2L here - questions anyone?

[Lost Girl]

Why do schools require a second seat deposit?  I'm not that fat so I won't take up two seats.  Can I just pay the first one and promise to maintain my current weight? 

as a 1L you will probably be in more than one classroom.  therefore, you have to pay a deposit for each of those seats.

Can I just bring my own chair and set it up at the very back?  I'm broke because my lemonade stand got shut down and I spent my last dollar on a chimichanga.

[Texas2L]

Do you think LEEWS is a good guide?

Did you read Law School Confidential?  If so, how do you regard their study methods in light of your experience?

[Helpful Chap]

Do you think LEEWS is a good guide?

I had a few friends who used that.  I glanced through the primer for maybe 15 minutes and I talked with these people for maybe 20 minutes (combined) total about leews, so take the following advice with a grain of salt. 

My take is that LEEWS is good for people who had undergrad majors that weren't heavy in logic.  Logic heavy majors = hard sciences, philosophy(or so they say  )  Logic light majors = english, history.  It seems like leews focuses on how to 'sort out' large hypothetical fact patterns, and to break them down to their smallest parts so it can teach you how to put them back together in an 'A' exam answer. This will be second nature to many law students with more logic-heavy majors, however it will be a huge hurdle for some with the lighter ones.  If you fall into the latter camp, I'd say it can't hurt as long as you don't let it cut into your study time.   

Anecdotally (and with a whopping sample size of 4,) half my friends who used leews will probably be with me on law review, half will be a little above the median.  So overall, I don't think it can hurt. Personally, I think its value lies more in giving the readers peace of mind (as opposed to having some 'secret' to getting A's), but that's just my take.

Did you read Law School Confidential?  If so, how do you regard their study methods in light of your experience?

Haven't read it.  If you could give me a brief synopsis of their suggested study methods, I can comment on/critique them though. 

[John Blackthorne]

Do you think LEEWS is a good guide?

I had a few friends who used that.  I glanced through the primer for maybe 15 minutes and I talked with these people for maybe 20 minutes (combined) total about leews, so take the following advice with a grain of salt. 

My take is that LEEWS is good for people who had undergrad majors that weren't heavy in logic.  Logic heavy majors = hard sciences, philosophy(or so they say  )  Logic light majors = english, history.  It seems like leews focuses on how to 'sort out' large hypothetical fact patterns, and to break them down to their smallest parts so it can teach you how to put them back together in an 'A' exam answer. This will be second nature to many law students with more logic-heavy majors, however it will be a huge hurdle for some with the lighter ones.  If you fall into the latter camp, I'd say it can't hurt as long as you don't let it cut into your study time.   

Anecdotally (and with a whopping sample size of 4,) half my friends who used leews will probably be with me on law review, half will be a little above the median.  So overall, I don't think it can hurt. Personally, I think its value lies more in giving the readers peace of mind (as opposed to having some 'secret' to getting A's), but that's just my take.

Did you read Law School Confidential?  If so, how do you regard their study methods in light of your experience?

Haven't read it.  If you could give me a brief synopsis of their suggested study methods, I can comment on/critique them though. 

the rainbow highlighter briefing method for case briefing followed by the daily method of outlining.

[Texas2L]

^^ what he said.

[Helpful Chap]

the rainbow highlighter briefing method for case briefing

I never really understood this, however I did make fun of a few of my classmates who had case books with every other sentence highlighted.  I figure what's the point in highlighting if you're going to highlight every word?  Doesn't this defeat the purpose of highlighting?

You'll have to give me more details, but I assume they want you to highlight the holding, issue, rule, application of the rule, etc.  This would be a huge waste of time for most, but it may not be such a bad idea for the first month or two while you get a hang of reading cases.  Basically, if it works for you then do it, but I see no particular advantage to doing it this way and it seems like a lot of unnecessary work on top of it.  Again, going back to my advice earlier in the thread, this seems like something more geared toward class prep than finals prep, but I may be wrong.  I recommend simply highlighting the important rule(s) after class discussion.  Highlighting/note taking (i.e. briefing) done before class is usually more useless than useful, and may even confuse you later when you are studying for finals.

followed by the daily method of outlining.

Assuming you are outlining properly and you don't start the daily outlining until you are at least 35-40% through the course, then this is an excellent idea and something I wish I had done more of.  As I've hit on before, it is important to see the forest before you start worrying about the trees (i.e. daily outlining).  Your outline will be useless if you start outlining from day one, especially during first semester when you won't "get it" until at least 1/3 of the way through most courses, and realistically it will be more like 2/3 of the way through for some courses.  This all depends on the subject though.  For instance, for civ pro part 1 outlining starting in your third week might not be a bad idea, but for contracts I think it would be a bad idea since in contracts the "big picture" is more important than in civil procedure. 

It's tough to give blanket advice for all 1L's for all course at all law schools.  The more specifics you could give me about your situation, the better I will be able to respond.

[Texas2L]

I don't really have any specifics at the moment, I'm still a few months away from starting school so I'm mostly just reading all this crap about law school while trying to stay interested in work for another month.  I'm starting SMU in August.  Only semi-unique thing about me is that I'm a nontrad, worked for 10 years, software developer background with a computer science degree.

[John Blackthorne]

the highlighter method is for people who want a system and who like pretty colors.  you highlight the holding in one color, and the rule in another, and so forth.  i think its a waste of time.  once you have read a few weeks worth of cases for four classes and attended the corresponding lectures you should know what to look for in the cases and what to ignore.  its one of those things that you learn by feel, and once i knew what to look for i could do 20 pages of reading in a half hour and be ready for class.

buuuut, you can do just fine by getting a commercial outine with case summaries thats geared to your text book, and never actually read or brief a case.

[Thistle]

the highlighter method is for people who want a system and who like pretty colors.  you highlight the holding in one color, and the rule in another, and so forth.  i think its a waste of time.  once you have read a few weeks worth of cases for four classes and attended the corresponding lectures you should know what to look for in the cases and what to ignore.  its one of those things that you learn by feel, and once i knew what to look for i could do 20 pages of reading in a half hour and be ready for class.

buuuut, you can do just fine by getting a commercial outine with case summaries thats geared to your text book, and never actually read or brief a case.

high court case summaries are like manna from heaven.

[Helpful Chap]

I don't really have any specifics at the moment, I'm still a few months away from starting school so I'm mostly just reading all this crap about law school while trying to stay interested in work for another month.  I'm starting SMU in August.  Only semi-unique thing about me is that I'm a nontrad, worked for 10 years, software developer background with a computer science degree.

I have a couple of friends with computer science and computer engineering backgrounds, and I can tell you with a reasonable degree of certainty that your work with logic in undergrad/at your work will help you immensely in law school.  If anything, I'd focus on your reading skills.  Just read as much as you can and work on your reading speed and ability to focus.  You won't have to worry at all about the mathematical-ish (i.e. logical) underpinnings of the first year subjects as many of your classmates will.