Before coming to law school, I received two pieces of advice from coworkers about how to "succeed" at Columbia Law School. I found both of these to be really troubling and upsetting. I also think that they demonstrate attitudes that are indicative of some of the problems with the current law school set up and the reasons that people feel the need/desire to pawn their degrees. I figured this would be a good place to discuss them, hear what other people think about them and hear advice that others received before coming to law school.

The first piece of advice that I got was to go into each of my first year classes on the first day with one thing in mind - the exam. All of my work should be geared to "acing" the exam. I should read prior exams/outlines before coming to class to get an idea of what the professor covered on exams (black letter law, policy, etc.) and focus only on learning these things.

This was disturbing for quite a few reasons. First of all, I have always been one of those people who enjoyed school. One of my favorite things about maturing and being able to take "advanced" classes in undergrad was that I had the opportunity to chart my own course - to write my own papers about topics that I found interesting. Spending a semester focusing on memorizing only what was important for a 3 hour exam, and ignoring everything else, seemed terrible to me. Second, this seemed like an awful way to learn. There is no way a three hour exam can cover all the material on a broad subject, like Contracts or Torts and it seems wrong to that I am paying quite a bit of money and devoting three years of my life to learn three hours worth of information per class that I likely won't even remember in a few years. A friend of mine described the first year of law school as like having your brain taken apart and rewired, and this is what I was looking forward to. The idea of spending a semester focusing on an exam seemed like it would prevent this from happening.

The other piece of advice that I received was similar in many respects - my other coworker told me that the hardest part of law school was learning to ignore the things that interested me and instead focusing on the things the professors wanted us to learn for exams. Again, this seemed to go against all of my instincts and everything that I had previously stood for. At the same time, apparently this was the way to be "successful" and get good grades, and as the career counselor told us during the first meeting in October, good grades open doors that will otherwise be shut.

So, these were the two pieces of advice that I got. If this is the advice we are being given, it is easy to see why so few people here end up in jobs that they truly enjoy and that allow them to make a difference. If, every time I come across something interesting, I must ignore it and move on, the chances of me discovering what I want to do are pretty slim. But at the same time, I know that I'm definitely motivated by the fear of not "doing well" and getting good grades and not having any opportunities when I leave - something the career counselors seem to be implying will happen. I think that the only thing worse than being stuck in a job that I hate would be having a lot of law school debt and no job with which to pay it off.

I don't think that grade reform is necessarily the best way to change this situation. We need to change the attitude that people have coming into law school. I understand that there are basic facts and principles that we need to learn, hence the standardized first year curriculum, but I think that Columbia could provide a better environment for people to make informed career choices and to become better lawyers if it found a way to encourage students to truly explore interests instead of suggesting that students should ignore them. Figuring out both a way to do this and to overcome prevailing attitudes about law school (such as those of the people whose advice I've rejected) is the hard part.

Anyway, as stated above, I'd love to hear advice other people got and how they've responded to it, as well as ways to improve law school as a environment where we can figure out what interests us and how to turn it into a career. I think that if the current environment doesn’t change, people will continue to pawn their licenses, and will fight harder than ever before to do so.

-- DavidGoldin - 04 Feb 2010

Hey David, I received very similar advices. I think all these advices are geared toward one thing, to get one step ahead of others on the 1L curve. We have very limited time, 14 weeks of classes, and yet we have tremendous amount of work. If you spend more time on what interests you the most, you will likely spend less time on what interests the professor the most. I think the real problem is that we are still adjusting to the “how to think like a lawyer” and this is why these advices are all based on the assumption that we cannot learn what the professor wants to teach us and pursue our own interests at the same time. The bottom line is that the professor writes the exam however he/she likes and grades the exams however he/she likes. I am actually very intrigued by what Professor Moglen said in class on Tuesday, just have no first year grades and give students more time to adjust. This way you don’t have to refrain from spending more time on topics that interest you. However, this will definitely create chaos for the employers during EIP. We just have to face the truth that the purpose of grades is probably more for the convenience of employers than for providing feedbacks to the students. Now transition to what really bothers me about law school is that professors do not have to provide mandatory feedbacks to the students. How are we supposed to improve if we don’t even know what we did wrong? How can we become better lawyers without knowing how to improve?

I also feel that the student loan is not the primary reason that leads people to pawn their licenses. Let’s face it, majority of the people come to law school (especially at Columbia) for one thing only, money. Even if they are loan free, the temptation of making the six figure salary at a law firm is just too persuasive.

-- RyanSong - 04 Feb 2010

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The most vivid "advice" I received came from a group of drunken 2L's my first week on campus. EIP was ongoing and they took the presence of a naive 1L as a prime opportunity to vent. The short theme (language cleaned up for posterity) was this: I should spend every waking hour focusing on my core classes, study like hell, ace the exams, and make Stone Scholar. After first semester, I understand a bit more of what they were saying beyond just excelling relative to classmates or being able to pay back debt. Without offers, those 2L's faced yet another semester of hard study trying to get their GPA's up. Part of my motivation to do well is so I'll be able to spend 2L year taking advantage of some of the programs the law school offers besides just classes, rather than trying to ace Securities or Corporations so I can increase my value in the eyes of the firms.

I've also heard of the exam focus strategy and read a lot of material on how to accomplish this, usually centered on taking practice exams and learning how to write an A exam through some combination of Getting to Maybe, reading model answers, LEEWS, etc. Some advocate complete disengagement with the casebooks/in-class material by simply learning the material out of supplements or canned briefs, a strategy that appeals to me as I find myself unable to keep up detailed notes (the sound of fingers on keypads during class sometimes reaches dull roar level). I think a lot of this disengagement results from the way our classes are structured (Socratic method, lecture, diverse topics, no feedback during the semester). Professors have the same teaching methods and style from week one all the way to week 14- some of the material we're learning late in the semester may not even build on anything previously covered. Some professors are trying to tweak this system- I had one professor assign us to summary judgment motions and complaints to draft (which I thought was very helpful), and I've heard other professors do written assignments/midterms, but I haven't seen a concerted effort to try and revamp teaching styles.

-- JonathanWaisnor - 04 Feb 2010