hey everyone welcome back to my channel another year of law school is just about
to start so I thought I would take this opportunity to answer one of the
questions that some of you have asked in my comments section namely what tools do
I use in law school and what do I bring with me for a typical day of class so I
thought I would do a what's in my bag law school edition as you can see I use
this ever Lane drawstring backpack it's kind of old at this point maybe 3 years
3 or 4 years old so they don't have this precise model I don't think anymore but
they have a very similar one it's just a regular coated canvas it's pretty big as
you can see it kind of looks like a face and it just has these two side pockets
and a padded laptop sleeve but really as far as the bag that people use you can
use pretty much anything you want some people use a very classic like JanSport
backpack some people use like a big tote bag or
purse which I don't really recommend because it does get hard on your
shoulders and back especially in that first quarter or semester when you have
a lot of books the things that I don't see people using are briefcases or like
rolling backpacks you probably were not going to use a rolling backpack anyway
but just in case you're wondering that's not really a thing at least at this
school so I actually don't carry that much with me for school everyday as
you'll see there are just a couple of major things that I absolutely have to
have with me so the first and absolutely most necessary thing is a laptop it
doesn't actually seem to matter exactly which laptop we use the vast majority of
the students here as far as I can tell have MacBooks but that's really just a
matter of personal preference I also know people who have PCs and really like
it there are even some people who use iPads with a little keyboard in class
but I would recommend having a more a more powerful laptop to use at home or
when you're doing assignments outside of class
but for note-taking an iPad is certainly okay as long as you're comfortable using
it I have the 2015 MacBook Pro it's a really big one it's a 15-inch you could
definitely have an 11 or 13 whatever you would like and as you can see it's just
really standard like that the only programs that I really use in law school
are Microsoft Word and Google Chrome basically everything you'll do it will
be through a web browser or if you're writing papers you'll use a word
processor which is just Microsoft Word I did use Microsoft OneNote first-quarter
to take notes and that worked pretty well but in the end I've just defaulted
to saving everything within a folder on my hard drive that was synced to Dropbox
so that way I automatically have a backup of everything and I don't
necessarily need internet or anything to access my files either but if anything
goes wrong with your computer especially that first semester or quarter you do
have a backup online so that's what I do for my computer obviously you also need
a charger with you at all times for my calendar I use this traveler's notebook
I bought this one in Los Angeles but I believe it's a Japanese company so it
comes with a leather cover and inside are these notebook inserts that you can
switch out as you please which is really convenient normally I use one notebook
for a quarters worth of bullet journaling for the day so I'll show you
well this is my summer one so it looks a little bit different but basically a
very short version would be like I just have the task and the day at the top and
then as I go I just check off whether I've completed the task if I need to
move the task to the next day I just use a little arrow mark and migrate it over
to the next day I do like writing my tasks down by hand because I find it
helps me remember them better but for my actual calendar I use Google Calendar
and do it online it is much easier that way I tried to do a full handwritten
journal including all of my engagements for the day but it just didn't work
because there are so many things going on in law school and you need to be able
to modify or add notes or maybe even invite people so having an online
platform it's just that much easier and you'll also be able to add events
directly from your email if you're using like iCal or Google Calendar but I find
that this dual system works really really well on the back notebook I keep
just for like personal jottings or like longer-term notes because I'll leave
this one in this setup for the whole year and then just switch out the first
one as the quarters go by and I also have a little pocket insert or just to
keep like mementos or little notes that I need anything like that it's a really
convenient system and I really really like this journal it's called the
travelers notebook by travelers company Japan you can get it on Amazon I believe
I'll try to find a link and leave it in the description box or you can get it at
you know if there's like a specialty stationery store in your town they might
have that as well really for the planner you should just try a couple of things
out within the first couple of weeks and see what fits your needs best
I know people who use a moleskin I know people who put their tasks within their
Google Calendar as well personally I don't really like that because it can be
kind of hard there isn't a checklist function for example and I like having
that feeling of writing it but so that my planner carry my wallet a water
bottle I always have a coffee thermos this one is by zojirushi and it's really
nice because it keeps things actually hot for over 12 hours like if you put
hot coffee in here it will be almost too hot to drink for the first five hours
this is really nice because even though I live super close to campus I don't
like going home during the day if I can help it and usually in the library or in
another study spot next I have my assortment of writing utensils my
favorite pens are from Muji they make these really nice and very affordable
pens that come in sort of thinner smaller points I guess so this one is
0.5 but they also have 0.38 and I think 0.25 now that's not that's a little bit
too thin for everyday writing like in your planner because you might actually
cut the paper but in your case book when you're writing in the margins I find
that having a super thin pen with you actually makes it a lot easier to fit a
lot into the margin I'm going to be making a video on the best way to sort
of take notes and stuff but for those of you who will find that you like making
notes within the actual case book itself for class you might want to invest or
just get one of these I also have just whatever number of random regular pens
and then I have my highlighters so I use six colors for case briefing and it's
color coded which I will explain in the note making video but this pink one is a
huge one because that is the one I use the most and it runs out the fastest
of course I have my case book i don't read my case book online and i actually
don't really recommend it depending on your learning style i mean some of you
might like it more but i find that the amount of reading you have to do within
your case book especially the first year means that if you're doing it all online
you will probably give yourself greater eyestrain and it's also harder to make
meaningful notes online i know there are these studies that show that when you
handwrite things you tend to retain them better or process them more efficiently
that sort of thing so for example in the spring I carried around this evidence
case book a lot this is actually the smallest case book I've ever had it's
very thin but as you can see I would mark it up and then put little notes
near like the problems that were in it or near things that I wanted to remember
evidence is the only class so far I've had where the case book itself has had
problems within it to solve most of the time it's just cases and then analysis
of the cases so that's it for the major things in my bag everything else is just
small things that I need to get through the day also for class we use these
clickers sometimes the professor will put like a hypothetical question on the
board and then you can choose what outcome you think is most likely based
on the case while you thread and your clicker will register that and you'll
see you know how the class as a whole thinks about an issue which is pretty
interesting perhaps an aspirin I have hand lotion
some mints some eyedrops my earplugs some lip balm right now I really like
this glossy a coconut balm dot com for the summer and some hairpins
so those are just the little things that I have with me all of the time in case I
need them but as you can see it's actually a pretty lightweight setup
other than your computer your planner and the book for class we don't need
that much more everything else is just up to you during the fall I definitely
would carry many more books and they would be twice or maybe three times as
thick as this evidence case book that I just showed you guys but most law
schools I think will have a locker setup so here at Stanford we have lockers
assigned to us just like in high school and you can drop stuff off there during
the day if you don't want to carry your book back and forth or carry it with you
all day so that is basically what is in my bag for law school if you guys have
any more questions about it please let me know in the comments if you haven't
subscribed yet please do so now and let me know what other kinds of videos you'd
like to see or what other topics you'd like me to potentially cover in these
law school videos thank you bye