You just finished your first semester of law school and let me guess, grades
did not go exactly the way you planned.
Don't worry if that's you.
I've been there too.
And in this video we're gonna walk through the five step audit process to go
through your own law school study strategy and identify where those gaps are.
So you can bring your law school grades to the next level and be sure
to stick around till the end because I'm gonna be sharing with you guys my
first semester law school grades and how I did a 180 that second semester.
And how you can too.
So if you guys are excited to dive in, smash that like button and let's go.
Step one is to go and talk to your professors about your final exams.
And I know that the last thing in the world you wanna do when you don't
get a grade you're excited about is go and talk to your professors.
But trust me, this can be an absolutely valuable exercise.
And so a couple of things to keep in mind as we are going into these
professor meetings, we are looking for trends in our final exams,
meaning things that are showing.
In multiple exams that we created across professors and across subject matter.
And so some of the things to look out for are issues that you
missed or misallocated time on the accuracy of your rule statements,
arguments that you did or didn't make, and the style of your writing.
So if you are seeing that your professors are.
Saying similar things across the different final exams, then that's
a really good indication that those are the things that you can work on.
Now, I want to point out that every grade that you get in a law school course is
one data point given to you by one human.
And this is really important to keep in mind because every professor has different
preferences, have has different tweaks and idiosyncrasies and things that they value.
So just because one professor says that they like it, an exam written a certain.
They like to see a certain thing doesn't necessarily mean that another
professor will, which is why we don't wanna take every single thing that they
say to heart and apply it across the board, but we're looking for trends.
Step number two is to look at our class preparation.
And the reason that we wanna take a magnifying class to this is that
most first semester law students, myself included, over-allocate
time on the pre-class work out of a fear of cold calls, out of a fear
of looking dumb in front of our professors and other classmates.
And so we really wanna take a.
See how much time are we spending reading our cases?
How many pages of notes are we taking in our case briefs, and how
many hours are we spending preparing before we actually walk into class?
Because most of the time we wanna be able to limit this and confine this and be
more intentional about how we're spending that time so that we can actually open up
steps on the backend and open up time for post-class work, which is way more value.
Then pre-class work.
So definitely take a look and ask yourself, do I really need
to read every line of every case?
Can I use something like Quimby or a two three L outline to get a
sense for the case before I read it?
And can I stomach fumbling through a cold call and showing up to
class c plus prepared, knowing that I'm going to take amazing class
notes to fill in the gaps in know.
The third step we wanna audit is our outlining process.
Now, outlining at its core is a creation step that helps us to
organize and condense the information that we're reading in cases and the
notes that we're taking in class.
If you wanna step by step on what outlining looks like, definitely
check out this video over here.
But essentially, outlining is designed to help us internalize the material.
We wanna take a look at how welded outlining actually
help us do that last semester.
So a few things to ask yourself as you are thinking through the audit of this step.
Number one, did the process of outlining actually work for me?
Did it help me process and internalize the information?
If it did, great, if it didn't.
Are there things that I can tweak or layer in, such as flow charts or.
The second thing that we wanna take a look at is, did I build out my
outlines from scratch or did I use a tool or three L outline as a base?
Whichever one you used, if it worked for you, great.
If it didn't, are you open to testing those with different
courses this semester?
And the third thing to take a look at is, did I use supplements to help me build out
my outlines and understand the material?
If you did and it worked for you, great.
If you didn't, are you open to trying out supplements for
certain courses this semester?
The fourth step to audit is your final exam writing strategy.
And this one is tough because there are a lot of components that go into a really
strong final exam writing strategy.
But the things that we wanna take a look at and reflect on are, one, did I feel
comfortable with the foundational Iraq structure, meaning issue rule analysis.
If so, did I have the time to build out practice problems so that I
could further up level my final exam?
Writing skills in terms of being able to spot issues, in terms of building
out arguments and counter arguments and in terms of time management strategy.
And then the third one is, did I have a good sense for what my professor
was looking for in the final exam?
Answer?
And this last one is tough because a lot of professors are not forth.
With this kind of information, but going forward, we still
wanna try to glean what we can.
And so that includes, of course, looking at past exams with model answers.
It also includes anything your professor's willing to say in class,
and it also requires trips to office hours to ask your professor point
blank, what is it that sets a exams apart in their class from the rest?
The last audit step that we wanna take a look at is time.
And this, I would argue, is the most important step because in law school
time is your most valuable resource.
Everything is coming at you guys so fast and there's so much on your plate
that we wanna be really intentional about how we're using our time.
So there are a few things to take a look at that I encourage you guys to reflect.
From last semester, and the first one is what was the allocation between
law school and everything else?
And so when we're talking about everything else, we're looking at time going out
with friends, we're looking at childcare responsibilities, looking at time spent
with a partner or family and time working if you're a part-time evening student.
And are there any tweaks, are there any changes?
How do you want to change, if at all?
That allocation between time spent on law, school stuff,
and time spent on everything.
The second time allocation that I encourage you guys to take a
look at is how did you divide your time last semester between
pre-class work and post-class work?
And the reason that we wanna take a look at this is that post-class
work is way more powerful.
And I know we talked about this earlier, but pre-class work is what we tend to
fall into, especially at the beginning when we're nervous, when we don't know
what to expect and we, when we wanna make.
that we are impressing people in class, even though that's not really
what moves the needle forward.
And so when we're looking at pre-class work, we're talking about
how long did we spend reading cases?
How long were our case briefs, and how much time did we spend quote unquote
preparing for class versus how much time did we spend on post-class work?
So making progress on our outlines, taking practice problems, creating
short sheets, and we wanna make sure that we're intentionally prioritizing
post-class work and not spending all our.
On pre-class work.
The third time allocation piece to be aware of and think through is how are
you going to shift and adapt to the new demands of the second semester?
Because by and large, across the board, most US law schools
will add more to your plate.
So most law schools will add another course to your schedule under the
rationale that now you know how to do law school and you should be
able to handle a larger course load.
Most law schools, if not all law schools, will also require you now in legal
research, in writing to draft an appellate brief, which is a lot more work and a lot
more labor intensive than the legal memo that you created that first semester.
Most law schools will also add on an element of oral arguments at
the end of the semester that you'll be expected to complete as well.
And the third piece here is that you will also be looking for your one L summer job,
and so that can be really time consuming in terms of applying and interview.
Especially if you don't knock it out right away.
And so when we are looking at these different pieces of our time management
strategy, it's really important to take a step back and look at, well, what do
we want our month to month plan to be?
What do we want our week to week plan to be?
And what do we want our day-to-day plan to be?
Now for the part you've been waiting for.
If you guys have made it to this point in the video, I'm happy to share with you
guys my one L grades from the first year of law school, because that first semester
didn't go as planned for me either.
So here are my grades from the first semester of one L year, and as you can
see, I got a 3, 4 0 6, which objectively was not bad because our top 10%.
Was a 3, 4, 8, 7, and so I was probably somewhere in the
top 12, top 13% of the class.
Now, that was objectively really good, but as you can see here, I also got three Bs
for the first time in my life and I didn't meet my personal goal of getting into the
top 10%, which is what I was shooting for.
And so what I did between the first semester and the second semester was go
through an audit of my own study strategy.
What was I doing that was taking up way too much?
, where could I streamline and what were the pieces that I could work
in that I just didn't know how to do or I didn't even know existed?
And so when I got my grades back second semester, as you can
see here, it was a total 180.
I think I got something like a 3.8 gpa, which skyrocketed me
into the top 10% of the class.
And I just.
So much more confident in the study strategy that I was applying.
And the cool thing was that once I got this study strategy down,
it wasn't just for the second semester of one L year, I was able
to rinse and repeat it for the rest.
Of law school.
And so after that first year, I never got below an A or a minus in any class.
I graduated in the top 1% of my class and I was able to go out and land my dream
jobs of a federal judicial clerkship and a big law associateship in New York City.
And so if you guys are heading into your second semester of law school and really
looking to kick it up, Then I would love to invite you into my program one L
next, one L Next is designed for second semester, one L's, who are looking to
create a really rock solid study strategy so that you can fill in the gaps of
what you've been doing so far and really take your grades to the next level.
So I'll be sure to include the link in the description below this video.
And with that, guys, I hope this was helpful and I hope to see
you guys inside the program soon.