Simple Strategies and Secrets for Success in Law School (A Companion to the Book of the Same Name)

Author: waltereffross (page 6 of 6)

PREFACE OF THE BOOK (OR, THE “PARTY” OF THE FIRST PART)

In the late fall of 1984, towards the end of our first semester as Harvard Law School students, several classmates and I signed up to have lunch with one of our section’s professors.

       During that meal, he asked us, with what seemed to be genuine concern, whether we were feeling stressed, either in his course or generally.  We all looked at each other; we all told him that we were just fine.

      He was certainly too intelligent, and experienced, to believe us.  Looking somewhat befuddled, he peered at us over his glasses and wondered, “Honestly, I don’t know why you all don’t treat law school as a three-year party.”

        My classmates and I looked at each other again.  Somehow, we all managed to keep straight faces, but this time none of us had a ready answer for him. 

        Almost four decades—and numerous technological, cultural, political, social, and economic changes— after that lunch, it seems even less appropriate to compare law school to an extended party. 

        In fact, like the novel on which it was based (and like the television show which would follow in 1978), the 1973 movie, The Paper Chase, focused on the intense commitment, concentration, and hermetic (if not hermitic) existence of law students.  Actor John Houseman’s fictional Professor Kingsfield imperiously intoned, “You come in here with a skull full of mush, and you leave thinking like a lawyer.” 

        Similarly intimidating is a book that a well-meaning relative gave me the summer before I started law school: One L, Scott Turow’s account of his first-year experience at Harvard in 1975-76.  (I found it so unnerving that I put it away after only a few chapters, and completed it ten months later, while returning home after final exams.)

        During that summer, I scoured libraries and bookstores for any guide to this new environment, but came up with little that seemed useful, insightful, practical, or even especially encouraging.  (On an early visit to the campus, I’d asked an especially prominent professor, after one of his class sessions ended, whether he had any advice for a newly-admitted law student: he’d answered, “I’m very tired now.  Why don’t you see me in the fall?”)

       The book that you are now reading contains my version of the information that I so nervously searched for in the spring and summer of 1984.  It organizes and distllls more than twenty-five years of advice that I’ve given to, and heard from, prospective students, students, and alumni as a member of the faculty of the American University Washington College of Law (WCL); and, before that, as an adjunct faculty member at Seton Hall Law School.

        These chapters also include lessons I that learned as a law student at Harvard, as a judicial clerk for the Supreme Court of New Jersey, and as an associate at two of New Jersey’s largest law firms, Roseland’s Lowenstein Sandler and Newark’s McCarter & English.  (There are no “composite characters,” but in some cases personal details have been modified to protect the privacy of individuals.)

        All the views expressed are my own, and are not official statements or positions of any of these institutions.  I have no financial interest in any of the books that I recommend, except for my own book on corporate governance; and I don’t necessarily agree with every view expressed in them.

        The material is arranged in roughly the order in which you might find it of use during your law school career.  However, you might want to browse through the entire book before your first day of classes.

        This is a book of “you might” and “you could,” and even, “you should”; but never, “you must.” 

        Rather than attempting to offer a complete, definitive, or one-size-fits-all guide to law school, Keeping Your Own Counsel suggests—and, in its eight appendices, provides further details and examples of—some simple and supportive strategies, systems, schedules, and structures, many of which you might not see or hear elsewhere, for engaging with and enriching your law school journey.  

        The title refers not only to the chapters’ recommendations and reasons for constructing specific types of lists, but also to their emphasis on preparing a portable professional portfolio to maximize your career opportunities.

        I hope that this book will help you navigate from acclimation to acclamation, and that it will make your law school experience, if not quite a three-year party, as productive, fulfilling, manageable, and meaningful—and as enjoyable—as it can be.

Copyright (c) 2023 by Aspen Publishing. Reproduced with permission.

TABLE OF CONTENTS OF THE BOOK

Chapter 1- Ten Principles of Success in Law School [starts on page] (1)

Chapter 2- Your Personal Purpose: Five Lists to Consider Creating (6)

Chapter 3- Five (and Ten More) Reading Recommendations for Your Pre-1L Summer (9)

Chapter 4- Nine Differences Between College and Law School (13)

Chapter 5- Fourteen Ways Law School Might Affect Your Thinking (15)

Chapter 6- Thirteen Themes: A Starter Set (19)

Chapter 7- Twenty -Two Ways in Which Law School Differs from Law Practice (24)

Chapter 8- Nineteen Ways in Which Law School Resembles Law Practice (29)

Chapter 9- Getting (Fully) Oriented (34)

Chapter 10- Assumpsit: A Word About Dictionaries (38)

Chapter 11- Eight Useful Supplies (40)

Chapter 12- Four More Core Lists (42)

Chapter 13- Engaging In, Taking Notes During, and Preparing for Class (47)

Chapter 14- Five Secret Words for Success (and Five Reasons Why) (51)

Chapter 15- Thirteen Tips for Constructing Course Outlines (53)

Chapter 16- Effective Exam Preparation: A Semester-Long Process (57)

Chapter 17- What to Read, After Settling In (59)

Chapter 18- Writing, to Be Noticed; and, Nine Notes on Writing (65)

Chapter 19- Fourteen Aspects of Assessing a Law Review Article (73)

Chapter 20- Starting a Reading (or Other) Student Group (76)

Chapter 21- Of Stress, Sanctuaries, Celebrations, and Saving Worlds (79)

Chapter 22- Eleven Suggestions for Answering Exam Questions (84)

Chapter 23- Considerations for Your Course Selections (87)

Chapter 24- Five Surprising Secrets of Business Law (91)

Chapter 25- ESG Law, Practice, and Resources (95)

Chapter 26- Compliance: A Corporate, Cultural, and Curricular Crossroads (98)

Chapter 27- Fourteen Advantages of Studying and Practicing Bankruptcy Law (100)

Chapter 28- Preparing for, and Succeeding During, Job Interviews (104)

Chapter 29- Seven Books About Large Law Firms (110)

Chapter 30- Eight Virtues of Judicial Clerkships (113)

Chapter 31- In Conclusion: Of Keys, and Bees (115)

Appendix A- Thirteen Aspects of Preparing and Presenting “Actionable” Advice (117)

Appendix B- Enhancing the Decision-Making Process (122)

Appendix C- Fourteen Suggestions for Ethical Counseling in Fluid Situations (131)

Appendix D- A Sample/Starter Checklist for Drafting/Editing/Proofreading (135)

Appendix E- Policies, Procedures, and Practices for Decision-Making by Voting (139)

Appendix F- Topics for Papers and Blogs (141)

Appendix G- Zen and the Art of Crisis Management (147)

Appendix H- Creative Career Suggestions for ESG and Corporate Law (151)

DESCRIPTION OF THE BOOK

Keeping Your Own Counsel: Simple Strategies and Secrets for Success in Law School, by Professor Walter A. Effross, is a unique toolkit of practical systems, schedules, and scores of (sometimes-surprising) suggestions, to help students distinguish themselves in the classroom, the exam room, and the interview room. 

Drawing on the author’s seven years of big-firm practice and quarter-century of full-time law teaching, the book provides encouraging and immediately-usable methods to support students throughout their law school careers, starting well before the first day of classes.  Keeping Your Own Counsel includes structures for mastering information, maximizing efficiency, minimizing stress, and building a portfolio of publications.

Students will benefit from:

  • Clear and meaningful discussions, with numbered lists of considerations, questions, and suggestions;
  • Consistent emphasis on maintaining and cultivating one’s purpose, values, and professional and personal ethics;
  • Recommendations of effective ways to use inexpensive and easily-available, but often-overlooked, resources;
  • Chronological coverage includes: pre-law reading; becoming fully oriented; how law school differs from, and resembles, law practice; core lists to maintain; preparing for classes and exams; exam-taking; analyzing, and writing, law review articles; selecting upper-level courses; judicial clerkships; and, succeeding in job interviews.
  • Eight detailed appendices present lists of: dozens of ways to enhance the lawyer’s role in decision-making; more than 150 potential paper/blogging topics; over 50 elements of contract-drafting; and, more than 25 creative career categories of practice in corporate and ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) law.

PRELIMINARIES: OF PURPOSES AND POCKET PARTS

     Today’s digitally-oriented law and pre-law students might rarely (if ever) encounter a traditional “pocket part.”

     Such a paperbound insert updates, and is attached to a special slot (or, pocket) inside the back cover of, a hardcover treatise, statute book, or collection of caselaw.

     This blog, KeepingYourOwnCounsel.com, is intended to extend and supplement my 2023 book (also available on Amazon) of the same name, continuing the spirit of the book’s subtitle: “Simple Strategies and Secrets for Success in Law School.” 

     It will offer my own suggestions (which are neither the official positions nor the official prescriptions of the American University Washington College of Law) for ways to maximize the law school experience both inside and outside the classroom. 

     In particular, although one chapter of the book provides “Five Secret Words for Success,” an equally important five words are, “It’s Not All About Grades.”

     Like the book, this blog will focus on practical themes and advice for law students, often using illustrations from popular culture; and it will identify some surprisingly-useful resources that are often overlooked and underappreciated, but inexpensive and easily available.

     As the Grateful Dead sang,

     “Once in a while, you get shown the light

     “In the strangest of places, if you look at right.”

     I hope that readers of this blog will find at least a few of its reflections somewhat illuminating.

                          Professor Walter A. Effross