Am I studying enough?

[jslick]

>"I get the whole "if you brief your own cases you'll learn it better", but assume for a second learning it isn't the issue, outline content is, am I getting enough content in?"

If learning isn't the issues, why go to school?

[egfmba]

In re: your study habits:

Do you feel like you know the prof and what he wants? When you sit down for your final, will you understand how to apply what the prof wants you to know to the hypo on the exam?  It doesn't matter to anyone else but you how you study because you're the only one who's going to rely on that at the end of the year.

If you think you're studying enough to 'get it', then nothing anyone here has to say will change your mind.  I think as long as your gut feeling is that you're doing fine, go with it.  We all develop a method that works for us and find out how it really works at the end of the semester, so each of us is subject to the 'time will tell' caveat.

I could say you're not studying enough or you're studying just right or you're studying too much, but I'm only measuring your performance based on my abilities if I do that, so I won't.  I think my study habits work for me and your interpretation seems to be that yours are working for you.

Continued luck in school to everyone!!!

[($)]

All I do is write down the outline headings for my reading, skim the books and jot a note or two, and then copy the casebriefs from Legalines into my notes so I'll be ok for class. That's like an hour tops for each class.

You're in good shape, fella! I would love to have the time to actually copy the canned briefs into my notes, but unfortunately I don't, so I bring the actual canned brief with me in class. 

[SassDiva2000]

I'm really confused as to why you're bothering to even copy the legal lines briefs at all instead of simply bringing them to class. It sounds as if you're briefing simply for the sake of briefing. It's really difficult to gauge whether you are utilizing an effective study method. Some people don't have to study very hard and do well in law school. You might be one of those people.

But let me say one thing about briefing: I discovered early on that I don't brief for class. A lot of people spend enormous amounts of time briefing (particularly in their first year) because they want to be prepared in case they get "called on." I, too, was among them and soon discovered that I absorbed/learned nothing. I now brief for me--- my briefs are organized and arranged in a way that will help me learn and make sense of the material. I don't write down the issues, procedural posture or any of that other stuff unless it's necessary for me to understand what is going on in the case and ultimately, the law. With that said, you need to employ whatever method will help you to understand the law and test well in your particular professor's class. If what you're doing will help to do those things, rock on.

[katrina]

I'm really confused as to why you're bothering to even copy the legal lines briefs at all instead of simply bringing them to class.

At my school students try to avoid bringing Legalines and Casenotes series in class, they do not want to be seen by other students and professors using canned briefs.

[Melinda]

I'm really confused as to why you're bothering to even copy the legal lines briefs at all instead of simply bringing them to class.

At my school students try to avoid bringing Legalines and Casenotes series in class, they do not want to be seen by other students and professors using canned briefs.

Same here.  They seem really taboo, but everyone seems to be using some type of supplements.  I think more for competitive reasons people are holding out on what they have.  I saw a guy handing a classmate the E&E's and comm. briefs he had borrowed, and it seriously looked like some type of illegal drug deal was going down.

[be10dwn]

I call BS about the interview thing.  I didn't think you could interview before November per the ABA.  This seems kind of like a troll to me.

[sandokan]

saw a guy handing a classmate the E&E's and comm. briefs he had borrowed, and it seriously looked like some type of illegal drug deal was going down.

LOL the way you described it was so funny!

[ernesto]

Highball,

I think you are studying smart. If you know the blackletter law and can apply it, it doesn't really matter whether you got it through briefing your own cases or not. Just be sure you can handle dissecting longer fact patterns (I am assuming those quizzes were short answer or short fact patterns) that you will have to analyze on your finals. I think there is a lot of hype about law school. It is not rocket science and the 1st year curriculum is universal, which means there are many sources for the knowledge we are expected to amass in our classes.