Law School Discussion

My advice--law library!  Don't buy all those expensive study aids until you know (1) which ones really help you or (2) which ones you prefer.  Preview them first at the library. 

In my opinion, it's not necessary to read study aids before law school begins.  My advice (and I'm sure some will disagree) is to read things you actually WANT to read before you start classes.  Once classes begin, you'll be reading casebooks and hornbooks so much that you won't have time/want to read anything else! 

Hey y'all!  I just finished my first year at Cap, so if you have questions, post them here and I'll do my best to answer.

I used StoreLaw my first year.  It was nice for while, but I prefer plain ol' MS Word.  I'm  big on bullet points and it's easier to use them in Word.  Also, Storelaw is very case-driven.  Don't get me wrong, it's nice to have that information in front of you during class, but when it comes to generating an outline, I prefer to leave a lot of that stuff out. 

Also, I learn a lot by condensing my notes into an outline.  It was too easy to rely on StoreLaw's automatic outline-making function--I rarely reviewed my notes until right before the exam because I wanted to make sure I had everything in there before I "created" my outline. 

My personal plan at this point is to use StoreLaw. The program already has built-in commercial outlines keyed to various texts, and I plan on adding my own notes to the outline already there. I think that having a "skeleton" will help me in the beginning, since I also have not a clue as to how to get started. I know that I MUST have some order in my material or I get frustrated.

Just so you know, the "outlines" that you can download from StoreLaw are just the casebook's table of contents in electronic form.  There is no substantive material in them.