How to Highlight a Law School Casebook Efficiently

Once upon a few months ago, I made a post about the best highlighters for law school and showed y'all how I color coordinated my colors to the parts of the case. And then later in my post about how to make an outline, I showed y'all a picture of my highlighted book and was like only highlight what's crucial. But yesterday my professor handed out a case for us to read that she printed off from Lexis and last night after I had read and highlighted through the case I thought to myself, damn I'm pretty good at this. So I decided to maybe share my wisdom.  

It sounds very trivial, but effective highlighting is teaching your brain how to quickly read and analyze information to find out what's important and what's not. If you've taken a timed issue spotter question already, then you know exactly what I mean (and if you haven't then just trust me on this one). When you get out in the law world, you're not going to have condensed cases. Instead it will be your job to read a lot of information in a short amount of time and pick out what's relevant and now's the time to get good at that. 

I recently saw this on Pinterest and honestly it annoyed me because you can highlight and still actively read, just if you do it right. And if you have 100 pages to read a night, jotting down notes and summaries in the margins will take literal hours. So here's how. 

Test it out. Read only the what's highlighted in blue in the case below (it's super short, I promise!). Read it and try to avoid all of the other unhighlighted words. It might not make perfect sense because I don't highlight every word, but I promise you'll figure out what it's saying. Read only the blue and ask yourself if you feel like you understand what is happening in the case and if you could easily retell it to a classmate or professor. 

PS it's all in one color because I read this case rushed and didn't have time to find all of my highlighters to color code it like I normally do to make it even easier 

How'd I do for condensing 3 pages down to less than 300 words? By the end could you pick out the plaintiff problem, defendant's argument, issue, and holding? Just imagine if I'd only highlighted about the plaintiff in pink, and only highlighted about the defendant in blue, and only the holding in orange or only the rule in red. It would be even easier to pick each of these parts out! 

What makes it effective highlighting is when you cut out details, irrelevant information, and even connector words. Yeah it might not seem like it makes sense, but JSUT 4S YU0R BR41N C4N R34D 7HI5, it can figure out the meaning of a sentence if you only highlight a few words. Another tip is to not highlight punctuation. When you go back through and reread it, these gaps in highlight help break up what's needing to be said so then the periods become redundant.  

One super helpful benefit to this is if you read a case and then your professor gets behind and doesn't talk about it until days later, a quick scan over it will remind you of all you need to know. That's actually a really good way to make yourself start being a minimalist highlighter is to highlight it thinking that you'll only have a minute to read everything that you've highlighted. When you're in a time crunch to quickly read something, you'll only read what's vital- so highlight like this! 

I hope this helps some of you over-highlighters streamline your process and get through your readings faster! I really think it helps :) 

How to Stay Fit in Law School

Confession time: I gained the freshman fifteen in college (ok, a teensy bit more than that). And then at the end of my first semester my 1L year, I noticed that my oversized sorority shirts weren't quite so baggy anymore and realized that I had gained over 5 pounds just that semester. I wasn't completely surprised, I was stress eating and had been stressed a lot. Not only that, but I was spending a ton of time at home reading, and usually snacking around as I read. 

I knew that if I didn't change something, pretty soon I'd have the 3L 30 (just made that up haha). So I started eating healthier and working out more my 2nd semester. Working out when stressed instead of stress eating turned out to help so much. Instead of feeling guilty on top of being stressed, I felt like I was combating my stress and my weight insecurities all in one. Plus, exercise gives you endorphins ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

Related: How working out helped my law school depression

 The easiest way to get into a habit of working out every day is to fit it into your routine. My 1L year I would come home from my last class, change, then go work out. My 2L year I started setting my alarm for an hour earlier and would wake up, workout, then go to class. When I work out, I typically go through 3 phases: 1) wanting to be healthy so I do a lot of cardio, 2) wanting to tone up so I do a lot of weights, and 3) being tight from weights so I do a lot of yoga. 

Related: How to workout in a small apartment

Running is my personal favorite way to exercise because you don't have to think of your next move like in yoga or count reps like with weightlifting. You just can get lost in the music and let your brain take a break. If you hate running, my first suggestion to you is to go outside because running around a park is a lot less depressing than running in one place for 30 minutes.

One of the best things I got when I started running again were these wireless headphones, because it is seriously the worst when the movement of your arms catches a wire and rips an earbud from your ear and it feels like it took your whole ear off with it. I also used to hate how the wires would bounce around while I ran, so much that I would run my headphones under my shirt to keep them tucked in. These headphones in particular have one short wire that connect the earbuds that runs behind your head, so it stays out of your way. 

Update: I just got a pair of Apple AirPods and they are definitely worth the investment!!

And because the headphones connect wirelessly to your phone, you can put that away when you run too. I loathe those stupid armband phone holders because they trap all of your sweat and begin to slide down your arm and are too big of a pain to get your phone out to use your phone. I recently started running with this running belt instead and it is so so so much better. The band goes under your shirt so no one even knows you have anything on you. It doesn't slide around and thankfully doesn't trap sweat either. And because it's so big, I can keep the clicker to my car in there instead of having it rattle around in my bra.

Another thing that I now can't run (or live) without is my Apple watch. It tells me my pace, heart rate, and how long I've been running. I can set a countdown for a certain distance, and it'll even pause the run when I stop to tie my shoe. And it also can connect to my headphones and play music so I could run without my phone, if I wanted to. And since I decided I want to be healthier, I use it daily to try to reach my steps goals.

If you feel like you run and run but never lose weight, you might consider drinking a protein shake after you run. Just add a scoop of protein powder (this is what I love) into a blender bottle and add water. It helps your body turn fat into muscle and helps you get lean muscle. I also sometimes will drink a half shake about 45-30 minutes before I run and I've found that helps me not get so tired as I run.

1. Stop eating out. Like as much as possible. None, if you can. Eating out may seem cheaper, but for me, eating at home is cheaper. For example, all of the ingredients for a PB&J costs about $10 total but makes you 10 meals, so that's $1/400 calories for a meal. But at McDonald's, a meal of a burger, fries, and a drink for only $6 may seem cheap, but that's $6/800 calories for a meal.

And think about it-- if you really want a burger, then going to the store and buying patties and buns with be better than getting something that has lots of preservatives so you don't notice it's been under a heating lamp. 

Related: Why I meal plan in law school

2. Pay attention to portions. Obviously this is always mentioned when you want to lose weight, but here's how it saves you money. Say you buy a package of chips. A bag of chips has about 16 servings in it, which theoretically should last you at least 16 days even if you eat them every day. But if you're not measuring out these portions, this bag will only last you a couple of days and then you'd have to pay to buy more again. See?? 

How I portion things out is I'll go ahead and measure out each serving of the entire bag and put it in a little snack bag. Then I can visually see how many portions I'm having, or if I'm in a rush I'll already have a little snack poured out and ready to go!

3. Drink only water. Being from Texas, I have a slight Dr. Pepper addiction. That first semester, I would drink one at lunch and then have another one after school as I was reading. I finally decided to cut that habit and it saved me more money than I realized. Every day I was spending $4 and 400 calories on those drinks. This added up to $20 a week in savings!!

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