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Acing Your First Year of Law School: The Ten Steps to Success You Won't Learn in Class
Most first-year law students waste a tremendous amount of time learning piles of information they don't need to know, because they have no one to guide them. This text, in ten easy-to read chapters, is the guide for students entering or contemplating law school. After reading the ten chapters, set up as lessons, student will know how to study the law.
- GenresLawNonfiction
129 pages, Paperback
First published December 3, 2005
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
September 21, 2009
"Acing Your First Year of Law School: The Ten Steps to Success You Won't Learn in Class" provides advice for first year law students on a variety of issues and strategies to help them avoid the pitfalls that are common amongst first year students.
In deceptively simple prose, the Noyeses break down the "first year" experience into its basics: how to read a case, how to brief a case, cite cases, do research, etc. Certainly as important as what they point out as important (which they do with exceptional clarity), is what they point out is a waste of time (the "dicta" at the back of each chapter). Things like recopying notes - a waste of time, they note, that could be put to better use by actually thinking about what went on in that class. (Thinking, they argue, is avoided at all costs by some "first years" who will find anything to keep them busy.)
Some of the strongest chapters are on legal writing - how to organize papers, the conventions of legal writing, what research is necessary and what isn't, and navigating the arcana of legal citations which in my law school isn't really much stressed on.
This book has a readable, conversational tone. It includes particularly valuable information about outlining, learning from Socratic class discussions, briefing cases and studying for exams.
Book Details:
Title Acing Your First Year of Law School: The Ten Steps to Success You Won't Learn in Class
Author Shana Connell Noyes
Reviewed By Purplycookie
In deceptively simple prose, the Noyeses break down the "first year" experience into its basics: how to read a case, how to brief a case, cite cases, do research, etc. Certainly as important as what they point out as important (which they do with exceptional clarity), is what they point out is a waste of time (the "dicta" at the back of each chapter). Things like recopying notes - a waste of time, they note, that could be put to better use by actually thinking about what went on in that class. (Thinking, they argue, is avoided at all costs by some "first years" who will find anything to keep them busy.)
Some of the strongest chapters are on legal writing - how to organize papers, the conventions of legal writing, what research is necessary and what isn't, and navigating the arcana of legal citations which in my law school isn't really much stressed on.
This book has a readable, conversational tone. It includes particularly valuable information about outlining, learning from Socratic class discussions, briefing cases and studying for exams.
Book Details:
Title Acing Your First Year of Law School: The Ten Steps to Success You Won't Learn in Class
Author Shana Connell Noyes
Reviewed By Purplycookie
May 18, 2011
This book was helpful to me in my first semester at law school. I really found the advise practical and easy to follow. I did also read "1L of a Ride" and found that book to be really great, however, this book filled in any gaps from the other. I recommend these two books as a set for anyone getting ready to attend law school or who is in their first year.
January 3, 2009
It was okay. I am not sure if it was beneficial. I found out more information with CLEO (www.cleo.org) when I went to a law school seminiar in July 2008. Books is one tool, but insight from real people was much better.
October 9, 2008
Good for anyone getting ready to start law school.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews