simply because marriage promotes monogamy and monogamy is a great way to reduce the spread of STDs, and then went into further detail on the pros and cons for each reason to legalize gay marriage, and then the same for each reason to not legalize gay marriage. 

That's basically the structure of how these questions go. Luckily for my final, we didn't have to come up with our own questions, so we were given some guidance. My professor quoted the author of our book and asked what stance we believe the author was taking, if we agreed with it or not, and why. Don't think these are easier because it's just your opinion. What you have to do for these is discuss all of the legal theories and rules that you've learned, and apply them to your argument. Again, using your short outline as a checklist will really help give you direction of what to discuss and make sure that you don't leave out any relevant information just because you're rushed and becoming forgetful. 

Final Thoughts

Although the LSAT pretty much has nothing to do with law school, the one feeling that is very familiar when taking both tests is the sense of urgency. Three hours may seem like more than enough time to fill in a few bubbles and write a few paragraphs, but I've rarely seen anyone turn in their final with more than 10 minutes remaining. This was a change for me because I'm usually a speed demon in tests and before I was always one of the first people to finish. My advice would be that if you do somehow finish with extra time remaining, go back through your paragraphs and see if there's any little extra thing that you could add to be your sprinkles on top of the sundae and get you a little bonus points. Once you've written everything you can think of, then it's time to go ahead and turn it in.

One thing that surprised me about law finals is how informal they are. Because you almost always run out of time, law professors expect you to be writing in a rushed form. So you can use common shorthands like "bc" or "w/" and not get counted off. Same goes for terms, so you would just have to write fee simple subject to condition subsequent (FSSCS) once, and then you can use the abbreviation for the rest of the paper. I also cut down on typing time by even shortening names if I have to use them a lot by using the parenthesis after the first time I mention the name, and their initials for the rest of the time.

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

4 Steps to Studying for a Law School Final

Today I set down to make my planner out for this week and noticed that there's only three weeks left on my syllabus. Which means it's officially freak-out time... It's stressful when you feel like you have all the time in the world to get your life together and then realize that you actually only have 6 more classes! In undergrad I rolled my eyes when I saw people stressing over finals before classes have even ended, but this is law school and every thing you do sucks up all your time. 

I'm a big fan of using as many senses as you can when studying so I'll read my notes out loud so that I'm seeing, hearing, and saying everything that I need to know. It probably helps that I live alone so I"m not bothering anyone when I do this. In undergrad, I probably would've said that this is overkill, but for law school you really need to have all of your rules down. For every test last semester, I was typing right up to the 5 minute warning. When you have so much to say, the three hours really flies by (just like it did for the LSAT) and you don't have time to sit and try to remember all of the elements of a rule.

Step 1: Outlines

Last semester I didn't really put forth too much effort studying before classes ended and I did okay. This semester, my goal is to start studying sooner so that I won't have to feel like I'm cramming right before. The greatest thing my school has ever done is that they planned out the 1L's final schedules so we all have only one test per day, with our tests only on Monday's and Thursday's which gives us ample time to switch gears between tests.

So today I cracked down on getting my outlines together. I've found a happy medium and will only make myself work on it for 30 minutes at a time, and then get a break to either do a load of laundry or watch one episode on Netflix. It might seem counter productive to not get in a "study zone" mindset and do nothing but outline all day, but I've realized that if I don't give myself rewards while I study then I start to burn out quicker. A good thing to try to do is to spend one day at the end of every month updating your outlines so that by the time finals are here, you're cleaning them up (step 3).

Related: How to Make an Outline

What's funny is that my best friend is currently taking business law in undergrad, so I'm having to teach him hot to outline — rule, elements, where the rule came from, exceptions. Once he started to do this for a test, he realized that just basically copying his notes helped him remember what he'd already learned and further burned into his brain the rules. 

Making outlines also makes you go back through your notes and see where there are gaps. Now you can either look in your book right around what you're working on, or see if your professor has uploaded any supplements that might help. In the end, my outlines usually come out to between 10 and 15 pages. If this sounds like a lot to you, remember that outlines really spread out the spacing and some lines will only have a few words on them. If this doesn't sound like enough to you, remember that this is supposed to be only what you need for your tests. If your outlines are too long then there will be too much information for you to memorize. 

Step 2: Flashcards

Another reason why I'm finishing my outlines so early is because this is really just step one. After I get my notes condensed down to an outline, I'll make flashcards on Quizlet to start studying the rules. I like this because I can make sure that I have everything memorized backwards and forwards and also can easily see what I have trouble remembering. Again, just the repetition of writing out what you need to know for the flashcards helps burn it into your brain.

If you pay for Quilzlet, they have this great feature called long-term learning where you are given 20 cards from a certain class to work on, and as you begin to master those more are added. It will also keep track of what percentage of your cards that you don't know, know okay, know, and know well. If you don't trust yourself to remember to study, there's even a feature that will remind you to go over your cards.

Step 3: Make a Case List

Some professors don't require me to cite the cases where a rule of law come from, so this isn't entirely necessary for those. However, a lot of word problems on my tests ended up being very similar to a case that we had read before. My case list is very simple. One sentence summarizing the cases and one list giving the rule. For the professors that don't require me to cite cases on a test, I don't really bother with memorizing this in it's entirety, just refresh myself on what the cases were about. 

Some of my professors would use cases in a multiple choice question where this really helped out. For example: if you knew that the correct answer for a civ pro question was that a court couldn't hear this case because of subject matter jurisdiction, you might have choices B and C say that but B says because of so and X case they can't hear it under subject matter jurisdiction and choice C says because of Y case they can't hear it under subject matter jurisdiction. Here obviously knowing the cases will really help. 

Step 4: Memorize Outline

Then I'll start to condense my outline down. Usually any definition that I have in there gets taken out because I've already memorized it through notecards. Or if my professor has given us a list of elements and underlined only a few words of each element, eventually I will know enough context of the elements to only have those few specific words left. By now, you should also understand concepts enough that you don't need any examples or hypotheticals in your outline. Once I can start taking out smaller details, my outline shrinks to a few pages. Now the only information left is the bare necessities. 

On the day before my test, I will literally memorize this outline and work on writing it over and over again. When I get my actual test, I flip over to the back of the test and write down this simplified outline exactly. If I start to get confused on a topic or get writer's block, I can just flip to this outline and know exactly where to go. I did this last semester and it really helped me having my own little cheat sheet on the back!

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

Law School Midterms

Not for a Grade (mostly)

My school requires all of my professors to give a midterm as a check up to see that the class isn't struggling. My Contracts professor gave an easy, 10-question online quiz. My Civ Pro professor gave us a dumbed down version of his multiple choice/short essay final. My Torts professor gave us an old full version of his final. Aaaand my Property professor made his midterm over future interests that was 10% of our final grade. 

Because 3/4 of these classes only had the final as the only grade in the class, it can be stressful. I mean, 100% of your grade comes from one test. That is a part of a marathon of tests. And the whole time you never know if the curve will push you down or pull you up. I think this is single-handedly the most stressful part of law school because it's such a big unknown.

Related: All about the law school curve

A Few Things

If you're unsure about how intense a test will be, look to Rate My Professor for advice from past students. Luckily, a lot of students had discussed the test style for my professors so I knew what to study for and expect.

At this point you should definitely be working on your own outline.  Every person that's ever given me advice has stressed not to waste money on a commercial outline. Both my professors and other students have said that either the outlines will make you waste time learning things that aren't on your test or will over-simplify so you don't study all of the information you would have if you studied your own. 

Related: How to make a law school outline

The best way to make an outline is basically just summarize your notes. The number one thing to remember when taking notes is to first listen and then write down. Write your notes as if you're explaining them to someone else and don't just copy word for word what your professor says.

Even if Quimbee isn't within your budget, they do offer a free week trial. There are videos within cases and addition videos with supplemental quizzes for each class. If your midterms are more influential towards your grade, you might consider using your free week now. If you like it, then you can just buy it for a month or two to help with finals. Of course, you could also wait until finals to use your free trial.

Related: Quimbee review

The Results

I did pretty great in Contracts, but no surprise because I think everything in that class in interesting.

My Civ Pro professor gave me a ":/" because I kept forgetting to refer to the federal rules that I was using to come up with my answers. 

My Torts grade ended up being spot-on for how my final grade was (more of that later). Apparently this specific professor was known for giving confusing tests and the curve ends up helping out a lot. 

As for my Property graded midterm.......not so hot. This ended up giving me some anxiety because I kept thinking that if I wasn't stellar on the midterm then I'd fall on my face during the final. But I was just forgetting that this subject was so hard that my professor purposefully removed it from the final so that we wouldn't struggle trying to learn it.

What to Expect During the First Month of Law School

Student organizations

Well this week we had our student org fair and when I was on my way there it started down pouring so I turned around and ended up missing it. I've added a lot of organizations on Facebook so hopefully I can still get involved with them. And Phi Alpha Delta sent me a form to transfer from pre-law to law which is pretty nice because I paid $100 national dues to join in undergrad and this was only $65. They also sent me letters for my car which I love because I never got any in undergrad. I'm hoping to run for some positions in these organizations pretty soon so that I can start building my resumé since I only have 3 years here.

Month milestone

Well I've been here a month and only questioned my life choices about three times so I'm feeling pretty good right now. I still haven't been cold called in any of my classes, so that's nice. Just like with my responses from law school, each one of my professors has a different way of handling that. One professor literally puts all of our names two times in a had and will draw at random who he'll call on to discuss cases. Another professor used an outline random number selector and will let us know one class in advance that we'll be called on. Another professor simply looks down at the class roll and will call someone from there to be up that day. And yet another professor doesn't call on anyone at all. I can't decide if I''m happy to not be called yet because this gives me time to get really good at briefing before I'm called, or if I'd rather have been called already because the cases seem to be getting harder as we go.

Working on my outlines

Now that I have a month worth of notes for my classes, I've started making my overall outlines for each class. It hasn't gone unnoticed to me that if I would been preparing for my finals this early during undergrad then I probably would've had a 4.0. My method is to follow the themes for each chapter and then to give the rules that we've learned so far and their cases and then also the exceptions to the rules. So far I have about a page and a half worth of outlines for each class, but I think that's because of the spacing. Here's a real rough draft of page one from what I have so far.

Related: How to Turn Your Notes into an Outline

Final thoughts

I've realized that probably the reason why I'm enjoying my classes and working so hard for them is that law school is the first higher education I've really gotten so far. To me, college was really just the most expensive party I ever went to. College was learning a little about a lot due to all of the random classes I took to get my major like History of Jazz and Walking. And law school is learning a lot about a little. Already a lot of my classes are overlapping themes! I like this a lot better and really feel like I'm not wasting my time on bullshit classes. Except for CivPro. I really dislike that class because I can read the book and cases watch the Quimbee videos, pay attention in class, and I still get easily confused on topics so idk what I'll end up doing about that :/ 

Also, this declaration for the Texas board of law examiners takes forever. With $190 application fees you'd think they'd have a website that doesn't look like its from 2002. Oh and you have to have SIX character references that can't be relatives or past employers and I really kinda am struggling past 3, so keep that in mind before you get here. They also require you to send in your official birth certificate or an official copy, so if you're still keeping that kind of important paperwork with your parents, make sure you pack it with you so you don't have to last minute call your mom and make her overnight it to you like I had to. Lastly, I'd suggest buy a used book because it's cheaper and chances are the last person highlighted everything you need.

Related: The Declaration of Intent to Study Law