Can anyone tell me whether this site is useful?

[brewha]

A friend recommended that I read it and buy into its message before I start in the fall, but I would like to get a broader perspective before deciding whether or not to waste my time with it.

Any advice/commentary is appreciated!

http://www.lawnerds.com/guide/mind.html

No advice until you take off your signature where you were accepted/rejected/whocares/etc.  This isn't the kiddie board.

The problem with unwritten rules is that nobody bothered to write them down.   

Indeed!  Having taken care of that problem, I'd recommend reading Planet Law School II before that web site.  That resource helped me, and others I've spoken to, tremendously the first year.  It provides comprehensive exam strategies and further lists other sources that are more narrowly tailored to specific areas of the law school experience.  It is worth the read and 30 bucks. 

I finished Law School Confidential a while back, and I am currently reading PLS II.  Did you do the exercises and order all the additional materials that Falcon recommends?  I'm afraid that I am not going to have time to work through it all before school starts... 

The Examples and Explanations Series is a MUST for the first semester of first year.  Definately buy those.  However, you don't have to read them before you actually begin law school.  You will only confuse yourself and might even waste time going through stuff your professor won't even cover.  Get the materials Falcon recommends and just relax and enjoy your summer. 

One thing that you should do over the summer is take the LEEWS course; or get the cd's.  This is what alerts you as to what is important throughout the semester.  It also makes the exams less intimidating first time around. 

[phosita]

Don't know anything about the lawnerds site and never bothered with LEEWS but my experience with the E&E's has been mostly good, especially contracts and civ pro.

Personally, I wouldn't recommend doing anything over the summer (other than possibly reading The Brethren, or some other not really academic but still relevant book. IMO, the PLS recommendations are insane. Am I the only one who thought Falcon came across as borderline wacko in PLS 2?    (have to confess I didn't finish it though, so it might have gotten better towards the end)

[slacker]

I thought "Gideon's Trumpet" was a good read. And you can never go wrong with "To Kill a Mockingbird", book or movie.

[GA-fan]

Don't forget a Civil Action. I highly recommend reading before you take civ pro. You won't learn anything about civ pro per se, but when you start learning about the mechanics of civ pro, it helps to think back to a concrete example of joinder, discovery, rule 11, etc. Plus, there's the Woburn game of CALI which is fun 

I really enjoyed reading for pleasure and plan to pick that up again now that I have a few weeks off before the job starts.

If you feel the need to prep for law school, I'd get very familiar with basic principles of economics. It will come up over and over again as a 1L (torts, contracts, property, etc) and learning about how economics applies to law is much easier if you know basic economic theory. Nothing difficult, just supply and demand, etc.
Also, some basic business knowledge or sales knowledge is handy for contracts and property. The 1L year will teach you everything you need to know about the law as long as you have a solid base to build upon.

[phosita]

I'd actually recommend watching A Civil Action after you take Civ Pro. That way, it's much funnier when the smarmy corporate attorney asks the other attorney:
"Have you ever heard of ...[dramatic pause] Rule 11?"

Same with My Cousin Vinny and "It's called 'disclosure' ya' moron!"

[ashley06]

Don't know anything about the lawnerds site and never bothered with LEEWS but my experience with the E&E's has been mostly good, especially contracts and civ pro.

Personally, I wouldn't recommend doing anything over the summer (other than possibly reading The Brethren, or some other not really academic but still relevant book. IMO, the PLS recommendations are insane. Am I the only one who thought Falcon came across as borderline wacko in PLS 2?    (have to confess I didn't finish it though, so it might have gotten better towards the end)

There is certainly no love lost between Falcon and the law school establishment.  That said, he does make some excellent points in his criticism.   I find it an absolute farce that, essentially, I will not be qualified to practice law upon graduation from law school.  What other professional school can boast that? 

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Thank you to everyone for your responses.  I will take it all under advisement. 

[plex]

Actually, most schools do not prepare you for the actual workforce. I went to an engineering school, which tends to teach more real world subject matter and gives projects that are relevant to current technology, at least sometimes. The school itself though, didn't really "prepare" you for the job, all it is there for, is to open doors for actual employment, where you will learn the job. Engineering schools often require students to gain technical work experience, my old school being one of them, because they know perfectly well that is where you will really gain the experience you need to hit the ground running when you graduate.

I imagine it is much worse for liberal arts majors, since there isn't really a good internship/co-op system for them AND since their education is so broad, it is unlikely they were able to take more than a small handful of classes that are even relevant to what they end up doing, much less useful.

Law school is the same, it is there to facilitate you getting a good job.

[starter]

Don't know anything about the lawnerds site and never bothered with LEEWS but my experience with the E&E's has been mostly good, especially contracts and civ pro.

Personally, I wouldn't recommend doing anything over the summer (other than possibly reading The Brethren, or some other not really academic but still relevant book. IMO, the PLS recommendations are insane. Am I the only one who thought Falcon came across as borderline wacko in PLS 2?    (have to confess I didn't finish it though, so it might have gotten better towards the end)

There is certainly no love lost between Falcon and the law school establishment.  That said, he does make some excellent points in his criticism.   I find it an absolute farce that, essentially, I will not be qualified to practice law upon graduation from law school.  What other professional school can boast that? 

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thank you to everyone for your responses.  I will take it all under advisement. 

You won't be qualified to practice law upon graduation from law school.  Law school will teach you how to approach a legal problem and to some extent it will teach you how to research and write about one.  However, it will not show you how to interview and advise clients, how to file complaints, and many other things that go into the daily practice of law.  Law school teaches you how to be an appellate court judge.  However, lawyers spend a very small minority of their time doing what law students do, namely reading cases in an effort to understand "the law." 

[phosita]

There is certainly no love lost between Falcon and the law school establishment.  That said, he does make some excellent points in his criticism.   I find it an absolute farce that, essentially, I will not be qualified to practice law upon graduation from law school.  What other professional school can boast that? 

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Thank you to everyone for your responses.  I will take it all under advisement. 

I haven't seen much of the atmosphere that Falcon complained of, but I go to a touchy-feely-hippie-west-coast-liberal school so my experience probably isn't the norm.

I think plex makes a good point. My undergrad degree is in engineering but I certainly wasn't "prepared" to just drop into my first engineering job and start being a productive employee. I'd say it's a slightly better situation in law school - after your first year you should have enough of the basic skills to be able to contribute to assisting an experienced lawyer. There is NO substitute for practical real world experience though. Unless you go to a trade/vocational school, no field of academia won't prepare you for actual practice.