Thane,
As a follow-up to our discussion on the Non-Trad forum I have taken the time to read your book and other posts. I felt the PLS approach a bit too much for now. But I did follow your advice and setup my initial outlines in Microsoft OneNote. I also went through John Delaney's Learning Legal Reasoning. This is an excellent primer on what learning the law is all about.
I think your approach provides a good balance between walking in cold, and doing massive substantive study as recommended by Mr. Falcon. I cannot understand those who say do nothing, have a fun summer and get drunk a lot. For me, reading the major concepts about civil procedure, for example, means when the prof starts talking about personal jurisdiction, I will know about International Shoe and the minimum contacts test. Sure, I won't know all the rules, but it will know the highlights so as not to feel totally lost.
One of the arguments against doing prep, especially on the TLS board, is "you won't know what to study" or "your prof will teach you what you need to know they way you need to know it." This is pure bull. For example, in Civ Pro, there are rules you need to know and major cases about the rules. Unless you are going to law school in Mongolia, the same rules apply, at the federal level, in every state and every law school and every bar exam is going to require you know them.
Thane, once again, thanks for your sage advice. I recommend your book, GGG, to everyone I know who is thinking about law school or starting in the fall. In fact, based on other threads on this forum, there are many 1Ls who need your advice even after finishing their first semester!
I am going to do LEEWS in July and then go through the CDs again in October.
Regards,