Real Advice

I forgot to mention in the last post that Liable has some really excellent advice for 1Ls and pre-1Ls on her blog. I especially agree with the first point about briefing the heck out of cases—it helps tremendously. However, I've had to abandon that thorough briefing in the last week or two because there's simply no time for it, plus all the reading, plus the extracurriculars, plus all the legal writing stuff. Our first draft of our first memo was due this week and that took up the majority of last weekend. Thank goodness the memo was closed—we didn't have to do any outside research for it. As for extracurriculars, this week alone features meetings of the law dems, EJF, and NLG, the ADR (alternative dispute resolution) competition, the pro-bono fair, and legal observing at the IWFR rally. It's crazy. I'm learning to write shorter briefs.

Finally, Prof. CivPro gave some helpful advice yesterday about reading cases. Don't just read to find the issue, the holding, the reasoning, etc. Also look for what the case leaves unanswered. For example, if Shaffer v. Heitner says that a court cannot seize virtual property (stock in a corporate entity) to establish jurisdiction, does it say anything about real property? Think about how cases would be different if the facts changed slightly, and if the holding and reasoning would still apply to those changed facts.

Ok, I'm really going to read State v. Alston now. Erg.

Posted October 1, 2003 05:20 AM | law school