Law School Midterms

Apparently, the law school midterm is a strange duck—not too common. Today I took my first and only midterm for the semester, a one-hour, one-issue-spotter exam over personal jurisdiction and venue, and I have to say, I highly recommend the whole mid-term experience.

That's not to say it was fun. I spent many many hours over the past weekend reducing a horrible mess of a 20-page outline down to about 1.5 pages of essential material, plus another 7-8 pages of statutes and more complete notes on cases so I'd be covered if I blanked. The question was taken straight from "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy," except that the "queer eyes" were called "Fab Five, Inc." and instead of being on tv they were a consulting firm in NYC that offered fashion and etiquette tips to men. The main issue was that Fab Five had given advice to a client who was a resident of New Jersey, and when the advice produced bad results, the client brought a suit in diversity against Fab Five in NJ. He also sued the French manufacturer of a tanning spray Fab Five recommended; a third defendant was Allen, one of the Fab Five consultants (the plaintiff was suing Allen for activities that were not directly related to his work as a Fab Five employee). The question was, of course, if the New Jersey U.S. District Court had jurisdiction over these defendants, and if venue was proper.

I spent about 15 minutes reading the facts and organizing an answer, looking through my notes for relevant bits. Then I spent about 25 minutes furiously typing the answer, which left me with nearly 20 minutes to wonder what I'd missed. I'm thinking that's not a good sign, and that will probably show up on my grade. So what I learned from the experience was this:

1. I need to take much better notes. Thus far I've just been doing the standard Facts, Issue, Holding, Reasoning, Disposition, Random Notes categories in my case briefs. The Random Notes section becomes a catch-all where I basically transcribe most of what happens in class. This leaves me with a bunch of miscellaneous garbage, and when it came time to study I had a hard time sifting through it all to what what was most vital. The lesson is, don't just take down everything that happens in class; prioritize and make the priorities of bits of information clear in your notes.
2. Another note-taking lesson for me: I need to spend more time with my notes after I take them. I've heard this advice before and now I know it's good: After class each day, spend a few minutes (or more) reducing the notes from that day to a concise outline of the most important bits. This will help you when you study for exams, but it will also force you to make connections between cases you've previously read, and it will highlight those things you still don't understand so you can ask the appropriate questions in the next class or during your prof's office hours.

So in all, the experience was good because it shook me out of my complacency and reminded me that I need to work a lot harder if I'm going to be prepared for and do well on final exams. Yay! I love working harder! I really do!

Posted October 20, 2003 07:37 PM | law school