Assess the Validity of My Study Plan for 1L

[_retired_]

Greeting 2Ls, 3Ls, and Grads.

I have done a good amount of research into studying and exam taking including, PLS II, LEEWS, and every message board I can find.  Based on all this, this is what I have come up with as a plan of attack for the first year. 

Do you see this being excessive, unproductive, not enough?  Anything seem to you like it would be an outright waste of time?  Do my priorities seem appropriate (I have my plan listed the order I believe ranks importance as related to cases)?  In the midst of all this, at least weekly, I will build an outline and work old exams as the semester draws to a close.

When I get a case:
1)   Go immediately to a commercial outline for the BLL, and any accompanying canned briefs.
2) Go to the E&E Primers for the relevant topic.  Do chapter(s) and answer questions. Expect this exercise to be time consuming.
   3) Perform a LEEWS style brief. 
      a) vary the fact pattern
      b) test the BLL and reasoning
•   Again, this will be time consuming.
   4) Go to the Restatements on point.
      a) work the hypo’s posed
If things are still unclear…
   5) Use Hornbooks in library
 
To those of you familier with the texts I listed, this is basically a combination of PLS and LEEWS approach.  They do not differ that much.

Thank you in advance for any insight and experience you might be willing to share.

[rapunzel]

It's good to start with a plan.  Just remember to keep it flexible, as you will get a better sense of what works for you as you go.  The plan you have described is extemely time consuming.  You will have hundreds of cases to read.  Most of them will not require this level of work to understand.  Personally, two weeks in, I was book briefing (I finished top 5%, 1L).  I think it would be sufficent to take LEEWS style notes and confirm any blackletter law you learn with a commercial outline.  Then make the time to do practice exams starting in November.  Nothing indicates what you need to spend more time on than practice exams.   
Good Luck.

[squarre]

I agree with rapunzel that your plan would be very, very time consuming and most likely the time just won't be there.  I know you said you feel certain sections will be time consuming, but I think you are downplaying just how time consuming all of it will be.  Reading the cases assigned can be time consuming on its own.   

If you need to do all or some of these things on a particularly confusing subject then go for it, but doing it everyday for every class will be tough.  For the most part I think I would stick to one supplement per class IF it is needed. 

Good Luck and Don't Stress Too Much.

[lipper]

dude theres no way ur gonna be able to do that for each case. u gotta figure ur gonna be getting like 5-10 cases a night. i agree with the other posters. i would get 1 supplement for each class. As far as outlining, you can't outline every week. If u do, your outline will be 150 pages. You need to wait until you finish a specific subject matter then outline it. sometimes you'll do an subject area in a week, in other classes a month.

Also, you gotta figure in time for your legal research and writing class - at least at my school, this class took the most out-of-class time than all of the others. the thing is, when you are finished with all of ur substantive classes, then u gotta do this. but that isn't enough time. so u start to cut time out of ur other classes. its kind of like a cycle.

Good Luck. your plan, in theory, is great, however not practical. i would do points 1 and 2(and even then point 2 might be excessive), along with a nice book brief. almost nobody briefs cases in law school (at mine, at least), just the good ol' book brief.

[slacker]

I agree on the "that's a lot of work" camp. It also will have problems for the profs that tend to not follow the format of an E&E or commercial outline. Flexibility will be the key...esp. when you start getting huge legal writing assignments tossed your way.