ZiefBrief

First-Year Tips: The Ever-Popular "How to Read a Legal Opinion"

Orientation has brought a flock of new law students to the Zief Library, and reminded us that one of the hardest things about the beginning of law school was trying to make sense of the cases assigned for the first classes.

So this seems like a good time to alert our new students to How to Read a Legal Opinion (now available for downloading at SSRN's Legal Scholarship Network). As author GWU Professor Orin Kerr puts it in the abstract, this  popular and demystifying essay "is designed to help new law students prepare for the first few weeks of class. It explains what judicial opinions are, how they are structured, and what law students should look for when reading them." 

First-Year Tips: CALI Exercises

Even though I was a pretty dedicated law student, there were certain concepts that I had a hard time grasping during my first year of law school.  In Property, the rule against perpetuities gave me fits.  In Contracts, it was the parol evidence rule.   In Civil Procedure, I was bedeviled by joinder rules.  I spent an inordinate amount of time puzzling over these concepts, reviewing hornbooks, commercial exam prep materials, and any other resource that I could get my hands on, hoping that one of these resources would magically make these concepts clearer to me.

These days, first-year law students don't have to struggle quite so much thanks to CALI.  CALI is a non-profit organization comprised of U.S. law school members, and it has over 700 interactive, online tutorials covering almost all of the major legal concepts that you will encounter during your first year of law school and lots of upper-division subjects as well.   Law professors write the tutorials out of the goodness of their hearts to demystify tough legal concepts and help law students test their grasp of these rules.  The CALI Editorial Board reviews each new draft exercise before posting it on the CALI website to help ensure that lessons are accurate and engaging. 

All you need to access CALI lessons online is a USF student registration code, which you can pick up from a USF librarian at the law library reference desk at any time.  Once you register, you've got access to CALI for the rest of your law school career.  We'll also be bringing CALI student access codes to this Friday's first-year orientation fair, along with fabulous free gifts and a chance to win a basket of goodies by playing our trivia game.  Stop by and see us!

Tips for First-Year Law Students

Over at Ms. JD, Carlie Boos has a great post about surviving the first-year of law school.  I love her emphasis on the importance of networking and learning to explore the social aspects of law school -- topics that usually get short shrift in the usual "how to survive first-year" posts.  My spouse started business school immediately after I finished law school, and I remember being incredibly jealous of his experience as a first-year business school student.  Business school seemed so much more collaborative and fun than my first year of law school, but as this post points out, there is absolutely no reason why law school can't be the same way.  Just don't buy into the competitive myths surrounding law school, network with your fellow classmates and with alums as much as possible, and team up whenever the honor code allows you do so to get you through the tough classes. 

Summer Reading - Preparing for Law School (2008)

Based on ZiefBrief's statistics, many newly-admitted law students spend these summer months mining Google for tips that will help them survive the beginning of law school. We believe that the best way to spend this summer is relaxing and doing something fun that you won't have time for once law school starts, but there's no lack of advice out there if you want it. Lately we've learned of —

• The Wish I Would Have Known blog - advice for law students by law students
• A Very Short Reading List for Incoming 1Ls - from the Law Librarian Blog
• The Summer Before Law School? - from Alan Childress on the Legal Profession Blog

Our previous "Summer Reading" posts have more —

• Summer Reading Before Law School (2007)
• Summer Reading: Bracing Yourself for the First Year of Law School
• Summer Reading Before Law School - Dean Brand's Recommendation

1L Advice

The Wall Street Journal's Law Blog is featuring advice for first-year law students from a host of literary lawyers, including Scott Turow, Jeremy Blachman (aka Anonymous Lawyer), Cameron Stracher, and Jeffrey Toobin. 

First-Year Survival Tips for the New Law School Year

Our colleagues at the Boley Law Library at Lewis and Clark Law School have posted their annual Tips for 1Ls From Around the Blogosphere. This year's collection ranges from general survival advice to tips on understanding legal terminology to the ever-popular advice from Professor Orin Kerr on how to read a case.

And here's a bonus tip from ZiefBrief: for a fund of great advice on how to study and learn, visit Lawsagna, where Anastasia give you "alternating layers of thoughts, tools, tricks, tips and other ingredients for a successful learning experience in law school and beyond."

Brand New CALI Lessons

We stopped by the CALI booth at AALL to pick up a list of new CALI lessons just released for the 2007-2008 school year.  We'll be featuring a list of selected links to these lessons by subject area throughout the week. What are CALI lessons?  They are online, interactive tutorials about specific academic legal subjects by law professors and law librarians.  There are a wealth of CALI lessons on first-year and bar topics, and CALI has even created a list of CALI lessons by casebook.  If you're a faculty member or currently enrolled student at USF, you can contact any reference librarian to obtain your CALI registration code and start reviewing or taking CALI lessons.  If you're an incoming first-year student, you will receive the CALI registration code during orientation week.

First up -- Legal Concepts, Legal Research and Legal Writing:

• Podcast from Professor Douglas McFarland: "Advice to a 1L"
• Podcast from Profs. Grohman and Brown:  "Preparing for Your First Semester at Law School"
• Professor Diane Murley's interactive lesson:  "Where Does Law Come From?"
• Professor Sarah Gotschall's interactive lesson:  "Introduction to Search Logic and Strategies"
• Professor Rebecca Trammel's interactive lesson: "Plagiarism: Keeping Out of Trouble"

Summer Reading Before Law School - Dean Brand's Recommendation

Dean Jeff Brand, always interested in how law can serve the cause of social justice, stopped by the Zief Library the other day full of praise for Arc of Justice: A Saga of Race, Civil Rights, and Murder in the Jazz Age, a "fantastic book," in his words, "that every incoming first year law student should read."

Arc of Justice reports on events that took place in Detroit in 1925. Ossian Sweet, an African-American physician, moves his family to a white neighborhood. The neighbors riot, one of them is shot, and Sweet is tried for murder. Author Kevin Boyle of Ohio State University gives us a biography of Sweet, a detailed report of the trial (in which Sweet was supported by the NAACP and defended by Clarence Darrow), a vivid sense of life in the segregated South and North of early 20th century, and some lingering questions about what it has taken and will take to eliminate racial prejudice and segregation in the United States.

USF law students, faculty, and staff can check out the Zief Library's copy of Arc of Justice. It's on the shelves on the second floor at KF 224 .S8 B69 2004.

Here's more on Arc of Justice —

• Forgotten Justice, Priya Jain's review from Salon.

• When a Moving Van Could Spark a Neighborhood War, Patricia Cohen's New York Times review.

• Arc of Justice: An American Tale of Racial Hatred, materials from NPR, including audio files of Tavis Smiley's interview with Kevin Boyle, and of Boyle reading an excerpt from his book.

Another Cure for Final Exam Stress - Law School in a Box

Tired of studying for law school exams? Anxious about passing the bar exam? Tempted to chuck it all? Consider this alternative:

Law School in a Box

This simple product from Mental Floss is said to be "the #1 rated boxed law school in the country!" and it purports to contain, in one small metal box, everything you really need to practice law. It's even got its own diploma ("with real Latin words" - ZiefBrief checked, and it's true!) and a suitably condensed bar exam.

So enough with the $100,000 in tuition and fees, enough with the exhaustive text-taking tips. For $14.95 the Mental Floss people will give you an escape from academic drudgery and, ah, some unique legal credentials.

Law School Exam Advice Tops Lawsagna's Menu

As finals approach, Lawsagna, one of ZiefBrief's favorite sources of advice on ways to study and learn, is serving out exam preparation advice.

In Exam Tips, Lawsagna's Anastasia collects links to her previous posts on studying for and taking exams, and also refers readers to other blawgs for more tips, techniques, and advice.

Don't forget the low-tech as well! The Zief Law Library's own Succeeding in Law School< [PDF; 2 pages] handout lists a bunch of — yes, books! — with great material on doing your best in law school finals.