- Law school is bull (beep).
(plucky string music)
Hey, Legal Eagles, D. James Stone here
teaching you how to think like a lawyer
so you can crush law school.
Now law school isn't really bull (beep),
but there is one part of it that is a total bait and switch
that you might not know if you're heading
to law school for the first time
and you might not even really realize that
if you're halfway through it,
and if there's one thing I want you
to remember about law school, it's this,
only the final matters.
There's so much crap in law school
that makes difference for your final grades.
So don't get bogged down in things
that just don't translate into grades
at the end of the semester, and that's things like,
case briefs, cold calls in class,
and sometimes study groups.
For most law school classes the only thing
that effects your grade at the end of the semester,
is your final exam.
For most classes, and sure there are some
exceptions to this rule, the midterm doesn't count,
class participation doesn't count,
going to office hours with a professor doesn't count,
doing killer case briefs doesn't count,
it just doesn't matter and the only thing that does
is your final exam at the end of the semester,
and as a result, that can wreak havoc
on what law students do.
Law students tend to be super A type personalities,
who are used to having weigh points throughout the semester.
Tasks that will result in a grade
to know if they're on track.
They'll have essays, they'll have book reports,
they'll have midterms, all of these things result
in getting grades along the way
and it seems like that linear progression
results in a good grade at the end of the semester,
but in law school, they flip that on it's head.
The only thing that matters is the final.
So the most important thing that you can do in law school,
is focus on the things that help on the final,
and those are things like practice exams,
learning the strategies for an issue spotting exam,
and by the way you can get our checklist
for final exams in the links below.
There's so much stuff during the semester
that seems incredibly important, reading every single case,
front to back, multiple times, doing case briefs,
and law students tend to be programmed
into thinking that this linear progression of things
is actually helping them to achieve their end goal,
but in law school that is simply not the case,
there is just so much stuff that you can do,
and everyone has the exact same amount of time.
So the war is won and lost on being able to focus on
exactly the things that actually do help.
If you're faced with a task during law school,
the question you should ask yourself is,
will this help me on the final exam?
If it doesn't, you should consider replacing it
with something that will help on the final exam.
Those are things like practice exams.
Practice exams are one of the best things
that you can possibly do to learn how to ace
an issue spotting exam at the end of the semester.
It's things like learning the strategies
for writing an issue spotting exam.
I bet that most people go into law school
without any idea of the strategies
that will actually help them write a law specific essay.
Here's a newsflash, all of those essays
that you wrote in English class,
or for other classes in college and undergrad,
those won't translate into writing
a law school specific issue spotting exam.
So those are just a handful of things
that you can do.
There's a quote that I love, by the Greek poet, Archilochus.
It says, "We don't rise to the level of our expectations,
"we fall to the level of our training."
And so many people go into law school
thinking what got them here will get them there,
and that's just not the case.
Law school is a different animal
and it's too easy to get bogged down
with things that take up so much time,
but have zero return on investment.
And believe me, I'm no different.
When I was 1L and about halfway through my semester,
I was preparing for being cold call.
The next day the professor said that I was the one
that was going to be on the hot seat,
and I was gonna be answering the questions.
So I prepared like crazy,
I read until three o'clock in the morning
and it occurred to me at about three o'clock in the morning
that all of this information that I was studying,
this minute detail, this minutiae
was not going to help me on the final exam.
I was terrified of being called on in class
by the professor and looking like a fool
in front of my classmates, but the truth is,
I had read a couple of issue spotting essays,
and I knew that they just don't
require you to know that kind of detail.
They require analysis and application,
and learning that detail for class
wasn't going to help me learn how to analyze things
like and actual attorney.
So that's when I learned that I needed to focus
on learning those skills instead of focusing
on the minutiae of things in class.
So I got through that day on the hot seat,
and it was fine, the professor was a jerk,
and I didn't especially enjoy it, but I ignored it.
I knew that, that temporary stress was
going to give way to better grades on the final exam,
because that was the thing that I was going to focus on,
and you can do the same thing.
It's a total mindset shift.
You can make your life easier and gt better grades
at the same time by studying smarter and not harder,
and focusing on the most important thing to know
about law school, and that's only the final matters.
So that is the one thing that I would impart
to new law students out there.
IF you wanna know more, and if you like this video,
please check out this playlist of videos
that are guaranteed to help you crush law school.
So click on the playlist, and I'll see you I the next video.