This is Beau Baez and today I continue my collaboration with Steve Schwartz
over at LSAT blog.
So last time he told me a little bit about the LSAT so today we're
reversing it he's going to be interviewing me and we're gonna be
talking about what you need to do to prepare for law school, what the first
year of law school is like, those basic questions as you're thinking about law
school and what you need.
So with that Steve take over.
Hi it's great to be chatting with you again.
I was really you know I really enjoyed our previous
conversation and I was hoping to share some of your advice with my audience
today, those who are looking to go to law school, those who are considering law
school. So I was I was hoping if you could just give us a general overview.
Let's say someone is in undergrad and they're thinking about law school.
They're pre-law, maybe they're political science major most likely but what
should they be thinking about in undergrad in terms of choosing their
classes, in terms of orienting themselves the right way to succeed in law school.
I've taught thousands of students and you know you start asking people what's your
major would you end up in college and of course the vast majority are liberal arts majors.
You get the occasional science guy or science woman but most
the time it's liberal arts. PolySci, English those sort of things.
I was speech communications. We all come from the liberal arts.
But what I have found, interestingly enough,
the students that that have had classes that mimic
the law school experience tend to have a slight advantage and I would say a
slightly but it's not a huge advantage so that tends to be the philosophy
classes of all things. Because they teach their classes just like we do in law school.
Law school we use the Socratic method, which is a question and answer approach.
So I call on, Mr. Schwartz please tell me about the facts in...
And I name a particular case and we go back and forth.
And the philosophy do that.
So they get to a higher level of of thinking than I think most other majors prepare you for.
So even if you're not a philosophy major I would take a couple of philosophy classes if you can.
Now you have to balance that.
You need to make sure you get top grades because when you look at law school
admissions it's based on LSAT and GPA, almost exclusively.
So don't take a philosophy class, and end up with a C or D.
Make sure you put the time and effort in it.
But I think if you take a few, more than just the intro class,
a couple of the upper-level classes, I think you're gonna start thinking a
little bit differently.
So that's a great idea.
It's kind of funny I've
actually seen that those who tend to do the best on the LSAT are typically
philosophy or physics majors. So both very challenging majors, tough classes,
maybe tough to do well. But if you can, then it could help develop some of those skills.
I'm wondering what about the summer before law school.
Let's say someone's finished senior year and they're looking ahead they want to get a head start.
What should they do?
The person who wants to get a head start needs to do that.
I'm on social media and I see a lot of bad
advice from current law students and people who are going to law school.
Here's the bad advice.
The bad advice:
hey just spend the summer, have fun, go to Tahiti, you know what whatever it is.
Travel around Europe, don't think about law school. I'll tell you
that's a mistake. Now I think you should take some time. Go spend some time with
the family, take a little bit of time off.
But law school, it's a different game.
What worked in college is not going to work in law school and so the sooner you
can start getting a law school mindset the more likely you're gonna get better grades.
Because once you're in law school the better jobs go to the top of the
class and the opportunities go to the top of the class. Being on law review,
being on moot court. So if you can leverage that, get a couple
months head start that's great. So how do you do that? So some people will
buy a couple books and there's some out there I don't want to recommend
any now they keep changing every few years. So my recommended list changes.
There are some, I think, great law school prep classes, courses out there.
I've looked around about four or five some of them are a little bit better than others
again I'm not going to name them. But here's I think what you look for.
When you're looking for a law school prep class, look for one that prepares you by
giving you the skills you need.
I think the ones that I think are weaker just
sort of entered to the material so you have some
professor from some great law school who teaches you constitutional or at least
an introduction to constitutional law or torts or contracts. That's almost worthless.
What you need is somebody who's going to teach you how do I brief
a case, how do I begin preparing for my final exams?
Those are the skills that are important. That's what's going to get you to the top of the class,
not knowing you know a little bit of torts or contracts or property law.
That makes perfect sense. So you're saying look to develop the skills rather
than just absorbing the content, the information.
And how would you recommend
that someone evaluate one of these law school prep courses to properly
determine whether the course is teaching them skills or information. Is there a way to tell?
The ones that are poor you look at you know the descriptions and they
often will give you like a little preview. And you can quickly see,
oh this course is just teaching me property, contracts. You know the content of the courses.
Which again is worthless. The other ones actually will tell you.
We teach you case briefing, and you'll actually see skills.
How to prepare for class. How to take notes. If you start seeing the how
questions rather than the what questions, you know you are finding the right kind of course.
That's excellent advice thanks for sharing that. I'm sure that my
audience will find it valuable. What about once they're in law school?
What about beginning first semester 1L. What's it going to be like for them?
What's law school like? What is actually covered? You mentioned some of
the topics a little bit but I'm sure a lot of people listening still don't know
exactly what is a tort?
So law schools in America are it's a very lockstep
curriculum across the board, in most law schools.
There's some small deviation but
generally you should expect in the first year to take the following classes: torts
contracts, Civil Procedure, property maybe Con Law, maybe criminal law.
More or less those are the the five or six courses.
In many schools they are
year-long courses, so you'll take Torts I, Torts II. And Torts, by the way, is just an
old Norman French word. Because remember the Normans
conquered England in 1066 and so we we're still using old Norman French and
modernly we would just say personal injury law.
So nownow what happens when somebody punches somebody else in the face, what happens
when there's a car accident, what happens if you've been defamed?
Those are all personal injuries.
So that's what I primarily teach in the first year.
Love teaching Torts. So that's the content, and legal writing.
There's always a legal writing class, which by the way, is probably the most important class you'll take.
It's a skills class. So most people think: well the professor's you know the
top professors are teaching towards contracts but where you're going to
learn how to succeed how to write is gonna be a legal writing and the reason
that's so important is because when I assess you when your professor assesses
you your final exam it's gonna be a written exam and it's gonna be unlike
anything you've seen before which means from day one you need to start thinking
you'll keep the end in mind the end is the final exam
what do I do from day one to prepare for that final exam so you're saying that
legal writing is actually one of the more important courses even though it's
not really emphasized as much when people think about law school in general
is that because maybe legal writing is what you actually practice no matter
what when you're a lawyer part of it is to it is how law schools treat legal
writing professors so many schools they're adjuncts they're almost treated
as second hand or second rate faculty so they tend to be a revolving door it's a
lot of work you know they're given a lot of work to do they have a lot of grading
a lot of reading a lot of and they get burnt out and and then generally they
put the doctrinal faculty towards contract so those professors on a
pedestal so the students see that I go oh okay this woman she's a full
professor with tenure so she must be more important and so you tend to view
their status as making the course more important and grab their important
courses their foundational courses but you're gonna get your grade is gonna be
dependent on how you write and it's that legal writing instructor that's gonna
help you move to the top of the class and then legal writing also impacts your
exam results of course it's all about the exam so can you share a little bit
about aside from legal writing what should students do to prepare for exams
especially 1L year fall semester, when they're being thrown from the frying pan
into the fire?
First of all, you need to understand what you did in college is
not going to work in law school. It's a different approach completely.
First the time commitment.
Some people are listening to us now were able to get away with 15-20 hours a week.
And then hang out at a frat, or hang out with the buddies, or go to movies.
No, that's not how it works.
Expect to spend 50 to 60 hours, a week.
That includes the time you spend in class but this is a full time job.
50 to 60 hours a week as a professional.
If you're not spending that kind of time you're unlikely going to be successful.
So step one recognizing the time constraints.
Second is once you understand the endgame,
it's that final exam, you have to
understand how am I being tested and how do I prepare for it?
So they're essay exams.
Starting two weeks before finals to prepare, not gonna work.
It has to be something you start from day one.
Outlining. So from day one you're gonna
prepare for class. After each class, within 24 hours, you need to take what
you learned in class and write a rule outline,
where you take the two, three,
four rules you learned in class that day and put them into an outline for each course.
So in torts I start off with the intentional torts.
You'll have a headline that says intentional torts, then you'll have the individual torts:
battery, false imprisonment, trespass, etc.
And you're gonna start filling that out.
And the reason I say within 24 hours because of the learning curve.
Within 48 hours you've lost almost everything you learned 48 hours earlier, so unless you
reinforce it within 24 hours you're gonna have to relearn it.
So it's a waste of time.
You don't have the extra time to relearn all the class three weeks before.
So step one is outlining a rule outline, second, you got to practice your writing.
There are exercises you can do to start doing mini IRAC.
And by IRAC, it's a standard way of organizing an essay exam.
"I" issue; "R" rule; "A" application; "C" conclusion.
And you need to start thinking that way, and that's the hard part.
That's what takes most students a semester
or two or three to master and if you don't master that skill you're not going
to succeed, you're not going to get better grades.
It's starting to learn to think in terms of IRAC
and doing exercises that get you into that mindset.
A skill. Once again this is something that students could even practice the
summer before 1L, correct?
Absolutely, yes! The sooner they start practicing it,
because it's not automatic. So I'll tell you my case. It took me three semesters.
I call it the aha moment. Everybody has this moment when they go ahh, that's what
they want why didn't they tell me. Well we were telling you but it just it's
because it's a different way of thinking. So in my third semester of law
school, all of a sudden: that's IRAC! That's what they want and my grades went
up a full letter grade in all my classes.
It had that kind of impact, just
understanding and it happens for different people at different times.
For some it happens in the first semester. Those are the people get the top grades.
So if you can start practicing in May, you know you're hoping that by December,
right, that you will have mastered the skill so that you can get one of those top grades,
which will get you on to law review and get you the good jobs that
we're all looking for.
That's really great to know. So this is a skill that
you can actually walk into law school day one already knowing how to do it and
I'm sure it makes it so much easier if you start that process earlier.
So the earlier you start, because it just takes time. You're training your brain and it's
not something you can pick up in a week or two or three.
It just takes time.
I understand that you offer your tutoring and you have a
course and you're gonna have more courses can you share a bit more about
what you what you do for law students and prospective law students?
So people tend to come to me, I mean I can help anybody at any point during their
law school career. But what I tend to do is get people right
around exam time that's what people started having that freak out moment and
I start working with them teaching them these skills that we're talking about
now because it's it's a learned skill and unfortunately many law schools,
professors don't teach students these skills, and usually it's because most
professors are judged by their peers and by the university by scholarship.
So that means they lock their doors, they work from home, because they have to write.
It's the whole publish or perish. So if they're not
writing they're not going to get tenure, they're not going to get promoted,
they're not for some professors they want to jump ship they want to go to
another law school so they've got to keep publishing, which means they don't
have time to teach students. So I take that time and and you know and it does
take time. So we go through exercises. If it's after exams they get a lot of
people after their finals so I'm dealing with a lot of students now at schools
all over the place. I'm dealing the students in the top 14 Harvard
Georgetown and then schools that are not as prestigious. And they
all have the same problem: how do I write a law school exam.
So I go through that with them if they've got their final exam we go through that.
Some students pick up the skill quickly and others need a little bit more help and
it just sort of depends where you are: what knowledge skills and abilities you
came to to law school with and how quickly you pick this up.
Because my goal is not to keep somebody dependent on my abilities.
I am happy when somebody
goes "ahh," I've got it, I don't need to work with another tutor, thank you so much
professor Baez. That's my day you have made my day when you have
developed that skill. So that's my goal in doing my tutoring is to get
people to become independent of needing my work.
Well it sounds like you offer a
great service and a great resource for anyone applying to law school and
planning what to do on that summer before one L. The biggest takeaway I
got from our conversation is that it's not too early to start developing those
skills even the summer before law school. You could save yourself so much trouble
if you just master those skills, like IRAC and mini IRAC before you even walk
in the fall semester. So thank you professor Baez.
Thank you I appreciate
our chat and look forward to collaborating with you on something in
the future take care of Steve. Same.