Welcome to law school! This is a biweekly series with tips and tricks for success in law school. We’ll cover things like time management, outlining, preparing for exams, and more! Although this series covers skills and tricks that might be new to 1Ls, I hope that every member of the law school community can find something helpful here.
Welcome back! You’ve probably already started or are about to start the spring semester. I hope you’re finding it easier to get into a rhythm and stay on top of your assignments since you have a few months of law school under your belt. Of course, there’s always areas to improve! Even though it’s time to focus on your new subjects, you should take a few moments over the next few weeks to reflect on last semester and set goals for this semester. The goal of this blog is to get you started on the process.
- Identify the Key Components of Law School Learning
The first step of reflecting is figuring out what you need to reflect upon. Since we’re focusing on your law school learning, we need to identify key steps to the learning process and then reflect upon those. Your key components include:
- Time Management
- Reading
- Case Briefing
- Classroom Discussion
- Note Taking
- Post-class Debriefing
- Outlining
- Seeking Clarification/Verification (TAs, Professors, etc.)
- Practicing
- Exam Performance
You may have additional things on your list, but hopefully this captures all of the puzzle pieces to learning in law school. For each of these topics, think critically about how you handled them. First, did you actually do each step? If yes, did your process seem effective? Are there ways you could have been more efficient?
- What did you do well?
It’s easy to automatically move towards what didn’t go well last semester, but let’s start your self-reflection on a positive note. What did you do well last semester? Did you always have your reading done for class? Are you particularly proud of your note taking system? Were you a multiple-choice expert? It’s important to identify areas of your learning that went well and worked for you. You don’t want to fundamentally change the things that you’re already doing well! Take detailed notes for yourself on what went well and why so you can continue those practices into the spring semester.
- What needs improvement?
Now it’s time for the harder part – what didn’t go well? Were there things that you neglected to do until the last minute? Did you often feel lost in class discussions? Were your notes helpful when you went to update your outlines? The beginning of the semester is the perfect time to identify areas of improvement so that you can reap the greatest benefits of making changes. Note everything that you think can be improved and some ideas of how you might improve them.
- Set Semester Goals
Once you have a few areas of improvement in mind, it’s time to set goals for the semester. Remember, goals should be specific, measurable, and attainable. For instance, if you’re someone who wants to work on seeking clarification, perhaps your goal is to attend office hours twice a month. Think carefully about how you will go about making adjustments to meet your goals.
Reflecting on last semester and setting measurable goals is a key component of growing as a law student and as a lawyer in training. It’s often difficult to self-assess, identify how to improve, and set goals, so if you need guidance, reach out to your academic support professionals.
(Dayna Smith)
