Tag Archives: grades

April 23, 2020 · 7:24 pm

Planning the Day Before a Final Exam

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio on Pexels.com

Some law students have already started final exams, and others will be starting soon. I thought today would be a good time to talk about some dos and don’ts for the day before a final exam.

Let’s start by being honest. There’s no way to study for an entire course in a single day, although many law students try. And our “don’t” list really relates to that realization.

So don’t try to study your entire course outline, cover to cover on the last day. You shouldn’t be studying things you already know at this point, and this approach assumes everything is equal. Additionally, students tend to focus so much attention on the early part of the outline that they run out of time before they get to the end, or at least lose focus. For these reasons, a “let’s do it all” approach rarely is helpful.

Instead, do start the day by identifying your high priority topics for study. How can you do this? Start by creating a checklist for all of the issues you’ve covered in the course, following the organization of your outline. (Have questions about how to create this checklist? I’ve written more about it here.) At the beginning of your studies for the day, go through that checklist ranking everything on a 3-point scale. Write a “1” next to each issue that you feel comfortable with – in other words, you if you saw this issue in an exam question you would be happy to see it. Write a “2” next to each issue that you feel OK about, even if you aren’t really confident. These are the ones you would see on an exam and say to yourself, “I would rather see Issue type #1, but I can make this work.” Then, write a “3” next to the issues that you don’t feel like you know well enough to write about them on the exam.

Once you categorize the legal issues by topic, do focus your final day of review on the topics you feel less confident about, the ones you’ve labeled with a “3.” If you run out of “3”s to study before you run out of time, then start reviewing your “2”s.

And do remember that not all legal issues are equal, and that means they shouldn’t receive equal time. As you look at your list of “3” issues, make note of which ones the professor spent the most time on in class. Those are the ones that get more time in this final review as well, as they are likely more complex or more important since your professor devoted more time to them.

Additionally, don’t stay up all night the night before the exam. Students sometimes think they have no choice but to stay up studying because there’s just not enough time, but this approach can really backfire. I’ve known students who stayed up, just to fall asleep in the morning and miss their exam, and I’ve also seen students fall asleep in the midst of a final exam. But even if these dramatic things don’t happen to you, the lack of sleep can still cause harm. Your memory and ability to focus are affected by lack of sleep, which could mean that you don’t perform as well as you could on your final. Students who skip sleep often still feel tired the next day as well, when you may want to turn your attention to studying for the next upcoming final exam.

Instead, do protect your sleep and do all of the other things that help you be healthy, manage stress, and stay focused. Make sure you set aside enough time to sleep each night throughout the exam period and especially the night before each final exam. Eat good food that will fuel your brain, and resist the urge to exist on junk food. Be careful about your caffeine intake – too much caffeine can make you feel more anxious, upset your stomach, and interfere with sleep. And don’t forget to take regular breaks as you study on that last day. Taking a short walk or doing something else for a short time will allow you to come back to your studies with more focus, ready to get your work done.

By doing these few basic things – and avoiding just a couple of “don’ts” – you will maximize the value of your review on the the day before your final exam. And the more effective your studies are, the greater your academic success!

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May 2, 2016 · 3:36 pm

How Time Management Contributes to Success on Law School Exams

stopwatch by digitalart_freedigitalphotos

If only I’d had more time.

Such is the lament of law students across the country during the final exams period. Time is almost always an issue during law school exams – some professors even warn students that it’s impossible to completely answer all questions in the time allotted. A student’s ability to manage time during the exam can be key to academic success, and the failure to do so can have disastrous consequences. Almost every semester, students do poorly or even fail exams because they spend too much time on one part of the exam and either don’t have enough time to finish or never get to the final part of the exam. And the time constraints also contribute to feelings of stress both before and during the exam.

You may feel like you have no control of the time challenge. After all, it’s your professor who creates the exam and determines how much time you will have to complete it. All you can do is show up on the day of the exam and write as quickly as possible, hoping to make it to the finish before time is called. In reality, however, there are steps you can take to manage time during the exam. These steps, by themselves, are not sufficient to guarantee success – but with a strong study plan before the exam, and good written analysis during the exam, time management can contribute to your academic success.

With that in mind, here are some tips for managing time during your law school exams:

Assess Before You Write. You can’t manage what you don’t know. If your professor doesn’t give you specific details about the number and type of questions in advance, take a minute or two at the beginning of the exam to evaluate what the parts of the exam are and what each section is worth.

Follow Your Professor’s Instructions. If your professor tells you how much time to spend on each section of the exam, pay attention to those instructions. Your professor designed the exam with those time constraints in mind, and the time is likely to correspond with the value of each part of the exam.

Assign Time Based on Value. If your professor’s instructions do not include time suggestions, allot time based on value. For example, let’s say you are taking a Contracts Law exam that is scheduled for 3 hours. When you look at the exam, you see a multiple choice section, worth 1/3 of the exam, and two essays, each worth 1/3 of the exam. You should allow 1 hour for the multiple choice section, 1 hour for the first essay question, and 1 hour for the second essay question.

Create a Schedule for the Exam – and Stick to It. Once you have calculated how much time you should spend on each part of the exam, create a schedule. Write down the times you should finish one part of the exam and move on to the next, and then stick to the schedule. If you happen to finish a section a little early, then the remaining time can go towards another section. But don’t “steal” time from one section to give to another by ignoring the schedule altogether.

Don’t Let Open Book Exams Get Out of Control. Occasionally, students will have an “open book” exam, where the professor allows students to bring in casebooks, outlines, and class notes. Students often think that open book exams are easier, but that is usually not the case. Every time you have to look something up during the exam, you are not writing. It is almost always better to prepare for open book exams in the same way that you would prepare for a closed book exam, and only look things up during the exam if you really can’t remember the law you need to answer the question.

Take Practice Exams to Develop Time Management Strategies. If your professors have released any old exams, take a few timed practice exams before the exam period begins. Practice exams allow you to develop your time management strategies without worrying about grades.

With these time management tips in mind, good luck on your final exams!

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October 10, 2014 · 5:55 pm

3 Tips for Spotting Issues in Law School Exams

It’s that time of the semester when law students are beginning to think more about exams, either because they’re in the midst of midterms (if their law school has midterms) or they’re anticipating final exams. One of the skills required for success on law school exams is the ability to spot legal issues. Law school essay questions contain complex fact patterns that incorporate numerous legal issues. The more issues you are able to identify, the more opportunities you will have to show your understanding of legal principles and your analytical abilities—and capitalizing on those opportunities contributes to better grades. Issue spotting can also help you on multiple choice exams. When you are able to identify the specific legal issue being tested in the question, you can use your knowledge of the relevant law to eliminate wrong answers and help you identify the best answer.

With these benefits in mind, here are 3 tips for spotting issues in your law school exams:

1. Outline, Outline, Outline!: The most important key to being able to spot legal issues on law school exams is the preparation that you do before the exam. In recent weeks, we’ve spent quite a bit of time exploring the best approaches to outlining in law school (for more information on outlining, see here, here, here, and here). If you have organized your outline in the right way, you will already have identified the possible types of legal issues on an exam. You will also have an understanding of the important rules and tests that relate to each issue, as well as key policies and relevant case examples.

2. Create an Issue Checklist: One way that you can make sure that you do not miss important issues is to create an issue checklist for each of your classes. Creating a checklist is easy. Just take an outline that you have done for one of your law school classes, such as Property, Torts, or Evidence. Go through your outline page by page, making a separate list of all legal issues and sub-issues. Write out the list in the order that it is organized in your outline. Don’t include any details–your checklist should be made up of key words and phrases, not tests, definitions, case names, or other detailed information. Think of the checklist as something similar to a grocery list. If you were shopping for the ingredients to make a certain recipe, you wouldn’t write the entire recipe out again to take to the grocery store. Instead, you would just list the ingredients you need to purchase. That’s the approach you want to take to the checklist as well. If the outline is the recipe, your checklist is the shopping list of ingredients.

Once you have your checklist organized the way that you want it, commit it to memory. When you go into the exam, use the checklist to make sure that you don’t miss issues in the hypothetical fact patterns. You can use the checklist to identify legal issues in both multiple choice questions (short hypotheticals) and essay questions (longer hypotheticals).

3. Identify Relationships Among Legal Issues in Advance: There are usually relationships among certain legal issues. If you identify those relationships in advance, you are more likely to recognize them in fact patterns during the exam. For example, one major legal issue in Torts is negligence. But if you see a negligence issue in the fact pattern, you know that there are other legal issues that might also be relevant, such as vicarious liability, joint and several liability, comparative/contributory negligence, various defenses, and various types of damages. As you begin to identify issues in that fact pattern, you should look for any facts that suggest that those legal issues are at play as well.

If you notice, the common theme to these issue-spotting tips is advance preparation. What you do before the exam is what ultimately makes your issue-spotting efforts successful!

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July 20, 2014 · 1:26 pm

Taking Charge of Your Own Learning in Law School

Image courtesy of lamnee/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Image courtesy of lamnee/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

I’ve mentioned before that one of the most empowering aspects of law school—as well as one of the scariest—is that you are in control of your own learning. So what does that mean? What can you do to take charge of your own learning in law school?

Law school puts you in the driver’s seat.

For example, you will have reading assignments for each class meeting—often those assignments take several hours to complete. For the most part, if you are not called on during class, no one will know if you don’t do the reading on any given day. You make the choice—you stay on top of your assignments each and every day, or you don’t do the reading and do something else instead, such as go to the movies or watch that TV show that you love. Doing the reading is the first step on the path to understanding the law. In contrast, skipping even one day’s reading makes it even harder to understand what is going on in class, and getting multiple days behind decreases your ability to be successful on later assignments and exams. You often won’t feel the consequences of your decisions immediately, but your choices will affect your long-term chances of academic success.

As the semester goes on, you will have additional choices to make about your studies. Will you devote the time to synthesizing course materials to further develop your understanding of the law and its applications, creating outlines, mind maps, flow charts, and flashcards? Or will you attempt to take a shortcut through that process, relying on a past student’s outline or a commercial outlines instead of creating your own study aids? Once again, your choices will have long-term consequences for your understanding of the law you are studying, your grades, and your ability to recall what you have learned after the course has ended (an important consideration, since many of the subjects you will study will reappear on the bar exam in a few years!).

Successful students make conscious, positive choices about their own learning.

Understanding that their choices affect their academic success and long-term goals of being an attorney, successive students are not passive in their approach to legal education. Instead, successful students take positive actions to improve their educational opportunities—establishing regular study schedules, avoiding procrastination, taking advantage of opportunities to improve their academic and legal skills, and keeping their academic, professional, and personal priorities in focus. They avoid taking shortcuts that make things easy in the short term but don’t improve their understanding of the law. They develop their own methods of holding themselves accountable for what they learn. Successful students aren’t perfect, but they learn from their mistakes and don’t repeat them. In short, successful students don’t just focus on learning the law—through their efforts they learn to be better learners as well. These traits help them to become better students . . . and also better future attorneys.

Stay tuned for related posts about how successful law students approach these topics—I will be blogging more about things that you can do to take control over your learning in law school over the next few months.

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July 13, 2014 · 10:45 am

An Introduction to Law School Grades for New Law Students

In a previous post, I mentioned that the law school grading system is very different from the one that students experienced in undergrad. In reality, one of the least understood and most feared aspects of the law school experience is the grading system. Misunderstandings and fear primarily occur for 3 reasons: (1) law school grades are calculated much differently than your grades were in undergrad; (2) students expect that the same amount of work that it took to get an “A” in undergrad will work to get an “A” in law school; and (3) many law students believe that the only acceptable grade in any course is an “A.”

The Grading System: Let’s start with a discussion of how the grading system works at many law schools. Although not all law schools follow this approach to grades, the majority take an approach similar to what I will describe. Many law schools have a policy for how grades are distributed in each course—in other words, how many As, Bs, Cs, Ds, and Fs that a professor should assign, and what the median grade should be for each course. For example, the grading policy at Law School X might direct the professor to assign approximately 15-20% As, 35-40% Bs, 30-35% Cs, and 5-10% Ds and Fs. Not all law schools have the same grade distribution, and the policy may be different for 1L classes than it is for upper-level classes. Regardless, the end result is that not everyone will get an “A”—or even a “B”—in each law school class.

Student Expectations: New law students’ expectations about grades are generally based upon their experiences in undergrad. If you’ve been successful in the past and earned high grades, you generally expect that you will earn similar grades in law school. Some law students view the grade system I’ve just described as unfair because they believe that they’re being penalized by the limits on how many high grades can be earned in a particular class. In reality, the requirements for earning an “A” are much greater in law school, and the same amount of work—or quality of work—that you did in undergrad to get an “A” does not get you as far in law school. It is much more difficult to perform at an “A” level in law school classes, and the grade distribution is usually a pretty fair estimate of how students actually perform. The end result: you will have to recalibrate your expectations about what is required of you for “A” work as a law student.

Although High Grades Have Value, They Should Not Be Your Most Important Goal in Law School: Don’t get me wrong. Grades are important. There are certain types of jobs that require high grades, like judicial clerkships and associate attorney positions at BigLaw firms. But even the people who ultimately obtain those positions have generally not made straight As, and the vast majority of legal jobs do not require that you graduate in the top 10 percent of your class. Instead of obsessing over grades, you will be better served by focusing your attention on learning the law to become the best lawyer you can be. (In fact, there are studies that show that people who have these kinds of internal motivations tend to be more successful than those who are motivated by external goals such as grades, money, and fame.)

Finally, You’re Not Defined by the First Grades You Earn in Law School: Sometimes, students believe that if they earn a “C” in a law school class their first semester, they’re just not cut out to be a lawyer and should quit law school. Although a “C” may indicate that you don’t understand the material as well as you should or don’t yet have exam skills required for long-term success, a “C” grade does not usually signal that you can’t be successful in law school and the practice of law. As I’ve discussed before here and here, grades provide helpful information that you can use to improve your performance in law school in the future. Even if you don’t earn the grades you hope to receive in your first semester, you can improve your performance in subsequent semesters, especially if you work with the academic support professionals at your law school. Sometimes it just takes students longer to perfect their personal approach to learning in law school—if you’re disciplined in your approach to your studies in the long-term and strive to constantly improve, you have the ability to reach your full potential as a law student and future lawyer.

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June 11, 2014 · 10:11 am

On Academic Probation?: Advice for Struggling Law Students

Now that the school year is over, grades are trickling in from those 1L classes. Hopefully, your hard work this past year has paid off, and you have successfully completed all of your classes. Sometimes students aren’t happy with their grades though, and they may find themselves on academic probation, or at least in the lower portion of their class, at the end of that first year. If you find yourself in this position, where do you go from here? It’s important to take law school grades seriously because they can be an important indicator of future success on the bar exam.

Law students may receive low grades for a number of reasons, as explained below. Many of these reasons may not apply to you, but it is important to honestly evaluate yourself and decide what you need to do moving forward.

First, you need to make sure that law school is where you want to be. For some students, lower grades are a sign of lack of passion. Maybe they went to law school because that’s what everyone told them they should do, or maybe they just didn’t know what else to do after they graduated from college. Others thought they wanted to be a lawyer, but the reality of law school wasn’t what they expected or wanted. Take stock of your own personal goals, and make sure that law school is really where you want to be. If you have decided that it really isn’t for you, then you should devote your energies to something that you can get excited about doing instead. If law school is really where you want to be, then consider the advice below.

Second, you need to honestly evaluate your efforts during your 1L year. Sometimes, when students are honest with themselves, they really didn’t put in the time and effort required to be successful in law school. Maybe they had other things distracting them during their first year, or they thought that their approach to college would be enough to get them by in law school as well. If you decide that you really want to be in law school but you fall into this camp, you will need to commit yourself to working harder next year. You may want to talk to a dean, academic support professional, or professor about how to create a study plan for next year that will improve your discipline and lead to greater academic success.

Third, you should evaluate whether a learning disability or other physical or mental condition is interfering with your success on exams. Some students figure out during their first year of law school that they have an undiagnosed learning disability such as Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD). If you are concerned that you have a disability that may be affecting your ability to perform well on exams, you should talk to the academic support professionals at your law school. They may recommend that you see a medical professional for testing and diagnosis. Sometimes students who have disabilities need accommodations on exams, such as additional time or a distraction-free environment, so that they can fully show their understanding of the legal principles and skills being tested.

Finally, you may just need to work with the academic support professionals at your law school to develop your academic skills a little further. For many students, the transition to law school is just not a smooth experience. Maybe you’ve come from a degree program that has emphasized other types of skills, and you just need to work on your analytical skills or writing skills more. Maybe you have been out of school for a number of years, and you just need some help developing the type of study skills that will put you on the right track to academic success. Or maybe you are just the type of person that taken a little longer to have things click for you. There are people at your law school who can be tremendous resources in your efforts to improve your academic performance in your second year of law school, and I urge you to take advantage of their willingness to work with you.

The key to your ultimate success is to take control of your academic performance–honestly assess your position and seek help when necessary.

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May 29, 2014 · 4:22 pm

Making the Most of Summer Law School Classes

Image courtesy of naypong/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Image courtesy of naypong/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Many law students choose to take classes during the summer because (a) they want to graduate in less time, or (b) to reduce the number of classes they have to take in future semesters. Students often believe that summer classes will be “easier” because they are only taking one or two classes instead of five. Although there is definitely a benefit to taking fewer classes at one time, the drawback is that summer classes generally last half the time. Instead of lasting 14 or 15 weeks, the entire course is usually crammed into 7 weeks.

How can you make sure that you obtain the greatest benefit from taking summer classes and set yourself up for academic success? Here are four tips for making the most of your summer law school classes:

1. Create a study schedule, and stick to it. It can be tempting to take a relaxed approach to your studies in the summer, as there are so many distractions: summer movie series, outdoor activities, longer days . . . you get the picture. You should definitely make sure you take some breaks and enjoy your summer, but you still have to take a disciplined approach to your studies. The best way to do this is to create a study schedule for the summer semester. You don’t want to get behind in a class that only lasts 7 weeks.

2. Start outlining early; don’t wait until the last minute. Students often wait until several weeks into a semester to start outlining. If you take this approach in the summer, the outline will never be finished. Outline each topic as you finish it in class, and you will be better prepared for the final exam. Even though it’s summer, you still have to do the same things you need to do during the rest of the school year to be successful.

3. Don’t miss class unless you absolutely have to. Missing one class during the summer is often the equivalent of missing a week during the rest of the year. When a class has a condensed schedule, it can be difficult to get caught up if you miss even one class. Save class absences for true emergencies, and have a plan for getting quickly caught up if you have to miss class.

4. Learn from the past; don’t repeat it. Make sure that you review your exams from Spring Semester. If you did not do as well as you hoped in a class, set up an appointment to go over your exam. I’ve also discussed how to get the most out of past grades here and here. Use those past final exams as a basis for how to approach future exams.

Taking summer classes can contribute to your overall success as a law student if you approach them in the right way. Make the most of your summer studies!

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May 19, 2014 · 5:40 pm

Making Sense of Law School Grades: Three Ways to Get the Most Out of Your Final Grades

Now that the semester is over, the wait for final grades has started. But even once those grades are released, law students don’t always know what to do with them. If your grades are good, of course you celebrate—and if they’re bad, you may be depressed. But what do these grades really mean? How can you make sense of your law school grades and get the most out of them?

Exams are really just a means of assessing how you communicate information that you learn, and grades are one component of that assessment. I’ve previously talked about how you can use grades to get more out of graded assignments. Here are three more ways to get the most out of your law school grades:

  1. Grades can be a way of calibrating your own perceptions of how you perform on exams. Did you do as well (or as poorly) as you thought you did on your exams? If you didn’t do as well as you thought you did in your classes, you should consider whether you were overconfident in your approach to your exams. You may need to rethink your approach to studying and/or attacking the exam in order to obtain the grades you want. In contrast, some students beat themselves up about how they did right after each exam ends, but in reality they performed much better than they thought. Regardless of which type of student you are, you can use grades as a way of adjusting your own understanding of how you perform on exams.
  2. Grades can help you better understand your strengths and weaknesses in taking exams. Look for patterns in your final grades. Did you do better on multiple choice exams that you did on essays, or vice versa? How did you do on exams in which time management was more important? What are the common aspects of exams that you did particularly well on versus those on which you did not perform as well as you had hoped? Understanding these patterns can help you create a plan for how to approach exams in the future.
  3. Grades can help you to evaluate particular test-taking strategies that worked (or didn’t work) for you. Sometimes students will do something during one exam that they didn’t do in other exams, and they get different grades based upon those different approaches. For example, did you outline before you started writing in some classes but not others? Create a checklist for one class but not the others? Hand write versus use your computer? Use highlighters to break down essay questions on only one exam? Think about any differences in how you approached exams from one class to the next, and see if there are any corresponding differences in grades.

One trait of successful people is that they are able to learn from past experiences and apply what they have learned to their future endeavors. Take an active approach to learning from your final grades, and you will be on the path to success!

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May 5, 2014 · 10:21 am

Racing Against the Clock: Time Management Techniques for Law School Exams

Image courtesy of Winond/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Image courtesy of Winond/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Anyone who’s ever been in law school has had this experience: you’re writing or typing along on your exam, fingers cramping and back stiff from sitting in the same position for too long. All of a sudden, you look up at the clock and realize that you only have five minutes left before the exam is over. The problem: you have at least 30 minutes’ worth of material to cover before you will complete the final essay question. All you can do is rush to get as much of it crammed in as possible. The end result is that your essay ends in jumbled confusion, and your grade is lower than you had hoped for.

Time management can be a challenge for many law students, even when they have studied hard before the exam. Many law school exams are intentionally designed to take more time than you will actually be given. In order to succeed on those types of exams, you need to not only be prepared for the content of the exam but also have a strategy for how to tackle the exam. With that in mind, here are some suggestions for developing your own time management strategy:

  1. Always allocate time by the number of points or percentage of grade that each section of the exam is worth. For example, maybe your exam consists of two essays and 30 multiple choice questions. Each essay is 1/3 of the total exam grade, and the multiple choice is 1/3. The exam is scheduled for 3 hours. You should allot 1 hour for each of the essays and 1 hour for the multiple choice (each multiple choice question getting two minutes). Time should almost always be allotted according to how much that part of the exam is worth. Once the exam starts, calculate your end times for each part of the exam—and most importantly, stick to those times! Don’t be tempted to “borrow” time from one part of the exam to have more for another.
  2. If you have control over which part of the exam you take first, think carefully about your plan of attack. When the exam consists of both multiple choice and essays, students invariably want to tackle the essays first because that is where they feel the time constraints the most. But when you tackle the essay first, there is a temptation to “borrow” time from the multiple choice section if you aren’t done with the essay when the time allotted for that section runs out (see suggestion #1). To avoid that temptation, I recommend taking the multiple choice section first. If you have extra time left over once you complete it, you can save it for a later section (or for reviewing the multiple choice one more time), but you will make sure that you give the multiple choice the time that it is worth.
  3. Finally, outline or chart your essay answers before you start writing. So many students start right in on writing their essays without organizing their thoughts first. There is a temptation to do this when time gets tight because students know they will not be graded on that outline. But effective outlining proves more efficient in the long term, as it allows you to determine what issues you want to cover in your essay and what facts relate to those issues. You will see which issues are minor and don’t deserve as much time in your essay versus those issues that have numerous relevant facts and will be worth more credit. By jotting down facts that go with each issues, you also create efficiency because you will not have to go back and read the fact pattern again and again as you write your essay.

The key to managing time in law school exams is creating your time management strategy before the exam even starts, and then sticking with it. You’ll be surprised at what you can accomplish in a limited amount of time!

 

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April 9, 2014 · 9:47 am

Law Student Voices: Taking the Wheel on the Journey to JD

Image courtesy of dan/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Image courtesy of dan/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Legal education has evolved over the decades from being a singular means to an end to just one step in the process. Many years ago, to become a lawyer a person simply got the education. Then upon graduation, employers would come knocking, handing out jobs and benefits. Now the roles have reversed: it is our responsibility to convince employers to take a chance on us. It is no longer enough to earn a J.D. and pass the bar exam. Surprisingly, there is still a lingering expectation, despite the recession and debates about how legal education is losing value, that law students will graduate and “magically” land a great job. We must understand that our legal destiny is largely within our own control.

Each student entering law school needs to not just know but fully understand that we get out of it what we put into it. Granted, that concept is simple and seems obvious, but I’m not sure many students truly grasp it. Drawing from my own experiences and observations, here are some suggestions for putting this principle into practice:

Grades: Law school is hard! The most important thing is to always put 110% effort towards our grades. (One caveat: Performance in law school is not the only definition of living a fulfilling life. More later on balance and holding on to sanity during this journey.) Grades are one of the most visible defining characteristics of a law student, and the outside world, legal or otherwise, will place a heavy emphasis on grades. So, this means: do your reading, ask questions, study with others, and consult trusted mentors to help you with success strategies. Although some people may have more of a natural inclination for understanding the law, that is not a free pass for others to simply give up on excellence because of having different strengths. The Law School Curve makes life interesting and difficult when it comes to grades, but always giving your best efforts will keep you from ever wondering if there was more you could have done.

Get Involved! Extracurriculars such as moot court, trial team, and law review are valuable in so many ways. These activities not only “look good on a resume” but provide practical skills that will be useful later. I’ve had the privilege of competing in two moot court competitions so far. The skills and confidence that I have gained from these experiences are invaluable. Panel interview for a big law firm? Bring it on! In this same vein, internships and externships are equally as valuable. They give us real world experience that shows potential employers that we are willing and ready to tackle hands-on application of what we are learning in the classroom. This is an area ripe for us to take control of our futures. If you are interested in working for a firm or externing with a government office that is not currently affiliated with your school, ask your career services office for guidance on initiating contact. Don’t wait for someone else to get the ball rolling because that person will then have the advantage of impressing a potential employer.

Networking: Everyone knows someone who can help shape our futures, sometimes in the most unexpected places. I have stumbled upon amazing opportunities simply by striking up a conversation with someone new. I highly recommend carrying business cards. Don’t be afraid to let people know that you are in law school. You may be speaking with someone who has a relative or close friend who is the hiring partner at a firm. Also, always keep in mind that, as a lawyer, your name and reputation are all that you have. Act professionally and courteously at all times. You never know when you are making an impression on your next employer.

The key is to take active control of your law school experience—you have the power to make it a good one!

This post was authored by Amanda M. Fisher, J.D., Savannah Law School ’15.

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