Posted by Orin Kerr:
What Incoming Law Students Want and Need To Know:
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2005_05_22-2005_05_28.shtml#1116805999
I've been thinking it might be helpful to write up a guide for
incoming law students that answers some of the common questions shared
by new law students about law school and legal education. There's a
[1]cottage industry specializing in such advice, I realize. Incoming
law students are famously obsessed with getting any edge they can, and
authors and book publishers are happy to exploit those fears with all
sorts of advice books (some of which are moderately helpful; others of
which are pretty lame).
My sense is that I could do better than the current offerings in
three ways. First, I think I can capture the best sense of things from
the collective knowledge of actual law professors and practicing
lawyers, instead of from the sometimes idiosyncratic perspective of
individual authors. A number of the books reflect a
I-made-law-review-when-I-did-this-in-1972 mentality, and it's hard for
incoming students to know whether the approach will work for them,
too. Second, I think I would have a distinct advantage on price: my
plan is to keep the guide short and put it on the web for free,
probably pursuant to a [2]creative commons license. Finally, [3]while
far brighter minds have tried their hand at this genre, [4]the best is
rather outdated and a bit hard for today's law students to use
effectively.
So here's where I need your help: What do incoming law students want
to know? What are your questions? I assume one big question is how to
do well academically, and that you also want to know how to prepare
for class, how to study for exams, how (if at all) to prepare the
summer before law school, and the like. But what else is there? Please
leave comments, and I'll leave the comment thread open for awhile.
Thanks for participating.
References
1. http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&c2coff=1&q=law+school+advice
2. http://creativecommons.org/
3. http://www.wvu.edu/~lawfac/jelkins/lp-2001/llewellyn.html
4. http://www.oceanalaw.com/main_product_details.asp?ID=250
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