Finals in about three weeks! I've been outlining all semester, but in a very lackadaisical way. Everyone talks about 3L-itis, or whatever you wanna call it. Whatever it is, I have it. I think it's exacerbated by the fact that by this point in the game, studying doesn't require as much effort. You just figure out how to do it efficiently and you spend so much less time doing it.
Same with reading, although I have a confession: I still brief the cases in my notes when I read for class. Embarrassingly dorky! They say by 2L year all you do is book-brief - take notes in the margins of the text and underline. The other day I had this scary thought: what if, when I get into law practice, I can't understand the cases I read without briefing them?? An argument in favor of book-briefing...?
The bar results have come out; everyone I know personally passed. My Facebook is bursting at the seams with congratulations. My school has had nearly 100% passage rate for the top 20% for years. In one year I will be an attorney.
3 comments:
wow, you're still outlining (and even throughout the semester), and reading? if you have 3L-itis, i dunno what i have, but it is a helluva lot worse
Hahah, thank you. That makes me feel a little better about just goin' through the motions. At least my motions are big...
I graduated law school in 05, and can say that - at least for me and my practice - there is very little "briefing" going on when lawyers read cases. At least as that term is used in law school, which is almost 180 degrees different than it is used in law practice. All most lawyers do (in my experience) when they read a case is make sure that (a) it says a point that they want it to say in a (real) brief and (b) doesn't say anything too bad.
Very rarely will you be called on to talk about what a case says in its entirely. Instead, it's all about taking quotes that support your position.
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