Everything You Wanted to Know About Law School Finals But Were Afraid to Ask
This is pretty much an open thread to the 1Ls. You guys have finals and job searches coming up fast. So any questions you may have, fire away here. My own thoughts are short and simple.
Job Search: Use mail merge. If you don't know what it is, learn. The market is picking up, so if you want to apply to firms, you can if you are from a diverse background, have technical knowledge, have some other work experience that firms value (econ, ibanking, etc.), or academically you're super bad ass. Apply early to firms and to judicial externships. I know that finals are close, but take the day off and work on your job situation and get it over with. You will thank me later.
Exams: Pricks. I still think you guys are spoiled for not having endured examsoft or 10 month waiting period for grades. After two and a half years, I still don't know what "outlining" means. Do you take EVERY single bit of information regarding the course from notes, book, commercial outlines, law review articles, your own informal sessions with the prof after class, etc. and put them into a single document? Or do you try to distill what you've learned into a series of concise rules that you can apply to facts? Why is this called an outline? Haven't the people who upload their stuff to Boalt.org ever heard of proper outlining using Roman numerals? Anyway, during my first year I tended to keep up with the reading, so I remembered the cases. I used an outline with the latter view in mind. It was mostly to quickly jog my memory and remind me of any issues I may have missed. Which brings us to exams. Do some practice exams. That first law school exam is definitely an experience. They get a lot easier as you go on, but practice issue spotting and analyzing. Remember, getting a particular answer to a question is not where you get points, the points come when you thoroughly explain your reasoning. Don't be shy to grab those AmJur outlines on AmJur day.
Job Search: Use mail merge. If you don't know what it is, learn. The market is picking up, so if you want to apply to firms, you can if you are from a diverse background, have technical knowledge, have some other work experience that firms value (econ, ibanking, etc.), or academically you're super bad ass. Apply early to firms and to judicial externships. I know that finals are close, but take the day off and work on your job situation and get it over with. You will thank me later.
Exams: Pricks. I still think you guys are spoiled for not having endured examsoft or 10 month waiting period for grades. After two and a half years, I still don't know what "outlining" means. Do you take EVERY single bit of information regarding the course from notes, book, commercial outlines, law review articles, your own informal sessions with the prof after class, etc. and put them into a single document? Or do you try to distill what you've learned into a series of concise rules that you can apply to facts? Why is this called an outline? Haven't the people who upload their stuff to Boalt.org ever heard of proper outlining using Roman numerals? Anyway, during my first year I tended to keep up with the reading, so I remembered the cases. I used an outline with the latter view in mind. It was mostly to quickly jog my memory and remind me of any issues I may have missed. Which brings us to exams. Do some practice exams. That first law school exam is definitely an experience. They get a lot easier as you go on, but practice issue spotting and analyzing. Remember, getting a particular answer to a question is not where you get points, the points come when you thoroughly explain your reasoning. Don't be shy to grab those AmJur outlines on AmJur day.
Labels: 0L/1L Advice, Classes/Professors, Grades And Other Neurotic Bullshit, Law School
posted by Armen Adzhemyan at 2:28 AM
42 Comments:
I have to concur in part and dissent in part from Armen. The job search will take more than one day even with serious mail merge skills. Maybe you could hire a 3L to do it for you in a single day, but there's too much ignorance/uncertainty/hype/misinformation for a 1L to do it.
But the point about having special experience in an industry is right on. I think you need something special to work on jobs without grades. If you don't have a hook for your job search, you won't get a blink as a 1L without grades. So get the grades.
But the best advice is to just chill out. Everyone gets a job around here. It all works out. Grades help but jobs happen without them around here. Do something interesting your 1L summer. And finding something interesting in law will almost certainly take more than a 1 day search.
For the grades, just go to Am Jur day and study from the outlines. Those outlines are the reason we all pass.
OT, but can an upperclassperson answer whether 1Ls are locked into their assigned electives for spring? I got a real dud and am looking to jettison it.
Confused 1L here..I am a straight-through, so I am simultaneously supposed to chill out but also worry about getting good grades because I have nothing else to offer anyone?
Note: I wasn't worried at all about jobs or grades til I read this stuff. I really do appreciate the advice on this board, but I don't know what to take from it because everyone seems to have a completely different opinion on jobs and grades.
Carl and I only speak for 1L summer jobs. If you want to work for a firm your first summer, it is difficult no matter what. It is especially difficult if you are a straight through without any particularly useful experience to firms...unless you kick ass in your classes or did something amazing as an undergrad. Does that make sense? I really don't understand what's confusing? Jobs = any job. Firm job = job with a firm.
Same 1L here...appreciate the clarification. I was confused because of this: "If you don't have a hook for your job search, you won't get a blink as a 1L without grades. So get the grades.
But the best advice is to just chill out. Everyone gets a job around here. "
I didn't realize, when doing a quick reading of that, that he was only referring to firm jobs in the first part. Makes sense now. Again, thanks!
Those in Frickey's Legislation and Menell's IP...we're looking at you.
Don't worry, most of us don't do that...but please don't judge us by the 1% who do. They are not representative of the rest of us who are too busy checking the internet to raise our hands.
4:26 if you get an instructor's permission you're golden. You might get a roll of the eyes from the folks in the registrar's office, but it's no big deal. Better that than a semester stuck in a class you can't stand.
by the same token, 4:26, give it a chance before you drop the class - you might be pleasantly surprised. what i have learned here is that the subject matter is often not nearly as determinative as is the quality of the professor, in terms of my experience of the class. you can get a "dud" class and love it because the professor loves the material and transmits his/ her enthusiasm to you, or you can take a class that you're supposed to love because it's your field or whatever, and you hate it because the prof sucks the life out of it. who knows, it might take you in an unexpected and great direction, professionally!
please explain the Frickey/Menell "we're looking at you" remark thanks
Please do not kill any of my jokes by requiring explanations.
does anyone know why it's so freakin cold in the building?
Following the recent low pressure system, we have colder unstable air that is largely the result of the northern jet stream dipping down to California. As a result, there's snow in Seattle, cold air in Berkeley, and cold air mixed with asbestos and lead in Boalt Hall. And to think, student groups are at each other's throats about office space.
1L here. How surprised did/do you find yourself to be with exam grades? Those of you who did well, were you like, ya, duh, I worked hard and I rocked? or were you like "omg, i actually *did* learn something?". those of you who did less well - did the classes you did less well in sort of make sense given your like/dislike for the material and/or how much you focused on it during studying?
i'm particularly interested in feedback re: variations from class to class. reason i ask is that i have one class i CANNOT STAND and i'm debating whether to even spend any significant time on it (maybe just get a bare P) and focus on the other two. good strategy? or does one need to hedge one's bets?
10:32:
The Legislation / Intro to IP combo is only for gunners who share last names with an even prime number of 9th Circuit Judges and an even prime number of faculty members (not exclusive).
I heard that Anonymous. And apparently, I pack heat.
9:10 am - I would study for all the classes, even the ones you can't stand. My experience has been that if I don't have a clue what is going on in a class, I'm not alone and that studying for it might actually pay off. I have been surprised by most of the grades I have gotten here (both good and bad). I think many profs use a magic 8 ball or a dart board to grade exams (or at least my exams). Bottom line is that you just never know - unless of course you are one of the those people who always gets HHs or always gets Ps. You certainly can "punt" a class if you feel like it (that's one of the really nice things about our grading system). But I wouldn't punt just because you don't think you have a shot at an honors grade.
Just how bad do you have to do to sub-P?
My experience with Boalt grades is that they tend to be stable from semester to semester in terms of the number of each grade, but the distribution by class doesn't seem to be correlated to either interest in the subject matter or level of studying. My theory is that law school test-taking success depends more on inherent skill at such tests than it does on complete and thorough knowledge of the material. That being said, if you don't know anything, you probably won't do well. But my theory (based only on my own experience and rationalization for not studying too much) is that once you meet a certain threshold of understanding, your grade won't really be improved by more studying. So, based on that theory, the best approach is to study for all classes in hopes of reaching the "knowledge threshold" for each class, thereby increasing your chances of getting more good grades.
I totally agee with 5:55.
No body sub-P's first semester (pretty sure). And it's usually only new faculty and visiting profs that give'em out.
Good thread. 1L here. I'm not a slacker and will do my due diligence w/ the courses, but hypothetically speaking, what are the real consequences of getting all "P's?" And, more importantly, if I get all "P's" but feel like I prepared for the substantive material, what are some tips in terms of study habits/writing/exam taking to go into next semster? And, is it bad that I view this first semester as a "breaking in" period rather than a make or break scenario? Seriously, I'm soooo over the 1L first semester (peer) pressure.
2 & 3L's: sorry for all the neurotic 1L's invading your blog.
Thanks.
I'm a 1L who skips a fair amount of classes, doesn't do involved assignments (I do read though), and hasn't outlined yet. Fucked? Or can I turn it around?
3:59, it's so hard to sub-P a class your first semester 1L year it's impossible. The computer system literally doesn't recognize first semester 1L sub-Ps and will give a P. That said, even once you pass that semester, I'd think it's pretty hard to sub-P as long as you put some kind of effort into your final.
10:33, 10:40
Remember this, your 1L law school grades don't measure your performance in law school. They measure your worth as a person. You're not really going to be able to improve that in 1-2 weeks, so don't sweat it.
Gosh 2:04 PM, I don't think that kind of sarcasm is really what the 1Ls need to hear right now. In the words of my totally awesome civ pro professor Linda Krieger, "you are all going to be fine!"
ya dude, i thought he was serious.
3L here. I'm with all the other commenters on the fact that no one should be freaked out about grades. It will all be fine. You'll get a job if you have all Ps (but it will probably be a little harder than if you can throw some Hs in). But there is a reason to try for good grades that has nothing to do with jobs or even competency--no matter what job/profession you end up in, you will find yourself in a position where your professional success is affected by your ability to discern and meet (or exceed) someone's (your employer, a judge, your client..) expectations. As I explain below, that's what I think exam taking is all about--meeting someone's expectations. But this take on exam-taking changes the emphasis ...preparing for and taking exams becomes a skill to develop.
That said, here's my 2 cents on grades. It's very difficult for any exam to measure your comprehension--that's true in many subjects, not just law. Sure, if you don't know what terms mean or what the rules are, you're going to run into problems (see "threshold" issue in others' posts). But since most Boalt students are conscientious and interested, the differences in grades among the top 75% of a class can't come from *that* distinction. For the top 75%, grades are determined by your ability to match a professor's expected answer. So if you have a professor with both clear (and reasonable) expectations, your task in preparing for the exam is easiest because you can minimize wasted time. If you have a professor with unclear expectations, preparing may be a lot of wasted time--you may be preparing for something the prof cares nothing about!
Putting that into practice?? In my experience, putting time into preparing for a wickely hard class taught by a professor with very clear expectations pays off. And *successfully* preparing for an "easy" class (not a lot of reading, not a lot of rules, not a lot of content) when the prof has unclear expectations can be extremely difficult and unrewarding--the unclear expectations and the easy material combine to make the exam an equalizer across students rather than something that separates the prepared students from the unprepared students. In other words, it's not a good sign when you walk out of an exam and *everyone* says that it was easy and straight-forward ... how in hell can the prof distinguish among a bunch of identical answers? It ends up that randomness must play a huge part.
BTW, a lot of this also works for choosing classes. Your first rule, of course, should be to take classes you're interested in. But a second consideration should be how clear the prof's expectations are--there's no reason to make your life difficult by trying to guess what is inside of some crazy person's head so that you can present that on an exam.
Good luck everyone!
6:23 reflects the lunacy of law students. relax. go to the gym. smoke a bowl. You're at Berkeley. Celebrate. You can get straight P's all the way to commencement and are still more likely than not going to be making three times the average annual household income in this country.
If your only goal in life is to make three times the average annual household income in this country, then by all means...follow 6:38's advice exclusively. I was assuming that an occasional 1L might have other goals. For example, no one ever becomes a law professor by getting staight Ps at Boalt. Yep, I said ever. So there might be occasional reasons to depart from 6:38's advice. I was only trying to help, as asked. And I was hoping to alleviate stress/worry/concern by pointing out cases where effort might actually pay off. Yours truly, 6:23.
1L who hears ya here, 6:23 - i find some of the "grades dont matter" talk disconcerting advice to give to a room full of people who heretofore prided themselves on their grades . . .
3L
I wasn't suprised by any grade I got, except the one when I answered the wrong question (advice: read the exam), and I've had a range of grades. When I didn't get the HH (pretty often) I always knew what I should have done, and I almost always could have told you when I walked out of the exam. I've heard lots of people say exactly the opposite of this, but I think it has to do with experience.
If you understand what is actually expected of you and how law school exams work, it's a lot easier to know what you need to do (no suprise). Doing it still takes a lot of time and work, and it takes a lot more if you know nothing about the area and aren't interested in it. A lot of times it wasn't worth it to me to work that hard. Some people get more bang for each hour of studying, but there's no one who is consistently getting HH's who doesn't work really hard. Anyone who is working their ass off and gets all P's every semester (not just the first one) is in the wrong field, but I don't think that very many people here are like that.
If you aren't about one of the top firms or a Supreme Court clerkship, then you're better off deciding what you want and doing the things outside of class that will get you there. For most people, that is a much better use of limited time than more studying. For PI/PS types, it's almost always a better use of your time.
1L's: don't try to do everything or you'll make yourself crazy. Even if you're goal is to be a law prof. and grades matter for you (and most of you know this ain't you, so admit it early and make your lives better, eh?), decide what you need and do it. Don't mess around with things that WOULD help your career IF you were going to do something you know you won't do. Trying to do it all just in case you change your mind is not smart. Not in law school.
2L here. I'll second the comments about grades not mattering for 2L law firm jobs. I had very good grades but somehow ended up with essentially the same number and quality of offers than many of my friends who had substantially worse grades.
As far as 1L jobs: don't worry about them until after finals, but don't wait too long either. I applied in early February and many employers had already completed summer hiring.
Hey, sorry for changing the subject, but I think someone on this blog should mention how the Boalt admin is quietly implementing a plan to permanently transfer student journals from the 3rd, 4th, and 5th floors of Simon to some building on Bancroft. The reason is to make room for faculty offices. Expanding the faculty is important, but at what cost? And, even if the cost is worth it, should there not be frank, open, well-publicized discussion among the broader Boalt student community regarding the dramatic change that the building committee is swiftly trying to achieve with the least possible student resistance?
The tenor of student journals -- which will soon be extracted and isolated from Boalt central -- could dramatically change.
The admin seems to have decided to spring the news on student groups right before exams in an effort to reduce student opposition.
Word should get out about this big change, and people should be talking about it. I mean, extracurics are REALLY important at Boalt. That's one of the reasons why we have such an imprecise grading system. We're all getting P's because we do more interesting things with our law school experiences (clinics, journals, etc.). Should the admin be surgically extracting the vital organs of student life at Boalt and dumping them somewhere off of Telegraph?
Edley should issue a statement about this. Faculty on the building committee who designed this edict should be publicly justifying their call if they wish it to garner legitimacy in the eyes of students.
11:38 PM - Wow. I didn't know this was happening. I've been stressing about other things. Does anyone know the latest on this plan to kick student groups out of Simon Hall? Which faculty or admin are pushing for this?
I know people who work very hard, pull nearly straight P's every semester, are in the exact right field, and are going to be brilliant lawyers.
Be grateful not condescending.
2L
To respond to 1L way above, forgetting about one class to concentrate on your others is an excellent study strategy.
Also, I have paid very close attention to job-grade correlations and it seems totally random to me. I know people with straight P's and excellent personalities who both did and did not get jobs (yes, it's true, some people can't get a job through OCIP). I also know people with good grades and good personalities who didn't get more than 1 or 2 offers. I don't know what to make of it. Also, there seems to be a disproportionate # of HH commenters on here, so 1L's, don't be fooled and don't feel bad if you don't get any HH's. I've never gotten one and I know lots of other people who have never gotten one and for the most part we did fine on the job front.
Do it like me! Expect straight-Ps first semester and you have the opportunity to be pleasantly surprised!
I could be totally wrong, but I think first semester grades are basically dependent upon how good of a test-taker you are (for in class exams). Because everyone is in the same boat, studies about the same, and the margins are determined by test-taking skills.
In response to the person who said PI/PS folks don't need to worry about grades, I think this is pretty inaccurate. You need good grades to get a Skadden fellowship-- as good of grades as to get a job at Skadden. Skadden particularly smiles on federal court clerks, and those jobs don't come to folks without at least a scattering of H and HH grades. EJW isn't as competitive, grades-wise, but still looks at grades. Lots of the best PI/PS orgs want to see transcripts. BUT the kicker is that all of these groupds want to see commitment to their issues as well. So don't settle for straight Ps if you want to get a fellowship.
I studied so hard as a 1L two years ago. Now I haven't opened my books. I hope I pass. Anyone out there think I can learn enough in the next 17 days to pass 3 exams?
7:42, you may be right about getting a Skadden but I don't think grades are such a big deal for some federal clerkships. Every year Boalt students get good clerkships with federal judges despite having just a few (or zero) Hs their 1L year. It totally depends on the judge and most are grade whores but some are not. For example, a judge may pull every file where the student is top 10%, at a local law school or at a top national law school like Boalt, and then read each application. For such a judge working at EBCLC and being president of a progressive student organization may take you much further than Skadden-level grades, at least as a Boalt student.
Late comment here, but maybe contrarian enough to be useful, and here it is:
It's actually more *productive* to worry about grades next semester or during your 2L year. By then, you'll have a decent idea about where you fit in the mix, as well as your career ambitions, and can ratchet your work level up or down accordingly. Right now, you have no clue how you're going to do, so why stress? To paraphrase our great president, "This isn't your first rodeo." You all come from college with a reasonable talent for working and a reasonable talent for taking tests. Continue on with that and see how you do. Maybe you'll get all Ps and can be relieved at being able to take it easy for the next 2.5 years since, hey, what's a guy/girl to do? Maybe you'll get all HHs and can think about some more interesting career possibilities. Either way, the grades will come as a shock, and there's no predicting as a first-semester 1L, so don't worry about it now. Worry about it afterwards.
Incidentally, tests don't measure your knowledge of the law. But they also don't measure "nothing" as some have suggested. They measure your ability to write well under pressure. Simple as that. Everyone knows a reasonable amount of law in a given class, but the people who get HHs are the ones who can make the same point in 10 words that takes most people 15. So take some practice tests in the next few days here and "train" yourself to answer a law school exam Q.
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