How We Will Proceed (Doesn’t that sound very lawyerly)

[Erin Lain]

Hi All,

I wanted to introduce myself again, and lay out some rules for what we
will be doing in the next two weeks.
My name is Erin Lain, and among other things, I am the Director of the
Academic Success Program. More importantly, I went to Drake Law School
not so long ago. I graduated in December of 2008, and I vividly
remember my 1L year, and the anticipation and hesitation I felt before
starting.

I have lawyers in my family, so I had some concept of what I was
getting into, but instead of investigating what my first year was
going to be like, I pretended like it wasn’t happening. I literally
did not even want to take a tour of the law school, because that would
make what I was about to undertake seem real.

For some reason I thought law school was going to be the death of me
(mostly because I read the book: One L, by Scott Turow, which is a
horrible book, which accomplishes only one thing: scaring the @#$# out
of you). You may ask, then why did I do it? At the time I probably
would have responded, “I don’t know, because I’m a masochist?”

Now that it’s all over and done with, I realize that it was absolutely
the right path for me to take, and it was possibly the best thing I’ve
ever done. I promise you will feel the same, when you finish.

Looking back now, I think if I would have done a little more preparing
and thinking about the transition I was about it make, and a little
less freaking out, I would have found out a few things: 1. Law School
will not kill you, and you might even enjoy it 2. It is not as much
hard, as it is a lot of work (A.K.A. it’s completely do-able, if you
put in the time and the effort) 3. Pretending that it isn’t happening
doesn’t help anyone :)

Ok, so you are thinking, Erin, GET TO THE POINT. Ok, here is my point:
I wish I had read a book, like this, to get myself mentally,
physically and spiritually prepared for school (and not a book like
One L). If I had read a constructive book, I think I would have had a
lot smoother transition, enjoyed that first semester a little more,
and probably done better (grade wise).

For the next two weeks, we will be reading: Acing Your First Year of
Law School. I think it is an excellent guide to how you should be
preparing for the upcoming semester, and what you should be doing when
you actually get here. However, the book is pretty generalized, so I
will post, daily, my own comments and questions for you to consider.
If you feel like it, you can post you own comments and questions, and
I will attempt to address them in a timely manner.

Here is the pace that I will be going through the book (you, of
course, can choose your own pace):

8/2: Preface/ Chapter 1: How to Read a Case

8/3: Chapter 2: How to Brief a Case

8/4: Chapter 3: Learning from the Socratic Class Discussion

8/5: Chapter 4: Navigating the Bluebook of Legal Citation (My
discussion on this chapter will be slightly longer because we use a
different citation book at Drake Law called ALWD)

8/6: Chapter 5: Legal Research

8/9: Chapter 6: Legal Writing

8/10: Chapter 7: Using Study Aids Effectively

8/11: Chapter 8: Outlining

8/12: Chapter 9: Preparing for Exams

8/13: Chapter 10: Writing Exams Answers/ Epilogue: The Second Semester