Since my last advice post I received a lot of messages from 0Ls trying to choose between schools. Here are three common themes:
1) Prestige.
Unless you are considering a top 5 or top 10 school, focus on what city or region you want to practice law in.
For example, if you want to live in Seattle, then going to Less Prestigious School of Law in downtown Seattle is probably a better idea than going to a “top 40” school in Georgia.
The top 10-40 schools will tout the few alumni who made it in swank, distant cities to oversell their national reputation. Go to the “okay” school in the city you want to practice in, volunteer, build a network of local attorneys and land a job.
2) Employment rates.
Ignore them. The job market sucks unless you go to an elite (top 5) school.
If a school is waiving around a really high employment rate, call up the career office and ask them these questions:
Does your employment percentage represent the entire class or just the students who responded to the survey?
How many students responded to the survey? Did you verify their employment or is it self-reported?
What exactly counts as “employment” in this survey? How many of these students have paid, full-time positions that require a JD?
You’ll find that many schools count any employment towards their numbers. The student with a research position with a professor that ends a month after graduation counts. The student volunteering at a non-profit counts. The barista counts. If you ask how many of a school’s students actually go on to become paid full-time lawyers, you’ll find a lot of trapeze artists.
3) Specific programs.
Law school is a big investment, so you have the right to ask questions before you get into a crushing amount of debt. If you have a passion for a particular area of law, ask the admissions office to put you into contact with a professor that teaches the subject.
If admissions is unhelpful, then you can always look up the professor on the school’s website, and email them yourself. A simple email will do –
“Hello, My name is Jill Smith. I am an accepted student interested in insurance law. Can you tell me more about Whatever Law School’s insurance law program? I am specifically interested in car insurance…”
I know this sounds scary, but you might just find a mentor, and the worst they can do is ignore you, …which is also telling.
Your class-note organization needs will differ whether you take notes on a laptop or hand-write. I hand-write for some classes but I invariably lose my notes to coffee or car trunk gnomes if I do not transcribe the notes quickly.
UMN law forces us to buy school laptops, but possibly the one good thing about my spastic school laptop is that it came with Microsoft OneNote, which is amazing.
OneNote is sort of like MS Word, but it looks like a binder. It has tabs, and auto-saves whatever you type. You can“print” PDFs and powerpoints into OneNote, so your folder for a class will contain everything you need come finals time. OneNote even lets you highlight the PDFs, and share your folders online if you’re feeling generous.
As far as binders and such… I would hold off buying anything other than maybe pens, one legal pad, and a bag (and please no rolly bags!) until you get the syllabi for your classes. Most of the stuff the bookstore scares you into buying (before you know what you actually need) will just collect dust under your futon.
Study Aids, Dictionaries:
And please don’t buy and supplements or study aids yet. My friends and I wasted so much money on crap we didn’t need.
Westlaw and Lexis are the two online legal research systems that your school will probably give you passwords to during orientation. Lexis has course outlines, and Westlaw has black’s law dictionary, treatises, summaries of law, and topical digests. All of it is online for free. And even if you buy the print version you’ll probably find yourself using the online version anyway because of the convenience.
And, if you cannot resist wasting money, then just get a very small pocket law dictionary. But again, everything is online, for free. If find that you desperately need a print-form-something-or-other during the semester then your school bookstore will still have it.
Time Management:
Scheduling was a little crazy for me during my 1L year because my school had Lexis training, Westlaw training, special 1L seminars, club meetings, etc. and was not very good about communicating exactly when things were.
I recommend Windows Calendar if you have a PC. Windows Calendar is a free program that comes with Vista, and it is similar to Apple’s free calendar program and Google Calendar. What I like about Windows Calendar is that it lets me set alarms, so my computer will flash, buzz, and do the chacha to remind me of an appointment.
If you have a SmartPhone, you can also use that to remind you things.
Also keep a print version of your class schedule. All of us forgot were our classes were during the first few weeks, and because no one knows where they are going, it isn’t uncommon to have a pack of 1Ls waiting in the wrong room because they saw “someone” go into it. Don’t be that person.
One more time management tip! Make “no” your default answer to things that you aren’t super-passionate about. An easy way to decline these invitations (to club meetings, bar night, canasta, etc.) is to say, “I have to decline because I think I have something scheduled for that time/day, but if anything changes I’ll let you know.”
Then, once you get in front of your calendar and reading assignment list, you can figure out if you really DO want to attend whatever you just declined.
And, although I am not sure if this fits really into the organization category, or just a time management/health thing, but, my friends and I noticed ourselves eating out a lot during 1L year.
It is far easier to suck it up and go to the grocery store once a week and take an hour on Sunday to cook basics – plain meat, rice, pasta, etc. and to throw in tupperware for the week.
Then everyday you can just pull out your tubs of pre-prepared basics, do different combinations, dress them up with whatever fresh sides (fruit, etc.) or seasonings, and then have a quick meal original meal.
It sounds like a lot of work , but this is much quicker and cheaper than waiting in line at Chipotle.
It is like a crying toddler who stops throwing a fit when he sees another toddler having an even-more-dramatic meltdown at grocery store. It’s like, “Woah. Nevermind. I thought I was having a fit. I was mistaken.”
Internet privacy is like a living room window: people occasionally glance over if the curtains are open but most of us do not shut the curtains for fear of someone trampling across the yard and peering in.
We are more likely to shut the curtains when the living room is a mess, when we are naked, beating our step-children, or otherwise having a private moment, but most of us don’t barricade ourselves in our homes for fear of being seen from the street.
The same reasoning applies to foursquare. Most of my friends are horrified by foursquare. An application that uses your phone’s GPS to broadcast your location to the internet seems absolutely crazy to them.
But like the curtains on the living room window, you are in control of when, how, and with whom you share your whereabouts, and you’re screwed if Johnny is looking for you either way.
The updates from Foursquare can be sent to facebook, twitter, and your friends’ phones. You can chose when and where your updates go for each check in.
Foursquare also gives you stats on your check ins, if you are into that.
My favorite part about checking into a location is that it forces me to be conscious about what I am doing. I can’t con myself into believing that I am sticking to my diet if I just became the Major of Burger King.
So for all my burger loving people with open curtains, here are 5 privacy tips for Foursquare:
1. Foursquare is best for PDAs. While it is possible to update foursquare via text message, the application is pretty useless unless you have a PDA (Blackberry, iPhone, Android, etc.)
2. Shout! An under-utilized feature of foursquare is the ability to send a “shout” with your check-in. An update that you are at McDonald’s is not as interesting as an update about the twitching-bow-legged Miley Cyrus lookalike in front of you.
3. Home locations: Foursquare allows you to add locations, like your house, but if you are going to check in at home then don’t enter your exact address. You can enter an arbitrary location and position it near your home on Foursquare’s map. For example, my apartment is at “Somalia Ave, and Mexico St.” This also applies to your friends’ homes.
4. Routine: Most of us have a set schedule, but the world doesn’t need to know that you pull into your driveway at 4:45pm every day. There is no need to check in the moment you arrive somewhere. For example, you can check at work during your lunch breach, as you leave for the day, or even “hide” your location by unchecking the “tell my friends option.”
5. Interact: if you had a good experience at a venue then update the venue’s page and say so. That makes the service more valuable for everyone and is a great way to effectuate change. Did the service suck at the restaurant? Say so. The terrible review will cause savvy venues to address service issues and prevent others in your community from reliving your bad experience.
Those were my tips. Does anyone else have any useful foursquare tips/habits?
As a crusty rising 3L, I don’t blog about school much anymore. Law school lost its new car smell about a year ago. The pedals stick, and the engine leaks.
But I remember how useful law student blogs were to me during the summer before law school, so I feel obligated to throw some unsolicited advice out into the interweb. Grab your salt, and guard your loins.
And don’t worry. I’ll be concise. Here are 5 points:
Now, when I tell an accepted law student to read Philalawyer’s letter, I get the same response: “Oh, well, gee, that sounds TERRIBLE! But well, it’ll be different for me.”
I have three things to say to that:
You may be smart, but you are an idiot.
You are the equivalent of the 18 year olds signing up for the military during a war, many of whom turn out not to be bulletproof.
You could do worse.
Just like joining the military is preferable to say, doing meth, law school is also not a terrible mistake for most people. It may be a waste of three years of your life and a lot of money, but again, it’s not meth. You’ll be fine. Maybe.
I am pretty sure that classroom etiquette sessions are part of my school’s orientation schedule next year, but the vast majority if schools don’t offer these sessions, so it is your duty not to be “that student” during orientation.
Also visit student blogs and go through the archives. Law student blogs are best orientation you can get.
Dress Appropriately. Advice and debate is here, but the gist is that you need to wipe the ramen from your shirt and look put together.
Check the hormones, aka, fluid exchange should not be a part of the greeting process in professional school.
Check the ego, or your classmates will know you’re an asshole.
Don’t overshare, or your classmates will know you’re a hot mess.
Hold the hooch, because the evidence will be on facebook forever.
4. Student loan money: schools are oddly silent about this. Basically, if you take the full amount of student loans you will probably have around $1,000 per month to live on. But student loans can come very late, so make sure you have enough money for your deposit, first month’s rent, furniture, books, and whatever other living supplies you need, like food, if you’re into that. ‘
Considering putting off law school to work and save if you have to, because you are at a material disadvantage to Timmy Trustfund and Sally Second-Career when you are struggling to pay rent during 1L year.
And frankly, if you didn’t get into a top 10 law school and got a full ride to a law school in say, the top 100, then going debt-free is a good idea.
If you are unemployed after graduating from Underwhelming Law School (#70) then at least you are debt-free, whereas if you went into debt for Okay University School of Law (#35) and didn’t get a job, then you’re just a trapeze artist in debt, and, well, screwed.
That’s it grasshoppers. My duty to offer my one-and-a-half cents is fulfilled, and I will now return to blogging about dogs, drag queens, and music production.
If you do, somehow, have any more questions then tweet me at @dennisjansen or hit up Huma, who is far more competent, although slightly violent, at @huma_rashid.
I keep seeing accidents while skating around the lakes. First it was the bridge fail, and now:
And I am not going to perpetuate stereotypes by mentioning who the driver of that van was…but yes, I noted.
It has rained a lot recently, well, not “Nashville a lot” but “Minnesota a lot” … so I get to drive to work with puffy Simpsons clouds when it’s not storming:
I have also enjoyed a few quiet late-night walks back to the law school from the Walter library:
Well, okay, maybe “enjoy” isn’t the right word. Of course I am worried about getting mugged, and I only make it to the law library to find an outrageous lack of staples. NO STAPLES DURING FINALS? GASP! Ring the alarm! This is an issue of great national concern! I want a tuition refund, reparations, and a biscuit for my inconvenience.
And finally, because I forgot to post it and it makes me say “awe” … Judd and his dog Pea Soup: Awe! I think he may post a few unflattering pictures of me on his blog in retaliation.1
I somehow have managed to get things done far enough in advance to avoid any stress. The workout and eating regime are still in place and I discovered the joy of decaf cold pressed coffee.
No procrastination, good diet, lack of caffeine addiction… holy shit, you guys, THEY WERE NOT KIDDING! You know that whole “take care of yourself and prosper” crap the Student Life office tried to push on us in undergrad? It’s true! WHO KNEW?
And why did it take me until halfway through law school to realize this? Bejesus…
1 And before you get in a tizzy, When I say “unflattering” I mean Jessica Simpson-(ho ho jelly roll!)-unflattering rather than Kim Kardashian-(you really thought that tape wouldn’t leak?)-unflattering.
2. Sleep. Get eight hours of sleep. Skipping on sleep is like not filling an empty gas tank because you are in a hurry. And unlike the silly driver, AAA can’t help a fried and sick law student.
3. Eat healthy, skip on caffeine. You do not have time to battle acne, obesity, and caffeine withdrawal during finals. Plus, the fake-food is just going to drain your wallet and make you feel sluggish anyway. So go to the grocery store and stock up on your apples, peppers, bananas, nuts, cucumbers, & etc. Just don’t be “loud crunching guy” at the library or we will pelt you with oranges.
4. Start your outlines. All of them. Right now. Quick and dirty does the trick: have a header, pour the syllabus in, and now you have a framework. It is often easier to fill something in than to start. And do not worry about having perfect headings and margins. Your outline does not need to be cute. Just make sure you have a good table of contents (instructions here) and do not worry about the rest. Perfect indentations and bullet points are not on the test. I promise.
And: Unless it’s conlaw, do not worry about the extraneous little details of every case. Focus on concepts, themes, why a court made its decision, and what made that case different from the one before it.
5. Exercise, relax. If you hit a wall in studying, take a run or a gym break. Working 4 hours at full-speed is better than half-assing 14 hours in the library.
6.Actually study when you study. Studying is not about how long you sit in the library. Do not pretend to study and when you’re actually taking quizzes on facebook. Focus,or at least acknowledge that you aren’t studying.
When you are studying, the most important task is the one right in front of you. Forget about everything else. Do not worry about facebook, your neighbors, the 1,001.3 other things you have to do, or Beyonce, and just focus. Disable your laptop’s wireless card if you have to. We won’t judge. Remember, distraction is the enemy of productivity – so stop being distracted and start being productive.
7. No posturing. There’s no elegant way to announce the size of your outline on facebook, so don’t be that girl. No one likes her or thinks she has a particularly rich inner life…
8. Share. Unless the curve in your class is set to a 1.5 or something ridiculous like that, do not be afraid to exchange outlines and talk over hypos with your classmates. There is a difference between giving an outline to someone who has skipped all semester and exchanging your work with someone who is working just as hard as you are.
And finally:
9. Breathe again. Every minute you spend being hysterical on facebook or twitter is one less minute you could be doing something other than annoying your peers and looking ridiculous. Hush. Stop panicking. Remember, one is going to die… now get to work.
And remember, your 2L support squad is available on twitter (@dennisjansen@huma_rashid) if you need us. We accept cookies and exotic teas.
So you are not taking my advice! You are coming to law school. You are starting blawgs. You have “JD” in your twitter usernames (we will address that later) and you are tweeting and emailing plenty of questions.
Let me point you to a few places for your pre-law reading pleasure:
Happy reading. I still think you should run (avoid the debt and anguish!) but if you insist on doing this law school thing, the law school blawg clique (see links to the left) will take care of you.
The temperature is above freezing for once, so I decide to take the Rottweiler on her first run.
We reach the Lake of the Isles before I realize that Gertrude does not run, at all.
She trots for a few seconds and then plants her bum on the sidewalk like, “Oh, you think you can rush me, foo?”
I panic. I am stuck in a park, during the daytime, with a dog!
This is a disaster.
Walking in a dog in Minnesota is like wearing a red polo in a Target store: an invitation for harassment. Walking a dog feel like having a big sign across my chest: “I AM APPROACHABLE AND WILL LISTEN TO YOUR OVERSHARE!”
The cliché of “Minnesota Nice” is really a euphemism for “Minnesota Batshit-crazy.”
The constant conversation-starting and overshare1 makes me feel like I walked into one huge group home. Strangers tell me about any dog they – or a friend – has owned, their AA meetings, their relatives’ social security checks, their children, juicy canker sores… it’s…just…terrible.
But I have a plan! I turn up my MP3 player so loud that everyone will know that I can’t hear them and then just avoid eye contact! Brilliant!
A few people actually wave and invade my personal space to get my attention, but I flash a curt smile and keep walking. The message is clear: “Sorry if I appeared approachable. I’m not. Bye now.”
The long dog walk was also a bit of a chore because the Rottweiler is so awkward. She dives into chest-deep snow banks and flails around as if she’s swimming. This is cute for exactly 12 minutes before I yank the leash and drag her home.
This Gertrude after she scaled a retaining wall:
What an awkward duckling. I think she suits me.
And my Minnesota-induced social anxiety is not limited to dog walks…
Edit: I wrote a rather lengthy post about the “crazy” I’ve encountered in Minneapolis, but I had some unexpected time to think due to internet problems and I decided that I was unfair.
Here are my findings of fact (what’s the point of a JD if I can’t inject legalese into blog posts?):
Heck, many of my now-regular readers thought this blog was socially inappropriate when I started law school. A flamboyant, non-anonymous law student? Blogging? Tweeting? What? Gasp. “That’s inappropriate!”
“Social appropriateness” is a safe, but also a surefire way to be bland. It’s just like how Kelly Clarkson sells, but we how really prefer Madonna, Gaga, and Beyonce.
My problem with my Minneapolis crazies is that I constantly feel harassed, but this may be the price of living downtown in any city.
At least I’m not bored.
…and that should have been the end of the post but I see a soap box. Mind if I stand on it and shout at passersby?
One area where I have noticed a unacceptable amount of batshit crazy is the gay community in this city. My goodness. Three tips. Totally unsolicited and subjective, from your local Jansen:
Put away the cocaine, booze, and the other misc. substances. If you can’t enjoy yourself sober then you’re not really enjoying yourself tripped up. You’re not Ke$ha – you’re the random shitfaced guy on a Monday night. And yes, we’re judging. There’s an underlying issue there. Fix it.
Put some clothes on, just because a bar lets you dance in your underwear does not mean you that should. (video here at 1:30)
Love thyself, but be healthy: be it 130lbs, or 330lbs, the point is to be your personal best. Have you not seen a copy of Oprah’s magazine at the grocery store? PERSONAL BEST. It’s been a buzz word for like 5 years. Self confidence is good, but if your doctor is rolling her eyes because you’re too thin or morbidly obese, then consider a change. Don’t ruin your health because you’re too happy with the status quo.
That’s all I got.
1 And before you go there, there’s a difference between a blog that YOU have to look up and someone randomly oversharing on the street to a complete stranger. And if you have a problem with my foursquare updates, I won’t be offended if you unadd me from facebook, dear.
It’s that time of year again. Law school acceptance letters have gone out and the future victims students are trolling the student blogs.
My advice? Run.
If you’re not going to run, then consider these 5 tips:
Do not go to law school just because your humanities major did not give you any marketable job skills. That’s like signing up for the military because you won’t condescend to work retail as a B.A. The legal job market collapsed last year. If you were looking for riches and employment, then try Starbucks or business school…or the military. At least they’ll pay for school if you survive.
When considering schools outside of the top 10 (or maybe top 20) focus on the schools in the state/market you want to practice in. Your New Mexico JD isn’t as powerful in Maine, even if the New Mexico school is ranked slightly higher than Maine’s Bumble School of Law.
If you are choosing between a well-ranked school and a scholarship at a less prestigious school, ask whether the scholarship is contingent on your GPA or class rank. Most students at these schools will lose their scholarships because of the curve. And yes, your competition is as smart and motivated to keep their scholarship as you are.
Much of the prep during the summer before law school is a waste of time. Your time is best spent working, because your scholarship or loan money may not come in until classes start. Working out also won’t hurt, because law school is the land of coffee and pizza.
If you really want to know what law school is like then read law student blogs. An outline of my 1L fall semester is here, and an outline of 1L spring is here. There more blogs are linked on the left-hand column of dennis-jansen.com.
Again, I recommended that you run, so don’t batter me with nasty messages this fall about how I ruined your life because this blog convinced you that law school is all sunshine and lollipops. It is not.Run.
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