Focus – Study Smarter

Focus Study Smarter: I thought of the topic of this blog because we are fast approaching what is widely considered the critical point in bar exam study – the Fourth of July. That date represents the approximate mid-point in summer bar prep after which bar studiers recognize that ish gets real.

Obviously, students should be studying rigorously throughout the summer; there is no magical turning point at which students begin to study hard. The bar exam is not an exam for which students can cram. Certainly, there are techniques that students can implement to review key concepts, and social media should ideally be cut off completely. But really, the key to bar success is a focus.

That focus does not begin the summer after law school. Law school success requires hard work, but as any law school graduate will tell you, that success is achieved not just by studying hard, but it is also about studying smart. In my last entry, I wrote about the importance of self-care in law school; that is a habit you should maintain not only throughout your law school career but also throughout the demanding legal career that will ensue.

If you are about to begin law school in the fall, think ahead about how you plan to schedule your study time. The study habits you had in college may not be as effective in law school. Although there are many predictors of law school success, I often find that those who worked after college and before enrolling in law school tend to adjust better to the demands of law school life. Because they are accustomed to the uninterrupted work blocks of the nine-to-five focus, those students often plan their law school study around similarly uninterrupted blocks of time; in other words, they treat studying like a job and allocate time accordingly.

Thoughts on Law School Mindset

Of course, this is not to say that students who go straight from undergraduate to law school are not ready for its rigor. It just means that if you are a student coming straight from an undergraduate institution you should think about how you will allocate your time. I began law school immediately after college, and even though I studied hard in college I found that I had to change my study habits for law school success.

My advice is to plan for uninterrupted, focused blocks of time to really delve into your reading material. Law school reading is not about superficial understanding, it is about deep comprehension of the nuance that led courts to draw legal conclusions. Focus on which facts led the court to come up with its holding. What were the legal principles that the court applied? What was the rationale? Can you identify patterns that indicate that the law developed over time? What general rules and policies are you able to discern from the case and its context?

You will likely be struck by the reading load; it can be overwhelming at first. As time goes on, you’ll prioritize information and begin to learn the questions to ask and answer. Pay attention to your professors’ questions and what they emphasize. Don’t just focus on the holding of the cases, flesh out the rationales. Understanding how and why a court applied the law is critical to understanding the law itself.

This brings me back to focus. Make sure you are carving out the time and space to process vast amounts of information. That does not mean that you do not also forget to include time for exercise, rest, and fun! Sometimes students burn out thinking that the more hours they study, the better their performance will be. It is better to spend several hours per day focused on your material than to spend all day and all evening staring at the reading with a burned-out brain.