It was one of those winter evenings when the sun set before 5 p.m. It was pitch dark, feeling like hours past bedtime even though it wasn’t yet 7 p.m. The temperature hovered at the freezing mark as a mixture of rain, snow, and sleet came through in occasional waves, and the wind cut into you like a blade right to your soul.

I sat in my car in a vacant parking lot. I was someplace on the short two-mile trip between my office and my home. Years later, I’m unsure exactly where—maybe outside the library or the high school.

My car was running. My hands tightly gripped the steering wheel—almost as tightly as my jaw was clenched. And I had tears in my eyes.

Scaring Even Myself

I’d just left my office, walking away from a file that was open on my desk, my anxiety and frustration at a near-panic level. Hell, who am I trying to fool? I was in a full-blown panic attack. I simply didn’t know what I was going to do. So, I decided to go home. The solution to my situation was to leave it and run away.

But as soon as I left, I knew my answer wasn’t at home. I pulled into the parking lot, fighting tears and panic. And I sat. In the cold, sleet, and dark, I sat. And for maybe the first time in my life, I was afraid of what I would do.

The problem—well, the catalyst of the problem—was that case sitting scattered across my desk. I hadn’t been working the case as hard as I should have. A trial date was approaching, and the opposing counsel had informed me that he’d oppose any continuance.

I went through the file that afternoon, trying to make sense of the facts, documents, witnesses, and issues. How would I put the case together if the judge denied my motion for a continuance? With each document, each moment, the anxiety and panic built layer upon layer.

And so that night, I sat in my car, unable to go back to the office or forward to my home and family. I was on the edge.

Thinking of a Lost Friend

Less than two years before, a good friend of mine in Montana had found himself in a similar situation. Ron had moved to Montana several years before. He was a gregarious fellow who seemingly only had to walk into a room to make friends.

Despite his move, he’d regularly return to Indiana, where he maintained contact with the legion of persons who called him a friend—persons who ranged from members of the city’s symphonic choir to lawyers, fellow Vietnam vets, his postman, his congressman, and a US senator.

But on a night similar to the one I was experiencing, he got in his running car, turned on some of his favorite music, drank some of his favorite single-barrel bourbon, and went to sleep—forever. He’d shared the issues that drove him to his irreversible act of desperation with only one friend.

And so, as I sat there, I thought of Ron.

Hello Darkness, My Old Friend

That night, I sat in my car; depression wasn’t a new issue for me. I had episodes as far back as college while working as a newspaper reporter and editor. I remember that, despite my excitement as I went through the process of applying and being accepted to law school, the week before I started law school, I sat on the steps of Monument Circle in Indianapolis, feeling incredibly depressed.

Later, even though the start of my job at a big law firm was very positive, I still had periods of depression. I started searching for other job opportunities, wondering if I could be happy in the corporate world or teaching.

Looking back, I know those changes wouldn’t have resolved my periodic bouts of depression. But I didn’t know that at the time.

I Grabbed the Lifeline

Sitting there on that cold night, I was lost about what to do—except that I didn’t want to reach out for the solution Ron found. So after perhaps an hour of sitting in the dark and cold, I reached out in desperation for the one lifeline that came to mind. I called my friend Terry Harrell.

I’d known Terry for several years, first as a fellow lawyer, then through my activities with the state bar association. You see, Terry was (and is) executive director of the Indiana Judges and Lawyers Assistance Program, the agency charged with helping those in the legal profession dealing with substance use and mental health issues such as depression.

Terry listened to me. Patiently. Without judging. She offered kind, experienced words that helped me get through that night—and the days that followed.

I Think of the Call Not Made

The problem case got back on track. I got the matter ready for trial, and it eventually settled favorably for my client. And I continued, with the help of JLAP, to keep my legal career on track, despite an occasional personal crisis or spell of depression. Before I retired, I was honored with selection to the Indiana State Bar Association’s GP Hall of Fame and the prestigious Indiana Lawyer’s Barrister Award.

But had I not made that one decision to call JLAP on that wintry night, all of that might have been different.

Each state has its own JLAP or Lawyers Assistance Program, which provides services to lawyers dealing with substance-use disorders, depression, and other mental health issues. Everything you say in your conversations with LAP is confidential. Their services save careers and lives. And as it was for me on that one night, help is just a phone call away.

The ABA Commission on Lawyer Assistance Programs is devoted to the advancement of well-being in the legal profession and to ensuring that every judge, lawyer, and law student has access to support and assistance when confronting alcoholism, substance use disorders, or mental health issues so that lawyers can recover, families are preserved, and clients and other members of the public are protected. This mission is carried out by supporting the work of state and local Lawyer Assistance Programs as they provide hands-on services and support to those in need.

Lawyer Assistance Programs nationwide provide confidential services and support to judges, lawyers, and law students facing mental health or substance use issues. Find the lawyers assistance program in your jurisdiction.

The post How One Phone Call May Have Saved a Life and a Legal Career first appeared on ABA for Law Students.

Dear family and friends:

My journey to the legal profession is almost—but not yet—over. My graduation ceremony on May 7 celebrates only the conveyance of a juris doctorate and master of law degrees, which alone aren’t sufficient for me legally to begin the practice of law. A significant hurdle remains before I can officially enter the legal profession—the Uniform Bar Exam.

I’ll be taking the UBE July 25-26, and it’ll be one of the most challenging legal exams I’ve taken. I want to provide you with some background as I embark on the bar exam preparation process starting May 1.

The Uniform Bar Exam

Ohio (and most other states) uses the UBE as the entrance test to the practice of law, like the United States Medical Licensing Examination for doctors or the National Council Licensure Examination for registered nurses. The UBE spans two days, with closed-book testing comprising three components prepared by the National Conference of Bar Examiners.

On the first day (a Tuesday), I’ll write six multistate essay exam (MEE) responses in the morning. The MEE questions can pertain to any one of the following areas of law: business associations, conflicts of law, constitutional law, contracts/sales, criminal law and procedure, evidence, family law, federal civil procedure, real property, secured transactions, torts, and trusts and estates.

In the afternoon, I’ll write two multistate performance test (MPT)responses that require composing two real-life practice documents from a “file” and “library” of approximately 25 pages each that I must read, analyze, and digest on the spot.

On the second day (a Wednesday), I’ll need to answer 200 multistate bar examination (MBE)multiple-choice questions covering six subject areas: constitutional law, contracts/sales, criminal law and procedure, evidence, federal civil procedure, real property, and torts.

The Bar Exam Prep Process

Given the array of 12 subjects and hundreds of rules within each subject that could be tested, the review process leading up to the UBE is long and grueling. Review courses often allow only one to three days to review all the material typically covered in a semester-long course. Because I haven’t taken a semester-long course on every subject tested on the UBE, bar preparation will require that I learn and understand several new subjects.

Statistics show that successful bar exam takers devote more than 330 hours to bar prep in the three months before their exam, memorizing and understanding rules of law and completing practice MBE, MEE, and MPT questions.

Therefore, using a commercial study program for my bar prep, I’ll be studying approximately six to seven hours a day practically every day from May 1 to June 23.

What You Need to Know

Statements of “You got this” or “I know you’ll pass” won’t ease my nerves.

Passing the UBE isn’t possible just by “being smart” or finishing law school. Passing takes months of study and preparation.

Recognize that I’m not “free” after driving across the stage to receive my diplomas.

Unless I’ve already committed to attending an event, family function, or outing, please accept this letter as my official RSVP response of no. I’ve already created my bar exam prep schedule with existing functions in mind and can’t afford to take any additional days off from studying.

Understand I’ll be “gone” for most of May, June, and July.

If you see me, I may not be mentally present. If you talk to me, I may not hear you. If I respond, I may not later know or remember what I said.

Even if you want just to say hello, that might have to wait. Unless you can deal with bringing food over and testing me with flashcards while we quickly eat, and then you leave immediately afterward, we’ll have to put everything off until August.

Results from the UBE won’t be available until the end of October.

Please don’t ask me on July 26 whether I passed the exam. And when results come out, please don’t bombard me with questions or spoil the result if you know how to find out (unfortunately, the information is publicly available).

Any negative emotions or attitude I exhibit isn’t because of you unless I directly tell you it is.

Preparing for the UBE is going to be an extremely stressful period of my life, not only due to reviewing hundreds of rules of law but also because of the constant fear of failure. If you attempt to talk to me and I come across as moody—unless I explicitly state otherwise—please understand that you’re not the reason for my negative emotions.

Remember that time off from studying doesn’t necessarily mean time with you.

While I’m unable to predict the future, just because there may be times when I’m not studying, that doesn’t mean I’ll be up to doing anything extravagant or extra. At most, I anticipate I’ll be up for (and will possibly need to refrain from losing my sanity) a few low-key, restorative moments together to be away from my study materials. Don’t expect anything more.

If you can reduce the burdens of finances, food, etc., on me, this type of support will mean more than words can describe.

Fortunately, I’m already at an advantage by living at home with my mom. But if you can help ease these burdens in any way to prevent my mom, sister, stepdad, etc., from losing their own minds, we’d greatly appreciate it.

Most importantly, don’t ask me for any legal advice.

Until I receive my official license to practice law, it’s illegal for me to answer any questions that could be construed as offering legal advice. If you ask me a legal question that’s not related to helping me study for the UBE, I won’t answer.

An important caveat: After I’m licensed to practice law, I won’t be a criminal law, estate planning, civil litigation, etc., attorney. I’ll be an intellectual property attorney handling copyrights, trademarks, trade secrets, and patents. No, I won’t represent you in any court just because you’re a family member or a friend.

Final Thoughts

Please know that until I start my bar exam prep, I’m happy to answer your questions or address your concerns. Additionally, here’s more information on how to support a bar exam taker.

Best regards and love,

Megan Parker, a handicapable hermit for the next few months

The post An Open Letter from a Future Lawyer Now Studying for the Bar Exam first appeared on ABA for Law Students.

Many students approach the bar exam and are unsure where to begin. Amanda, one of our excellent bar exam tutors, did a Q&A covering frequently asked questions about preparing for and passing the bar exam.

What is the best advice for passing the bar exam the first time?

What everyone says is true: studying for the bar is a marathon, not a sprint. Investing the time early in your studies to be diligent and sticking to your study schedule will reward you in the long run.

Be Consistent

By working through your study schedule consistently every day (with breaks), you’ll avoid having to cram in the weeks leading up to the bar exam. Your goal should be to finish learning new subjects between two and four weeks before the exam. Use the two to four weeks prior to the bar exam to do any remaining memorization and plenty of practice.

Take Care of Yourself

The other half of tackling the marathon is to take care of yourself. Don’t neglect your routines! Keep up your daily gym session, yoga, or meditation routine. Go for a walk or call your siblings. If your usual routine isn’t cutting it, look up some grounding exercises to help you focus and keep anxiety at bay. The best part of being diligent in your studies is that you can afford to take a step away for a half day or full day if you need it.

Make a Schedule

Not everyone can start studying two+ months before the exam. That’s OK! The way forward is to take a few hours and make yourself a detailed schedule: what subjects you are tackling, how you will tackle them, how many Multistate Bar Examination (MBE) questions you will do, and how many Multistate Essay Examination (MEE) and Multistate Performance Test (MPT) questions you plan to complete. This will become a daily to-do list to help keep you on track. While we don’t recommend eliminating any subjects entirely, you can spend more time on more challenging subjects. These might include subjects you didn’t take in law school or subjects that don’t come easily.

Use the Strategies That Work for You

Finally, we advise bar exam takers to stay true to study and memorization strategies that worked for them in law school. However, stay open to new ideas as well! If you did well in a study group or by reciting rules to yourself, keep those strategies in the mix for the bar exam! At the same time, especially if you didn’t have closed-book exams in law school, try some new memorization techniques.

What advice do you have for repeat bar exam takers?

The emotional component is one of the biggest hurdles for repeat bar exam takers. There’s no getting around it: failing the bar exam is an awful experience. Even when you’re told that failing the bar exam does not mean you aren’t smart or won’t be a good lawyer, it’s hard to believe those sentiments. Not processing and working through the emotions will undermine your ability to pass on the second try. Before you start gearing up for the next exam, work through your feelings from the last exam. Try meditation or go for long walks or hikes without music or a podcast. Do your best to believe that failing the bar exam isn’t a reflection on you and your competence, intelligence, and ability. It really isn’t!

Identify What Went Wrong

Next, spend some time identifying what went wrong last time. Did you start studying too close to the exam? Did you rush through understanding and not fully get there with comprehension? Maybe you didn’t focus enough time and attention on memorization. Also, break down your score. Did you do significantly better on one portion of the exam vs. other portions of the exam? Other factors can also play a big role: working while studying, an unexpected health issue, outside family obligations, etc. The more you can identify the issues that interfered with your score last time, the better you can plan to address them this time around.

Clear the Slate

We also recommend approaching studying the next time around with as much of a blank slate as possible. You may feel strongly that you know the material and just need to do more practice questions. Likewise, you only want to focus on the subject areas that were weak for you last time. However, sometimes we aren’t the best judge of our weaknesses. What feels like a weakness in memorization might be a weakness in understanding. This is true, especially when you’re diagnosing the problem months after you last studied.

Spend Time on Every Subject

Another risk of only focusing bar prep on weaker subjects is that you might not spend enough time on “stronger” subjects. This can cause a vicious cycle where subjects that were once strong become weaker because not enough time is spent on them! You can avoid the frustration of seeing that score inversion by making sure you spend time on every subject, even while you spend more time on your weaker subjects.

What are some of the biggest mistakes you see bar exam takers make?

Over-strategizing

We have students tell us about “strategies” they learned from other sources that are more likely to result in confusion and wasted time than a passing score. Be wary of suggestions like “read the answers first and then read the question in reverse until you know what it’s asking” or “flip through the MEE prompts and rank them in order of difficulty and start with the easiest/hardest.” These tips aren’t giving you the tools to succeed. Instead, they provide another thing for you to memorize, practice, and internalize when you should focus on memorizing, practicing, and internalizing the law!

That’s not to say there aren’t valid strategies, but you can sort out the good ones from the bad ones by assessing how much effort is involved in the strategy itself. For example, you may find it helpful to read the call of the question first before reading the fact pattern. That’s quick and easy enough! And there is one strategy that is ubiquitous for a reason: for the MPTs, read the task memo and then skip ahead to the library without reading the file. That tip definitely sounded gimmicky to me when I first heard it, but it works for a key reason: you need to build your MPT outline based on the law and then fill in the facts where they apply.

Underutilizing Practice Questions

Another common mistake is underutilizing practice questions. Practicing the right way takes a lot of discipline, but it is absolutely critical. Students will lose out on tremendous value without building in the necessary time to debrief completed MBE and MEE questions. If your task is to complete 10 MBE questions, you are not done after you finish answering them! To really learn from your practice, it’s so important to review each question again. This holds true even if you got the answer right. If you got the answer right, ask why that answer choice was right and why the others were wrong. If you made a lucky guess, debrief as if you got the question wrong. Diagnose what went wrong: did you read the question too quickly? Did you not know the rule? Did you know the rule but misunderstand it?

Physically write down what went wrong so that you can start to identify patterns. If you get many questions wrong because you are not reading closely enough, go back to untimed practice and work on reading more thoroughly. If you miss the same rule more than two times, make a flashcard or highlight the rule in your outline. Only after you have fully debriefed every question can you mark your practice “complete.” If you are looking for a bar exam tutor to help you pass the bar exam, please check out JD Advising’s top-notch tutoring services here.

The post Q&A with a Bar Exam Tutor—Frequently Asked Questions about the Bar Exam first appeared on ABA for Law Students.

Personal injury law is a highly specialized and complex field of law that involves representing clients who have suffered harm due to the negligence of others. As a result, pursuing a career in this area requires a high degree of dedication, perseverance, and a strong understanding of the legal system.

Education and Experience

One of the key components of becoming a successful personal injury attorney is obtaining a solid education in the field. Law schools offer a comprehensive education in personal injury law that will provide you with the knowledge and skills necessary to succeed in this field.

In addition to a solid education, practical experience is also essential. This can come in the form of working as a law clerk or intern at a personal injury law firm or by participating in legal clinics or pro bono work. Such experiences provide valuable hands-on knowledge in the field and the opportunity to network with other professionals in the industry.

Specialization and Practice Areas

One of the unique aspects of personal injury law is that it encompasses a wide range of practice areas, from medical malpractice and product liability to wrongful death and automobile accidents. As a result, it is important for you to specialize in a specific area of practice, such as medical malpractice or product liability, to stand out from the competition. This specialization will enable you to develop a deep understanding of the legal principles and procedures specific to your practice and become an expert in your field.

Networking and Building Relationships: The Key to a Successful Career

Seek opportunities to meet and interact with other professionals in the field, including other attorneys, judges, and legal experts. By building a strong network of contacts and professional relationships, you will be better equipped to stay informed about the latest developments in the field, build your reputation and brand, and grow your practice. In addition, strong relationships with other professionals in the field can help you stay motivated, find new clients, and achieve greater career success.

Building a Network

Networking is an important aspect of any legal career, and personal injury law is no exception. Take advantage of opportunities to network with other professionals in the industry, such as attending legal conferences and seminars, participating in bar associations, and reaching out to colleagues and mentors. Building a strong network of contacts in the legal community will enable you to learn from others in the field and establish valuable connections that can lead to job opportunities and referrals.

Marketing and Business Development

You must also be skilled in marketing and business development to succeed in this highly competitive field. This involves creating a professional online presence through websites, social media platforms, and professional directories and establishing a strong reputation for providing excellent legal representation and client service. Attorneys who can effectively market themselves and their practice will more likely attract new clients and build a successful career in personal injury law.

Navigating the Court System: Understanding the Personal Injury Litigation Process

One of the most important aspects of a successful career in personal injury law is a thorough understanding of the litigation process. This involves navigating the complex court system and handling various legal procedures, from filing lawsuits and discovery to settlement negotiations and trial preparation. You must have a strong understanding of the procedural rules and laws that apply to your cases and the ability to effectively communicate with clients, witnesses, and other parties involved in the litigation process.

Ethics and Professionalism: Maintaining the Highest Standards of Conduct

You must also possess a strong sense of ethics and professionalism and uphold the principles of the legal system. Attorneys who can maintain these high standards will be more likely to build a successful and rewarding career in personal injury law and earn the trust and respect of their clients and colleagues in the legal community.

Staying Current with Developments in the Field: The Importance of Continuing Education

The field of personal injury law is constantly evolving, and you need to stay updated with the latest developments and trends. This can be achieved through continuing education opportunities, such as attending legal conferences and seminars, participating in bar associations, and reading industry publications. By staying current with developments in the field, you will be better equipped to provide your clients with the highest quality of legal representation and build a successful and fulfilling career in personal injury law.

Conclusion

Pursuing a career in personal injury law can be highly rewarding, but it also requires significant hard work, dedication, and perseverance. You can succeed in this dynamic and challenging field by obtaining a solid education in the field, gaining practical experience, specializing in a specific area of practice, building a strong network of contacts, and developing marketing and business development skills. Additionally, understanding the litigation process and maintaining the highest standards of ethics and professionalism are critical to success.

The post Pursuing a Career in Personal Injury Law: Expert Advice for Aspiring Attorneys first appeared on ABA for Law Students.

As a lawyer with 45-plus years of practice, I often reflect upon whether my path as a lawyer would have been different if I’d known in law school what I know now.

I went to law school during a time of social unrest. Before I started, there had been the political assassinations of Dr. Martin Luther King and Senator Robert Kennedy. Both were horrifying and galvanizing. On top of that, there were ongoing wars in Southeast Asia.

Most significant was the civil rights movement of the 1960s, but all dramatically impacted my reasons for attending law school. I went to law school to be a socially impactful lawyer.

A Career Detoured

Despite my lofty ambitions, finding my lane as a civil rights lawyer took time. After law school, surprisingly to my friends and me, I took a job with a blue-chip Chicago law firm. For almost two years working as an associate, I did research, carried bags, and watched the lawyers represent wealthy clients. And at times, I worked on pro bono cases.

But all the while, despite the status, I felt like I was wasting time.

While at the firm, I had an eye-opening experience. I spent a summer on loan to a commission led by US Rep. Ralph Metcalf, looking into police abuse by the Chicago Police Department. The work included interviewing police brutality victims. This effort stirred my passion for victims and became a window into my future path.

Later I worked briefly for the state’s attorney’s office in Chicago and the district attorney’s office in Oakland, California. Although I initially gave little thought to being a prosecutor, I found the experience enlightening and, at times, rewarding.

Still, I didn’t believe I’d found my calling. I still had it in mind that civil rights, especially representing victims of police brutality, was my natural lane.

A Career in Focus

Six years out of law school, the vision for my career became clear. In 1979, I was selected by the mayor of Oakland to conduct a private investigation into the shooting death of a 14-year-old African American boy by Oakland police officers. I reached a very unpopular conclusion that the shooting was unjustified.

From there, over time, I became a full-time civil rights lawyer specializing in police litigation. My practice has spanned the entire spectrum of police litigation, including such high-visibility cases throughout California as representing Rodney King in his civil case against the city of Los Angeles; representing Oscar Grant, who was wrongfully shot and killed by a Bay Area Rapid Transit police officer; and representing rapper Tupac Shakur after he was stopped for jaywalking by Oakland police officers.

Likewise, for 20-plus years, I was a television “talking head.”

In retrospect, had I known my career would have taken this direction, I wish I’d taken more state and federal civil rights and related courses. I’d have focused electives on courses important to representing victims, such as employment, immigration, prison law, law enforcement, and health care. Likewise, I would have been more in tune with different clinical programs and more conscious of the public discourse concerning controversial public issues, especially public funding and advocacy.

Also, given that I’ve been in the media most of my career, I wish that I’d taken more media-related courses while in law school, largely because much of my practice involves public issues. If I had known about the media and its connection to my type of practice, my learning curve would have been shorter.

Always remember the reasons you went to law school. Don’t get sidetracked by the prestige of a blue-chip firm. If I hadn’t, I’d have found my passion for civil rights earlier.

The post John Burris: The Shiny Object May Not Be What You Think or Expect first appeared on ABA for Law Students.

Taking the bar exam soon? Looking to get ahead and start preparing early? These tips are easy to implement and will make sure you are on the right track to pass the bar exam the first time!

Speaker: Heather Buck, JD Advising

Heather graduated cum laude and in the top 10% of her class at Wayne State University Law School. She received numerous scholarships and awards at Wayne State, including the Patrick J. Burkett Award, which is given to the top first-year law student in the Legal Research and Writing Course. She also served on the Wayne Law Review‘s Executive Board as the Production Editor. Heather has passed the Michigan Bar Exam and the California Bar Exam.

After law school, Heather spent about three years clerking for various judges at the Third Judicial Circuit of Michigan. She also has experience in no-fault litigation and contract and employment law.

Heather has been at JD Advising since 2018. She teaches JD Advising’s Uniform Bar Exam and California Bar Exam courses. She also tutors private students for the bar exam, all first-year law school classes, and for the MPRE.

You can also download the slides from this presentation.

The post Virtual Office Hours: 8 Essential Tips for First-Time Takers first appeared on ABA for Law Students.

Preparing for the bar is very different than preparing for law school exams. It’s not a sprint; it’s a marathon that requires a different approach to preparation. Join us to learn how to mentally and physically prepare yourself to study and pass the bar exam the first time!

Your host is Krista Bordatto, Esq., Associate Director Student Engagement, Kaplan Bar Review.

Krista has been with Kaplan since 2020, where she tutors students for the bar, teaches essay writing workshops for several bar exams, and prepares students for final exams across all MBE topics and the MPRE. She is also a Legal Writing and Research Professor, where she teaches first year legal writing and advanced legal writing. She graduated magna cum laude from St. Thomas Benjamin L. Crump College of Law and is retired from the U.S. Army.

View the slides from this video.

The post How to Mentally & Physically Prepare for the Bar Exam first appeared on ABA for Law Students.

Before posting exam questions online, students should know they could be liable for $150,000 in statutory damages plus attorney fees for copyright infringement when they upload exam questions to online platforms like Quizlet and Chegg. Professors may also want to know that they may be entitled to the $150,000 if they registered their questions with the US Copyright Office and the online platform knew of the infringement.

A copyright is a type of intellectual property that protects an author’s rights to “literary, dramatic, musical, and artistic works such as poetry, novels, movies, songs, computer software, and architecture.”

Once someone transforms an idea into a tangible form, the work is protected under copyright law, and the creators have exclusive rights to these creative works. Absent an exception to the law, no one else can make copies of these works without their creator’s permission.

Why Register a Copyright?

If everyone who creates a tangible work is protected under copyright law, why should anyone file to register their copyright with the US Copyright Office? The reason is in the remedies. An infringer of a copyright is liable for either actual financial damages and profits or statutory damages. However, statutory damages are available if the copyright owner registers the work with the US Copyright Office “within three months after the first publication of the work.”

Statutory Damages

Why would someone want statutory damages instead of the actual damages and lost profits caused by someone else’s copyright infringement? Actual damages are the financial losses suffered by a party. Profits are the financial gains the infringer receives because of the infringement. Actual damages and profits could be significant if a company releases a new Star Wars movie complete with new action figures, all without first getting permission from the appropriate copyright owner. The true owners of Star Wars would be entitled to any financial damages it suffered because of the unauthorized movie and any profits made from the infringement. However, unless someone is making movies and action figures or musicals out of some professor’s creative exam questions, the actual damages and lost profits suffered by infringing on a professor’s exam questions are probably relatively insignificant.

This is where statutory damages and registering one’s material with the US Copyright Office becomes important. Statutory damages are a financial award imposed by law. They do not require calculating damages or lost profits. They are like a parking ticket, where a city imposes a flat fee of $150 for parking in a certain area without paying the parking meter. The city does not have to prove that you caused them $150 in damages or lost profits. You broke the law, and if the statute says you owe $150, you owe $150. Statutory damages for copyright infringement can be up to $150,000 per infringement where the infringement is willful.

Do Quizlet and Chegg Violate Copyright Law?

Are online platforms like Quizlet and Chegg violating copyright law when they show exam questions and answers without a professor’s permission? Quizlet says they provide “learning tools & flashcards, for free.” Chegg says they provide “Homework Help.” Professors and attorneys may say these companies have a business model where they make money sharing copyrighted creative literary work (exam questions and answers) without permission.

As discussed, when a professor writes an exam question in tangible form, it is protected by copyright law. If the professor registers these questions with the US Copyright Office within three months after their first publication, would the professor be entitled to $150,000 in statutory damages? It may seem so, but there is an extra hurdle when the defendant in a copyright infringement lawsuit is an online platform.

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998

The extra hurdle is the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) of 1998.The DMCA changed copyright law so that online platforms would not be liable for copyright infringement unless the platforms had actual knowledge of specific acts of copyright infringement (17 U.S. Code § 512). Without this protection, online platforms like YouTube could be liable for statutory damages to artists like Taylor Swift whenever someone uploads a video that happens to have Swift’s music in the background. Because of the protections in the DMCA, online platforms will not be liable for copyright infringement unless they know that something uploaded to their site infringes on someone else’s copyright.

Authors can provide conspicuous copyright notices to show that an online platform had actual knowledge of infringement. If the platform reviews material and ignores the notice, it could imply that the platform had knowledge of infringement. Therefore, to be entitled to statutory damages and defeat the DMCA, professors should register their work within three months of first publication and provide conspicuous warnings alerting the online platform that the work is protected by copyright law.

When Is Copying Not Copyright Infringement?

There are times when copying is not copyright infringement. Section 107 of the Copyright Code specifies that it is not copyright infringement to copy for a “fair use . . . for the purpose of criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, or research.” In Princeton Univ. Press v. Mich. Document Servs., an “off-campus, for profit, copy shop,” was established to copy and sell anthologies to college students right next door to the campus bookstore. The copy shop argued that their copying was a fair use for teaching, research, and scholarship. The court disagreed because the copyrighted materials were copied for a commercial purpose and the “same intrinsic purpose” as the copyrighted material. However, in Williams & Wilkins Co. v. United States, a court found that copying was a fair use when it was done by

…nonprofit institutions…devoted solely to the advancement and dissemination of medical knowledge…[where they] normally restricted copying on an individual scientist’s request to a single copy of an article and to articles of less than fifty pages…[and] medical science would be seriously hurt if such photocopying were stopped…and there was no showing of economic injury to [the] plaintiff.

Are Quizlet and Chegg more like the fair use nonprofit institution in Williams & Wilkins Co. or the “unfair use” copy shop in Princeton Univ. Press v. Mich. Document Servs? Quizlet and Chegg (NYSE symbol CHGG) are NOT nonprofit institutions with “restricted copying” and no economic injury to others. They are billion-dollar companies sharing exam questions and answers for a fee, like the off-campus, for-profit copy shop in Princeton Univ. Press v. Mich. Document Servs, which was found liable for copyright infringement.

Student Liability

Students who upload copyrighted material to the internet should remember that the DMCA was designed to protect online service platforms, not the individual who uploads copyrighted material to the online platform. The individual who uploads copyrighted material may still be liable for copyright infringement even if the DMCA protects the online platform where the material is shared.

Students may also be found liable not directly from copyright law but from contract law. Courts have found that clicking “I agree” or “I accept” to the terms of a contract on a website is sufficient to forming an enforceable contract even if the individuals did not read all the conditions and even if they would not have accepted the terms had they read and understood them. Before uploading material online, students agree to indemnify and hold these sites harmless for all claims and expenses arising from a student’s use of the site. This includes all “expenses (including . . . reasonable attorneys’ fees) arising out of . . . material…that infringes . . . any copyright.” Therefore, if Quizlet or Chegg are found liable for copyright infringement based on questions uploaded by a student, the students may be liable to reimburse these sites based on contract law—terms of service for Quizlet and Chegg.

Conclusion

Exam questions and answers are the creative work of the professors who create them. If professors register their creative work at copyright.gov within three months of first publication, they could be entitled to statutory damages of up to $150,000 per infringement. The DMCA shields online platforms from liability unless they know of the infringement. Professors can add conspicuous copyright warnings on their exam questions to show that these platforms knew of the infringement. Unfortunately for students, the DMCA does not protect students from liability for copyright infringement nor from their contractual agreement to reimburse these sites for any damages and costs associated with the online platform’s liability for copyright infringement.

The post Students Could be Liable for $150,000 in Statutory Damages for Uploading Exam Questions Online first appeared on ABA for Law Students.

Now retired, I have more than enough time to reflect on the factors that shaped my career. In doing so, I’m struck by the profound impact of what’s probably best described as dumb luck. By that, I mean the accidents, unexpected events, and quirks of fate I had no control over.

There was nothing special about my career. I regard it as successful but certainly not spectacular, maybe not even excellent. My autobiography could be titled Clawing My Way to the Middle.

I won’t bore you by enumerating the standard factors that shaped my career. You can guess most of them because they’re the same factors that shaped the careers of countless modestly successful big-firm lawyers. Instead, I offer three examples of how dumb luck dealt me an ace at different points in my career.

Example 1: How I got a summer job with a Wall Street firm

In the fall of 1969, I began my second year of law school in New York. Although I intended to return to Indiana after graduation, I wanted to burnish my resume with a summer clerkship at a Wall Street law firm. I also wanted the generous salary those firms paid.

The problem was, of course, competition. It seemed like every law student on the East Coast and beyond wanted a summer position with a Wall Street firm. One October afternoon, I found myself in one such firm being interviewed by a seasoned partner. He looked bored to death.

And why not? He’d probably spent dozens of hours sitting across from law students who looked just like me.

When he glanced at my resume, something caught his attention. He looked up and asked if my hometown was in Floyd County. When I said yes, he proceeded to tell me that, during the Korean War, the army had stationed him at an ordnance plant in the adjoining county. Warming to the subject, he asked, “Are you aware there’s an eminent American jurist in your county?”

“Of course,” I said. “Everyone in Floyd County knows it’s the home of former US Supreme Court Justice Sherman Minton.”

Warming to the subject myself, I added, “In fact, my sister is Sherman Minton’s dentist’s receptionist.”

Laughing out loud, he said something along the lines of, “My lord, a legal credential like that, yet so modest you left it off your resume. You’re hired!”

And that’s how I got a summer job with a Wall Street firm.

Example 2: That time my career was saved from my own carelessness

Fast forward three years or so. I was a young associate at the firm I’d be associated with for most of my career. I was unhappy with the supervising partner I’d been assigned to, just as he was unhappy with my performance. I wanted to be reassigned to a different partner, one who oversaw a different practice area.

He was a perfectionist, accustomed to performing at the highest level. He’d been law review editor-in-chief and a US Supreme Court clerk. He wasn’t eager to take me on, perhaps because of my less-than-spectacular performance up to that point. Nevertheless, he agreed to what amounted to an audition: He’d see how I performed on a significant research project.

At the end of the project, he and I sat across from each other, prepared to discuss the memo I’d produced. Each of us had a volume of state statutes, opened to the statute central to my memo. My black volume was from the firm library. His blue volume, published by a different company, was his own.

As we compared my memo to the statutory language, it became apparent that I’d misread the statute and produced a memo the statute didn’t support. Quietly and succinctly, he let me know that my work was unacceptable. Near tears, I returned to my office.

Within minutes, the partner appeared at my door, blue volume in hand. He apologized for his earlier criticism, explaining that he now understood I wasn’t at fault. The volume, he said, contained an erroneous entry that had misled me. Opening his blue volume, he showed me: The statute in question was on the right-hand page, but across from it, on the left-hand page, was an earlier version of the same statute bearing the same number but not identified as superseded.

That earlier version, he observed, supported my memo. So, he concluded, I’d innocently focused on the left-hand page and was in no way to blame.

But here’s the thing: My black volume didn’t include that superseded version of the statute. The partner’s initial reaction was correct: I’d read the current version of the statute, but I’d misread it. There was no excuse for it, but I was excused because of an erroneous entry I never even saw. My career was saved.

I continued to work for that partner until I became a partner myself. Only later did I begin to wonder, did he really think I was misled by reading the wrong statute, or was he simply being kind? I can’t be certain, but my guess is that it was a little of both: He couldn’t be sure that I’d read the wrong statute, but he was a kind, generous man, glad for an excuse to save me from my own carelessness.

Example 3: I found my career path by telling a joke

Now fast forward to a December day several years later. I was a partner but hadn’t yet found a practice niche. When I entered the elevator at lunchtime, the only other occupant was the firm’s oldest—and jolliest—partner. A devout Catholic, he represented several Catholic organizations, including a large hospital.

“Norm,” he bellowed, “Guess who I danced with at the hospital’s Christmas party last night? Sister Hildegard, president of the hospital! What do you think about that?”

Desperate for a response, I replied with what was even then a very old joke: “Well, sir, you know what they say about dancing with nuns, don’t you?”

“No,” he answered, “what do they say?”

“Well, sir, they say an occasional dance is all right, but don’t get into the habit.”

He roared with laughter. But that wasn’t the end of it. Well over a year later, he called me into his office and told me he was retiring. And, he went on, he vaguely recalled that I had some connection with hospitals, maybe even Catholic hospitals. So, he asked, would I like to replace him as the firm’s contact for the Catholic hospital?

I didn’t reveal that my hospital connection was limited to telling the nun-and-habit joke. Instead, I accepted his offer and devoted the rest of my career to representing hospitals. Don’t tell me dumb luck isn’t important.

The post The Role of Dumb Luck in Shaping a Legal Career first appeared on ABA for Law Students.

As a practicing family law attorney in Washington State, I understand the challenges law students face when starting their 2L classes in family law. It can be overwhelming to dive into this complex and emotionally charged area of law. However, with the right mindset and approach, it can also be a rewarding and fulfilling experience. I will share some tips and insights to help you confidently navigate your 2L family law classes.

First, it is important to understand that family law is unlike any other area of law. Unlike contracts or torts, family law deals with the most personal aspects of people’s lives, such as their relationships with their children, finances, and homes. It is an area of law that requires not only legal knowledge but also empathy, sensitivity, and excellent communication skills.

Practical Tips for Succeeding in Your 2L Family Law Classes

Be Prepared to Deal with Emotionally Charged Issues

Family law cases often involve emotions such as anger, fear, and sadness. As a law student, you must learn to navigate these emotions with sensitivity and professionalism. Be prepared to deal with clients going through a difficult time in their lives and struggling to cope with the legal process. Remember to listen carefully to your client’s concerns and communicate clearly and compassionately.

Develop Your Communication Skills

Effective communication is essential in family law cases. You must communicate with clients, opposing counsel, judges, and other legal professionals. As a law student, take every opportunity to develop your communication skills. Practice active listening, learn how to ask open-ended questions, and develop your writing and speaking skills.

Learn to Manage Your Time Effectively

Family law cases often involve tight deadlines and a lot of paperwork. As a law student, learning how to manage your time effectively is essential. Develop good time management habits such as prioritizing your tasks, creating to-do lists, and using a calendar to track deadlines. You may also want to consider taking a time management course or workshop.

Stay Up to Date with Changes in the Law

Family law is a constantly evolving area of law. Laws and regulations can change rapidly, and staying up to date with these changes is essential. Subscribe to legal blogs and newsletters, attend legal conferences and seminars, and keep abreast of recent court decisions. This will help you stay ahead of the curve and provide the best possible service to your clients.

Seek Practical Experience

Finally, seek practical experience wherever possible. Intern at a family law firm, volunteer at a legal clinic, or take on pro bono cases. This will give you invaluable hands-on experience and help you develop your legal skills. You will also have the opportunity to work with clients and better understand the practical realities of family law practice.

The Importance of Legal Research

Legal research is an essential component of any family law case. As a law student, you must become proficient in legal research techniques, including using online databases and researching statutes and case law. Legal research is critical because it helps you to find relevant legal precedent and to understand the legal framework that applies to your client’s case. You can provide your clients with the best possible legal advice and representation by conducting thorough legal research.

To become proficient in legal research, take advantage of available resources, such as your law school’s library and legal research classes. Also, learn to use online legal research tools, such as LexisNexis and Westlaw. By developing your legal research skills, you will be well-equipped to handle even the most complex family law cases.

The Role of Ethics in Family Law Practice

Ethics are of utmost importance in family law practice. Family law cases can be emotionally charged, and clients may be vulnerable and stressed. As a law student, it is essential to understand your ethical obligations and to always act in your clients’ best interests.

To ensure that you uphold high ethical standards, familiarize yourself with the rules of professional conduct and your state’s bar association guidelines. Additionally, seek opportunities to discuss ethical issues with practicing attorneys and other legal professionals. By developing a strong ethical foundation, you can build a reputation as a trusted and respected family law attorney.

Challenges and Rewards

Starting your 2L classes in family law can be both challenging and rewarding. By developing your communication skills, learning to manage your time effectively, staying up-to-date with changes in the law, seeking practical experience, conducting thorough legal research, and maintaining high ethical standards, you can succeed in this complex and emotionally charged area of law. Remember to approach family law cases with empathy, sensitivity, and professionalism, and you will be well on your way to becoming a successful family law attorney.

The post Surviving and Thriving in Emotionally Charged Family Law 2L Classes first appeared on ABA for Law Students.

Every week, law students and lawyers reach out to us with one simple question: What is it like to be a Marine Judge Advocate (Marine JA)? As we’ve had more and more conversations with prospective Marine JAs, we’ve come to realize that one topic, in particular, deserves its own article: the similarities and differences between Marine JAs and our counterparts in the Army, Air Force, Navy, and Coast Guard (JAGs). While our Marine Corps experiences influence our perspective, we hope it is helpful to those interested in joining the military as a lawyer.

Similarities Across the Branches

Across all five branches of the military, JAGs and Marine JAs perform many of the same duties. These similarities fall into three broad categories.

• Military Justice: JAGs and Marine JAs represent service members and provide legal and administrative support for courts-martial, which are military courts that handle violations of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ). JAGs and Marine JAs serve as trial lawyers—prosecutors, defense counsel, and victim’s counsel. Most JAGs and Marine JAs will serve in a military justice role in their first tour to enable them to advise commanders and commanding generals competently in future assignments. For Marine JAs, future military justice assignments include the opportunity to serve as military trial judges with the Navy-Marine Corps Trial Judiciary (NMCTJ), litigate appellate matters before the Navy-Marine Corps Court of Criminal Appeals (NMCCA) and the US Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces (CAAF), or serve as appellate judges with NMCCA. Some Marine JAs also get deputized as Special Assistant US Attorneys (SAUSAs) and prosecute civilian crimes on federal installations in US District Courts.

• Legal Assistance: JAGs and Marine JAs provide legal assistance to servicemembers, dependents, and retirees, helping them navigate issues including family law, estate planning, consumer law, landlord-tenant disputes, and other civil matters.

• Advising Commanders: JAGs and Marine JAs are responsible for advising commanders on a wide range of legal issues, including military justice, ethics, international law, operational law, and providing legal assistance to military personnel and their families. JAGs and Marine JAs also provide legal guidance during operations, ensuring compliance with the law of armed conflict and other applicable legal frameworks. JAGs and Marine JAs are involved in advising on administrative actions, such as the review and disposition of investigations, boards of inquiry, and disciplinary actions.

For Marine JAs, all these duties are conducted worldwide, aboard one’s assigned military installation, afloat on a Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU), in forward deployed combat zones, or anywhere between.

Restricted and Unrestricted Officers

One of the most fundamental differences between JAGs and Marine JAs is that JAGs (except Coast Guard JAGs) are restricted officers while Marine JAs are unrestricted. Army, Navy, and Air Force JAGs are restricted officers, meaning they are mostly limited to serving as lawyers throughout their military careers. In contrast, Marine JAs are unrestricted officers, allowing them to serve in various positions that are also open to other Marine officers, such as a Commanding Officer.

Marine JAs may serve as a commander or leader of military units in addition to providing legal services. Promotion boards consider and value attributes that are not directly related to legal work, such as leadership ability and physical fitness. Marine JAs are increasingly competitive in higher-level screening boards and have been selected to command units such as security battalions, training battalions at the recruit depots, and headquarters and support battalions for military installations, schools, and other command entities. Several Marine JAs have also been selected to lead various regions for the Marine Corps Embassy Security Group (MCESG), which supports and protects our embassies and consulates around the globe.

Additionally, due to their unique skill sets, Marine JAs are often selected to serve as executive officers (XOs) and operations officers (OpsOs) for certain units. For example, a JA serving as XO would be in charge of synchronizing staff functions and taking lead on critical unit administration. As a collateral duty in this role, that Marine JA might also serve as Embassy Liaison Officer (ELO) and work on settling foreign claims on behalf of the United States Government. These kinds of positions frequently require Marine JAs to exercise both leadership and legal skills while serving a critical role for the unit.

JAG and Marine JA Training

The selection for JAGs and Marine JAs follows a similar pattern, with some variations unique to each service. Generally, candidates must hold or be on track to obtain a JD from an accredited law school and meet the eligibility requirements for a commission as an officer in their respective service.

For JAGs, once selected, candidates attend an officer induction course specific to their branch, which is typically about five weeks in length and focuses on basic military knowledge, customs, and courtesies. Upon completion and commissioning, JAGs must pass a bar examination and become licensed to practice law in at least one US jurisdiction. Afterward, they attend a specialized training program in military law: the JAG Legal Center and School (TJAGLCS) for the Army; the Naval Justice School (NJS) for the Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard; and the Air Force JAG School for the Air Force. Upon completing this training, JAGs and Marine JAs are assigned to legal positions within their respective services.

Marine JA Pipeline

The Marine JA pipeline shares some of these attributes, but it is significantly more involved because it prepares candidates to lead Marines in addition to practicing military law.

Selection

The first step in becoming a Marine JA is to be selected for the program. Candidates must meet the basic qualifications for joining the Marine Corps, including physical fitness requirements that are more demanding than the other branches. These physical standards can be found here. For the Marine Corps, future Marine JAs can be selected as college seniors, 1L, 2L, 3L, or as licensed attorneys. Marine Officer Selection Officers (OSOs) will work with every potential candidate to submit the best possible package for the selection board. The OSO will help prepare candidates for the physical fitness demands, military knowledge, and general expectations of training. While fitness is essential to being a Marine Officer, boards take a holistic view of each applicant. To get in touch with an OSO, submit information here.

Officer Candidate School

Upon selection, candidates attend Officer Candidates School (OCS) in Quantico, Virginia. Marine OCS is a 10-week program designed to screen and evaluate potential Marine Corps officers in their leadership potential. Prospective Marine JAs are not exempt from the rigors of OCS, competing alongside future infantry officers, logisticians, and pilots. The program focuses on leadership, physical fitness, and basic military skills. Candidates who complete OCS may—at their sole discretion—accept a commission as Second Lieutenants in the US Marine Corps. For most candidates, OCS is a transformative experience that helps them decide whether to join the Marine Corps. As 1st Lt Jacob P. Castagnola (3L at University of Oklahoma College of Law) explained, “the distinction between the Marine Corps and the other services became even more apparent when I learned about the highly competitive and rigorous moral, physical, and academic standards for being selected to attend and graduate OCS.”

The Basic School

After commissioning, bar passage, and licensing, Marine JAs attend The Basic School (TBS), also located in Quantico, Virginia. Some Marine JAs will defer TBS by one year to complete a judicial clerkship, LLM, or MBA. TBS is a six-month training program designed to teach all newly commissioned officers the basic skills required to be provisional rifle platoon commanders in the Marine Corps. TBS focuses on leadership and basic military skills, including land navigation, weapons handling, and small-unit tactics. Although TBS is not tailored specifically for Marine JAs, it is a critical component of their training, as it ensures they understand how to effectively support their brothers and sisters in arms within the Marine Corps. This training instills a sense of personal and professional credibility, which will prove critical when advising commanders and warfighters in an operational setting.

Naval Justice School

Following the completion of TBS, Marine JAs attend the NJS in Newport, Rhode Island, alongside the other sea-service lawyers (Navy and Coast Guard). This 11-week course provides comprehensive training on military law and the practice of law within the Department of Defense (DoD). The curriculum covers various topics, including military criminal law, legal assistance, administrative law, and operational law. One of the main graded events is a comprehensive mock court-martial focused on commonly encountered scenarios and legal issues. Upon successful completion of NJS, Marine JAs are qualified and certified to “hit the fleet” and begin their service as military legal practitioners.

Continuing Legal Education and Professional Military Education

Although many state bars waive continuing legal education requirements for active duty servicemembers, Marine JAs can receive CLE through specialized training at NJS, the Army’s TJAGLCS, and other DoD entities. Marines must also complete Professional Military Education (PME) for each grade, captain and above. For instance, Captains must complete Expeditionary Warfare School (EWS), which can range from one to two years of courses focused on “on the warfighting capabilities of a Marine Air Ground Task Force operating within a complex and distributed Naval expeditionary environment”; Majors are expected to complete Command and Staff College (CSC), again ranging from one to two years. Marine JAs may also be selected to attend TJAGLCS to obtain an LLM in criminal, international, or cyber law.

Our Culture: Leading Marines

Although JAGs and Marine JAs share a common goal of providing legal services and support, the cultures of each branch differ due to their distinct histories, missions, and operational environments. Being a Marine JA requires the desire and ability to lead Marines as well as practice law. The Marine Corps has stringent physical fitness standards and requires all Marine Officers (including Marine JAs) to receive provisional rifle platoon leadership training at OCS and TBS. Due to these requirements, the Marine Corps tends to attract a different kind of person. In our experience, serving as a Marine allows you to be part of an organization with a long-respected, revered, and illustrious reputation. In the Marine Corps, you are part of the select few: there are roughly 550 active duty Marine JAs out of 178,000 active duty Marines. As a result, every legal assignment assigned to a Marine JA is critical either to the unit they are supporting or to the Marine Corps at large.

Esprit de Corps: Why We Joined

“The Navy has its ships, the Air Force has its planes, the Army has its tanks and manpower, but the Marine Corps has its culture.” For many of us, this phrase encapsulates what sets the Marine Corps apart from the rest. The other branches each provide unique opportunities to serve and may be the right fit for many. For us, the sense of camaraderie—the esprit de corps—makes “our Corps” unique. Every Marine Judge Advocate has their own story of why they joined.

Lieutenant Colonel Geoffrey G. Hengerer

Lieutenant Colonel Hengerer attended OCS in 1998 looking for challenge, adventure, and a different post-college experience. He also followed a family tradition of national service with both grandfathers serving in the Army during World War II and his parents joining the Peace Corps in the 1960s. After completing his active duty obligation in 2007, Lieutenant Colonel Hengerer did not accept a Reserve commission due to anticipated conflicts between satisfying military requirements and pursuing his civilian career. After several years at a large corporate law firm, he felt called to return to a life of service where he found loyalty, camaraderie, and a sense of purpose. In 2013, Lieutenant Colonel Hengerer was reappointed and has continually served as Reserve Marine JA in several capacities, including a tour as a military trial judge.

Captain Steven J. Arango

Captain Arango is a first-generation American. His father emigrated from Venezuela to the United States when he was 20 years old, where he learned English by watching local news, attended medical school, and became a successful cancer surgeon. Even with this success, his father never stopped helping others—service is ingrained in him. He passed this quality on to Captain Arango, a quality that moved him to serve his country. For his choice on which branch, that decision was easy: Captain Arango’s hero—his grandfather—served as a US Marine in the Pacific during World War II.

Captain Jhonathan J. Morales

Captain Morales is a naturalized US citizen born in Guatemala. After coming to the United States at just five years old, he became the first in his family to graduate from college and to become a licensed attorney. Due to his appreciation for the country and desire to give back, he chose to become a Marine and has never looked back.

Second Lieutenant Max J. Goldberg

Second Lieutenant Goldberg had virtually no military background in his family but got “bitten by the bug” during law school. Although he considered all five branches, he ultimately chose the Marine Corps for the unique blend of military leadership and courtroom experience that it offers. The Marines have given him a chance to serve alongside the most dedicated public servants on earth and the privilege to uphold the law while embodying the spirit of initiative and honor that permeates the Corps.

We all have a unique background, but what unites us is the Marine Corps. When we earned our Eagle, Globe, and Anchor, we became brothers and sisters of arms with hundreds of thousands of other Marines–active, reserve, and retired. That’s what makes the Marine Corps special: no matter where you came from or what you have done, once you don the EGA, you are now part of the greatest fighting organization the world has ever seen.

Gunslingers: In the Corps and Beyond

While many Marine JAs make a career in the “Gun Club,” most will serve a tour or two and transition to civilian opportunities. However, they will not return to their hometowns or new cities empty-handed; they will be armed with marketable and transferable skills. In addition to being a Marine JA and having completed one of the world’s preeminent leadership and management training at OCS and TBS, they will have valuable security clearances and significant trial experience. The trial experience one receives as a first tour Marine JA with drafting complex motions and arguing in court before judges and members (the military equivalent of juries) frequently surpasses that gained by junior associates. The value added is demonstrated by the fact that Marine JAs have excelled in every area of the legal profession, including:

• Major National Law Firms, including Hogan Lovells, Covington & Burling, King & Spalding, Jones Day, and Steptoe & Johnson;
• In-House Counsel, including Facebook, T-Mobile, Anduril, and Blue Bell Creameries;
• Federal Government, including the Department of Justice, US Attorney’s Offices, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI); Federal Public Defenders, the US Department of the Interior, and other agencies;
• Boutique Small Firms and Solo Practitioners across the county
• Local District Attorney Offices and Public Defenders;
• Members of Congress, such as former Congressman Conor Lamb;
• Political Appointees, including several appointed US Attorneys, the Director of Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, and a former Deputy Legal Counsel to the Governor of Maryland;
• Federal Judges: Judge Michael D. Hawkins (Ninth Circuit); Judge Albert Diaz (Fourth Circuit); Judge Steve Logan (District of Arizona); Judge William “Chip” Campbell (former USMC pilot*, Middle District of Tennessee); Judge James Sweeney II (Southern District of Indiana); Judge Jason Pulliam (Western District of Texas); Magistrate Judge William Gallo (Southern District of California); Magistrate Judge Chris Dos Santos (Southern District of Texas); Judge James Baker (CAAF); Judge Margaret “Meg” Ryan (CAAF); Judge Joseph Falvey (United States Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims);
• State Judges in California, Florida, Illinois, and Maryland; and
• Federal Administrative Law Judges (ALJs) for the Social Security Administration, Executive Office for Immigration Review, and the Board of Veterans Appeals.

Many Marine JAs not only transition to civilian careers but also continue their service in the Marine Corps Reserves. Although it can be challenging to juggle family, a demanding civilian career, and service obligations, Reserve Marine JAs have the opportunity to augment a civilian practice with military roles such as command advisement, prosecutorial functions, defense of service members, and as trial and appellate judgeships. For more information on Reserve JA opportunities, visit the Reserve Legal Support and Marine Corps Forces Reserve webpages.

Moreover, Marine JAs who leave after their active duty obligation and those who continue in the Reserves leverage a robust national network of referrals and resources to assist you and your clients. For example, a former Marine JA in Baltimore has a client who has an urgent hearing in Los Angeles can immediately retain someone they served with and trust to handle the matter as local counsel.

Finally, the Marine JA experience and the fact that one answers the call of service will inevitably serve as a foundation for securing interviews, jobs, and clients.

Conclusion

Law students and attorneys considering a career in the military have a wealth of opportunities across the different branches, each with its unique set of challenges and rewards. While the selection and training process for JAGs in the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Coast Guard share many similarities, the Marine Corps offers a distinct experience emphasizing the importance of leadership and a deep understanding of the Marine Corps’ culture.

No branch is for everyone. While Marine JAs share many similarities, we differ just as the branches of the military we serve. Each of us made a decision that fit our personality, mindset, career goals, family considerations, and other factors. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to selecting a branch for a military legal career.

We hope this article has laid out some of the basics of a legal career in the military and explained why we chose the Marine Corps. To make an informed decision, we highly recommend that you speak with recruiters from each branch and engage with officers already serving in the JAG and Marine JA community, as they will provide invaluable guidance in choosing the right branch for your career as a military attorney.

Finally, we invite you to reach out to any of us—we are always happy to discuss what makes the Marine Corps special. Our LinkedIn profiles are hyperlinked in our names below.

The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the District Court of Maryland, Maryland Judiciary, US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, Federal Judiciary, US Marine Corps, Department of the Navy, Department of Defense, or US Government.

More about the Authors

Lieutenant Colonel Geoffrey G. Hengerer is the reserve staff judge advocate (SJA) for Training and Education Command (TECOM) at Marine Corps Base Quantico, Virginia. He is also the administrative judge for the District Court of Maryland for Baltimore City.

Captain Steven J. Arango is a deputy SJA for TECOM. Before returning to active duty, he took advantage of the USMC clerkship deferment program, clerking for US District Judge Fernando Rodriguez, Jr. He is also a co-founder and board member of Law Clerks for Diversity, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit focused on increasing diversity in federal clerkships.

Captain Jhonathan J. Morales is the deputy SJA and law programs manager for Marine Corps Recruiting Command. He is a former Marine Corps prosecutor and victims’ legal counsel.

Second Lieutenant Max J. Goldberg is a student judge advocate. He is clerking on the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and will report to TBS following his clerkship.

The post Choosing the Right Military Branch for Your Legal Career: A Marine Perspective first appeared on ABA for Law Students.

The process for obtaining a law license in New York State can feel intimidating because there are a lot of requirements to meet. But, if you break it down and take things one step at a time, it is manageable. And the more you know about what to expect, the better you can prepare yourself for the journey. So, let’s walk through the various requirements that you need to complete to become a licensed attorney in the Empire State. Get ready for a lot of acronyms!

Step 1: MPRE

The first step to being admitted to practice law in New York is to pass the Multistate Professional Responsibility Exam (MPRE). The MPRE is developed by the National Conference of Bar Examiners (NCBE) to ensure that attorneys understand the basic rules of professional conduct expected of lawyers (and judges). The MPRE is not state-specific, it tests general principles set forth in the American Bar Association (ABA) Model Rules of Professional Conduct and the ABA Model Code of Judicial Conduct, as well as relevant constitutional law, and procedural and evidentiary rules.

The MPRE consists of 60 multiple-choice questions and is administered three times a year—in March, August, and November. For more about what to expect when taking the MPRE, check out this lesson on Ask EDNA!—the powerhouse platform with free resources for your entire law school journey—or read this blog post on the best time to take the MPRE. (Create your free Ask EDNA! account here!)

In New York, you must earn at least an 85 out of a total potential score of 150 to pass. For reference, the national mean score on the MPRE is usually in the mid-90s, so shoot for average, and you’ll pass! For upcoming test dates and enrollment information, check out the NCBE’s registration website. And if you’re looking for a free prep course, check out Helix MPRE!

Step 2: New York Law Course/New York Law Exam

The next step on your journey is to take the New York Law Course (NYLC) and pass the New York Law Exam (NYLE), both designed by the New York Board of Law Examiners (BOLE) to test applicants’ knowledge of New York–specific law. (See, we promised lots of acronyms!)

NYLC

The NYLC is a series of video lectures that covers the information testable on the exam. It includes approximately 17 hours of video lectures as well as a PDF packet of all testable rules to study from. There are embedded questions following each video lecture that must be answered correctly before moving on. The NYLC covers state-specific rules in the subjects of Administrative Law, Business Relationships, Civil Practice and Procedure, Conflict of Laws, Contracts, Criminal Law and Procedure, Evidence, Matrimonial and Family Law, Professional Responsibility, Real Property, Torts and Tort Damages, Trusts, and Wills and Estates.

NYLE

The New York Law Exam is an open-book test that consists of 50 multiple-choice questions. A passing score is 60 percent or 30/50 questions correct. As you may have guessed, all the subjects that were covered in the NYLC are fair game on the exam.

Before you can even register for the NYLE, you must complete the NYLC at least 30 days prior to the date you are taking the NYLE. There is no fee to take the course, but you will have to pay $27 to ExamSoft, the company that provides the testing software when you register for the exam.

The NYLC/NYLE cannot be taken more than one year BEFORE the date you first sit for the bar exam, so most students sit for this exam in their final year of law school. If you do not pass the NYLE, you will have to retake the entire NYLC before you can attempt the NYLE again.

There’s a lot more information on the New York Law Course and New York Law Exam on the New York Board of Law Examiners’ Website.

Step 3: Uniform Bar Exam

New York, like most jurisdictions, has adopted the Uniform Bar Exam. The UBE is created by the NCBE and is designed to test concepts and skills that every lawyer should be able to demonstrate prior to becoming licensed to practice law. The UBE is offered twice a year, on the last Tuesday and Wednesday in February and July.

The UBE is made up of three test components—the Multistate Performance Test (MPT), the Multistate Essay Exam (MEE), and the Multistate Bar Exam (MBE). The MEE is the essay portion of the test and makes up 30 percent of your total score. The MPT tests practical lawyering skills and makes up 20 percent of your total score. The MBE is the multiple-choice portion of the examination and is worth 50 percent of your total score. To learn more about each of these components, check out the About the Bar Exam lesson on Ask EDNA!

Each state administers the UBE and selects the “cut score” for the jurisdiction. In New York, this passing score is 266 out of 400.

Step 4: Skills Competency Requirement

In addition to the exams, New York has a skills competency requirement, which you have likely already completed during law school.

All applicants for admission to practice law in New York State must submit proof that they have satisfied the Skills Competency and Professional Values requirement (per section 520.18 of the Rules of the Court of Appeals). There are five potential pathways to meeting this requirement:

1. Pathway 1: Law school certification of competency in skills and professional values
2. Pathway 2: Law school certification of credit acquisition
3. Pathway 3: Pro Bono Scholars Program
4. Pathway 4: Apprenticeship
5. Pathway 5: Practice in another jurisdiction

Check with your law school to see which pathway they believe you have satisfied and through which courses—for most people it will be Pathway 1 or Pathway 2 and your school’s Registrar’s Office will provide certification.

Step 5: Pro Bono Requirement

New York State also requires that applicants for admission to the bar complete 50 hours of pro bono work throughout their law school career. All 50 hours must be completed before you apply for admission to practice.

Some of the types of work that are accepted include:

• Work for legal clinics servicing indigent clients.
• Work for qualifying non-profit organizations.
• Extern/Internships with legal aid societies or government.

All the important nuances are detailed in New York Court Rule section 520.16. This is an easy step to accomplish. But if you forget about it, it can become difficult to find opportunities to get in your 50 hours in a short period of time.

Step 6: Application for Admission to the New York Bar/Character and Fitness

As your last step on the road to New York licensure, you will apply for admission to the bar and undergo the Character and Fitness evaluation. Each applicant who has furnished proof of successful completion of the NYLC, NYLE, and MPRE will be certified to the Appellate Division for Admission to the Bar and notified of that fact in writing.

You will be automatically assigned to one of the four appellate departments based on your residence address on file with the BOLE as of Mid-April (Feb Exam) or Mid-October (July Exam). Each division approaches the timing of the application differently—in the first division, you cannot apply until you’ve received your passing UBE results; the second division prefers you wait for results to file; in the third and fourth divisions, you can file before you receive your UBE results.

The application can be found on BOLE’s website and consists of questions regarding your prior employment history, academic history, financial history, history with the criminal and civil judicial systems, and more. You will also need to provide two moral character affirmations, as well as employment affirmations from supervisors at any legal employment you have held, including internships and volunteer positions.

It is VERY important that you carefully read through the instructions included as well as any information on your specific appellate division’s website. Candor is key. Past errors in judgment usually do not prevent you from becoming licensed so long as they have been disclosed, addressed, and resolved. But being deceitful or evasive on your application will cause problems—more than an appropriately divulged run-in with the law or academic discipline ever would.

You must complete all your admission requirements and file your application for admission within three years of passing the UBE. The fee to register as an attorney in New York State is $375.

Once your application is received and deemed complete, you will be assigned an interview with a member of the Character and Fitness committee. These interviews are usually short with softball questions like, “Why do you want to be an attorney?” It’s also fair game for them to follow up on specific items from your application. Again, just be yourself, be honest, and you’ll be fine!

Step 7: Finish line!

When you have successfully completed the interview, you will be invited to an admissions ceremony where you will be officially sworn in as a licensed attorney in the State of New York!

As you can see, the road to licensure in New York State takes you on a long and winding journey. But if you break it into manageable steps, you’ll be a card-carrying member of the legal profession in no time!

The post Navigating Bar Licensure in New York first appeared on ABA for Law Students.

Many students undergo personal struggles through law school, but students with disabilities experience unique and different obstacles. They and their support systems and advocates have joined together as a community to ensure the legal profession is expanding to ensure the broadest opportunities for them.

Advocacy Starts with Yourself

As a law student, Marissa Ditkowsky served as a disability liaison for her student bar association after making it clear to her school’s administration that there was a need to represent students with disabilities in an official position. At the end of her 1L year, Ditkowsky was advocating on her own behalf. “I told the SBA, ‘We need a position and someone to focus on and further disability issues,’” she recalled.

Ditkowsky, now the Disability Economic Justice Counsel at the National Partnership for Women & Families, said her law school wasn’t accessible for people with disabilities. “The library didn’t have an automatic door, and the door was too heavy,” she said. She needed help getting into the library each time.

Further into her law school career and while in her position on the SBA, many students recognized Ditkowsky as a resource and asked her about requesting accommodations. That included, she explained, many fellow students whom she didn’t realize had chronic disabilities who asked for her help. Ditkowsky lobbied for additional accommodations to make the law school campus more accessible.

“One of the things about being disabled is that you have to deal with accessibility issues, and you have to advocate a lot,” she added.

Ditkowsky became one of the founders of the National Disabled Law Students Association, a nonprofit that ensures that legal professionals and law schools are accessible and inclusive for people with disabilities.

An Aha Moment

Law students with disabilities can be granted accommodations during exams or written assignments. Accommodations can include a reduced course load, private rooms during exams, the use of a computer during exams, the assignment of a designated notetaker, or the option to record notes.

Each school has a different process for applying for accommodations for the bar exam. Accommodations are granted based on the student’s particular diagnosis, documented history, and need. Many schools recommend you begin to seek accommodations for law school early on and to work with the school to get the accommodations documented to prepare for the bar exam.

For students granted accommodations, the additional resources create an environment where students can better focus on the required work. Ditkowsky herself used accommodations throughout law school. “I found being granted time-and-a-half is helpful for purposes of dictation because arms and hands can get fatigued and to get through bouts of brain fog,” she said.

Paige Munson, director II at the Center for Independence of the Disabled in New York and a graduate of Cardozo Law School, didn’t use accommodations during her time in law school but used them for the bar exam.

For Munson, lengthy exams were difficult. “Getting through four-hour exams every semester was the biggest challenge,” she said. “It was intense. It was like I was preparing for some kind of sports competition when I was getting ready to take those exams. It was a painful time. That’s where I saw my disability impacting my law school experience.”

But she didn’t seek any accommodations before the bar exam. “At that time, I wasn’t as educated in disability law as I’ve become,” she stated. “I’d heard of accommodations only in relation to students with a learning disability, such as getting extra time or having the exam read to them. So I’d thought of accommodations in those terms. I didn’t realize I could get a setup with book stands, laptop stands, and all that for my testing experience until my doctor brought it up to me.”

It was while she was preparing for the bar exam that Munson explained to her doctor her experiences and concerns regarding law school exams. “I had such a difficult time getting through a four-hour exam that I kept thinking, ‘What am I going to do for the bar exam? How am I going to make it?’” she explained.

“As the bar exam got closer, I brought that up to my doctor,” recalled Munson. “I said, ‘I don’t think I’m going to be able to do it.’ When he mentioned the book stands, I was just like, ‘Why haven’t I done this all along?’ So I sought and got accommodations for the bar exam.”

To receive the accommodations, Munson completed a form on the New York State Board of Law Examiners website, which she submitted along with a doctor’s note. Her request was approved quickly, and she brought her equipment, including a laptop stand and detachable keyboard, to the bar exam.

Munson experienced a sharp contrast between law school exams and the bar exam. “It was so much better because my focus was on the exam and not the pain in my neck I’d have been experiencing,” she described. “After the bar exam, there was no physical recovery period like I’d had from my other exams, where it would be days of going to physical therapy and taking anti-inflammatories just to get myself back to my normal state. I wish I’d thought of this at the beginning of my law school experience.”

That’s an area where schools can do better, she stated. For instance, Munson believes orientations can better serve as a place for students with disabilities to learn their accommodation options.

“For students with disabilities, it would be helpful to show people that accommodations are available and the process for requesting an accommodation if they need one,” she noted.

Finding Your Community

The number of practicing lawyers with disabilities is small. According to the 2020 Vault/MCCA Law Firm Diversity Survey Report, 0.65 percent of practicing lawyers identify as disabled; this number increased from the 2007 survey in which 0.15 percent of all attorneys identified as disabled.

The lack of, or the small size of, communities of students with disabilities in law school can exacerbate the isolation many law students experience through their first year. Becoming part of groups of people with similar experiences can lead to community support.

Christopher Schuyler, senior staff attorney with the Disability Justice Program at New York Lawyers for the Public Interest and a person who stutters, felt isolated during law school. “I didn’t have much of a community of people who stutter, and I wasn’t part of a larger community of people with disabilities,” he stated.

Schuyler decided to pursue a career in law because he was looking to best use his skills in writing and constructing arguments. He was a philosophy major in college and gravitated toward reading and discussing dense material.

Those skills have been a big part of his law practice—reading dense case law and discussing the possibilities and outcomes with co-counsel or making arguments against opposing counsel. His work today focuses on equal access to programs and services, including transportation, medical care, and housing.

In some ways, law school was more challenging for Schuyler because he felt isolated, “I think if I could do it over again, I’d have liked to have found a community when I was in law school,” he said. “I think it would have improved my experience.”

Despite feeling isolated, Schuyler didn’t want to appear less capable than his peers.

“I was very aware of stigmas that might be attached to being a person who stutters,” he stated. “In the elite, highly competitive world of law school, I didn’t want to show weakness. The flip side of the coin is that, in not wanting to show weakness, I felt I had to work maybe twice as hard as everybody just to make sure I was excelling in everything I could control. That added pressure to the experience.”

Schuyler has since sought out communities of support, and he has advocated for himself in ways he didn’t in law school. “If I could do it all again, I certainly wish I’d have had the tools I have now,” he said.

Ditkowsky found her community while in law school, though most of her peers with disabilities were located in other cities. “I started connecting with other disabled law students from across the country,” she stated. “I hadn’t before connected with openly disabled law students.”

New-Lawyer Experiences

Once he began volunteering for organizations for people who stutter, Schuyler became interested in doing more advocacy work for people with disabilities. The work made him feel part of a community of those with disabilities and further solidified his desire to work on behalf of people with disabilities.

That led him to the work he does today. Schuyler has advocated for children with disabilities within school systems and is part of many groups and communities that relate to the intersection of legal work, disability rights advocacy, and parenting.

Schuyler’s disability has shaped his career. “It’s been a foundation for a lot of what I’m doing,” he stated. “I think the work I do now is the work I want to do for my career. To get to where I am, I needed to identify and come to terms with my disability. That helped me get an insight into the larger world of disability issues, how broad those issues are, and how much work there is to do.”

Schuyler now works passionately for his community of people who stutter, though he began his career working in a law firm doing class action work, where he learned the skills necessary as a new lawyer. After he moved into disability advocacy work, Schuyler remained there.

“One of the things I love about disability law is that there are so many opportunities to make new laws and to improve the laws that are on the books,” he noted. “In so many other practice areas, the law is relatively settled. In disability law, you’re constantly looking at new problems and improving the body of law.”

They’ve Been Where You Are

These disability advocates have advice for law students with disabilities. “A lot of people will tell you to do things one way or another,” explained Ditkowsky. “That advice is inflexible and not helpful for people with disabilities or people in general. Everyone learns their own way, especially disabled people. If you’re doing something different, but that’s the best way for you to learn, you’re not a failure or doing something wrong. You’re doing what you need to do.”

Case in point: The push Ditkowsky received when it came to group studying during her first year of law school. “I felt pressure to join a group, and I felt left out,” she said. “But it was best for me to study alone. And I did just fine.”

If you’re only considering law school at this stage of your academic career, Ditkowsky suggested avoiding a school that’s difficult to navigate with a disability. But that might be a challenge in itself.

“It’s hard to find a law school that’s perfect when it comes to access,” she stated. “Law school isn’t going to be easy because of that, and you have to be prepared for that.”

Schuyler emphasizes the importance of seeking accommodations early on. When you request an accommodation for the bar exam, having a history of accommodations can be helpful. “It’s one of the things bar examiners look for when granting or denying applications for accommodations,” he explained. “They look at whether the student has a history of seeking accommodations earlier in life. Having received them in law school is very important for that purpose as well.”

Finding people who support you is also critical. “It’s helpful to have a community of people, perhaps with your disabilities or others, to have that connection,” stated Schuyler.

How to Be an Ally

What if you don’t have a disability but want to stand side by side with your peers with disabilities? Schuyler suggested getting involved in organizations run by students with disabilities.

Also, work to inform yourself about the nature of various disabilities. “Ask your classmates with disabilities questions,” suggested Schuyler. “If you’re in a conversation and you have a question about how their disability affects their life, if it’s an appropriate time, ask it. Demystifying disability is an important part of removing stigmas that can be attached to it. Talking about it is important.”

Also, don’t assume accommodations give others an edge. “Don’t accuse those with disabilities of lying or using accommodations to get ahead,” Ditkowsky advised. “Dispel yourself of that notion. There’s no world in which I get an advantage.”

And don’t get hung up on language. “Even just saying the word disability,” stated Schuyler. “A lot of people want to frame it in different ways—but just say disability. This is our power. We’re proud to identify as people with disabilities.”

The post Law Students with Disabilities: Finding Your Community and Advocating for Yourself first appeared on ABA for Law Students.

If you are in law school, you might be starting to think about the bar exam. If you are, that is great! The bar exam can be daunting for many, so it is best to have a strategy before starting bar prep.

Here are a few easy tips and tricks you can start thinking about and working on now, and make sure to join our webinar on April 19, 2023, when we will go over many more tips for first-time bar takers!

1. Work on Memorization

Many commercial courses do not emphasize memorization. One of the biggest mistakes we see first-time bar exam takers make is that they go right from lecture to practicing problems. Instead, you should set aside time each day to memorize your bar exam outlines. Review our tips on how to memorize your bar exam outlines.

While this may seem like a simple tip, it is one of our best pieces of advice for first-time bar exam takers. It is often overlooked, and many students spend a lot of their time inefficiently because they have not yet memorized their bar exam outlines.

2. Speed Up Your Lectures If You Are Not an Auditory Learner

Most students watch video lectures as part of their bar review course. And many watch these lectures from home. Most commercial courses have hours upon hours of lectures to listen to. This is fine if you are an auditory learner, and the fill-in-the-blanks style works well for you. But most law students are visual learners and do not find the lecture style helpful. If you fall into this category, watch the lectures at 1.5 or 2x the speed. This way, you can spend more of your time studying in a way that is productive for you.

3. Memorize One Outline Per Subject

Some courses give outlines, mini outlines, lecture handouts, etc., and students try to memorize three or five outlines per subject. For example, they will review the Real Property mini-outline. Then the 200-page long Real Property outline. Then they’ll go to the lecture and review their Real Property lecture handout. Or they try to combine all three of these into one outline. That is simply not efficient. One of our biggest pieces of advice for first-time bar exam takers is to use one outline per subject. Stop cross-referencing four different outlines. You will drive yourself crazy.

If you want to learn more tips for first-time bar takers, join JD Advising’s webinar on April 19, 2023, at 2:00 p.m. ET! Sign up here.

The Virtual Office Hours series connects you with experts to help you thrive as a law student and prepare for life after law school.

The post Tips for First-Time Bar Takers first appeared on ABA for Law Students.

All my life, I was told that I would be a lawyer or a politician because I could tell elaborate stories and capture an audience. I took that encouragement from my family and blazed ahead to this ultimate goal. If I knew today what I knew then, this path would have been much more fulfilling and less strenuous.

What Is a First-Generation Law Student?

A first-generation law student is generally defined as “a student who does not have a familial relationship to the legal field or someone who is the first to attend law school in their immediate family.” (See How to Overcome Challenges as a First Generation Law Student ) I am an African American woman and a first-generation law graduate. My first experience, like most, with the law came from reading text in school about slavery, Jim Crow, and redlining laws that were put into place to keep African Americans oppressed in America. I was encouraged to be a lawyer, but these historic texts invigorated me to become a lawyer who sought justice. Little did I know that while we have made strides forward, the profession was still very uninviting to a first-generation Black female attorney.

My Experiences as a First-Generation Law Student

My experiences in this profession have been rewarding in some instances, tiring in others, but overall eye-opening. In undergraduate school, the expectations as a first-generation student are great, but in law school, they are enormous. Law school presents several different teaching methods, such as the Socratic method, which leads to increased feelings of anxiety and inadequacy. Moreover, the pressure of succeeding because you somehow represent every minority that will come after you or upholding a legacy of those before you exacerbates the pressures of law school.

The number of female attorneys makes up about 37 percent of the profession. While there was an overall increase in minority attorneys, African American attorneys only make up about 5 percent; of that, only 1 percent are African American women. (See Lawyers by Race & Ethnicity; “Female and minority lawyer representation in firms reaches historic highs, but gains are small”) More shocking, these numbers generally track with law schools, bar associations, and legal jobs.

Too many times, as a law student and even now as an attorney, I have struggled with the question: Did I make the right decision? Mostly because I did not feel like I belonged when students talked about their internships, jobs, or personal and professional connections they knew in the legal field. Similarly, law school events made me feel inadequate because I lacked networking skills—I struggled with small talk, which wine to drink, the appropriate amount of hors d’oeuvres to eat, or the utensils to use at dinners.

Finally, law school was a huge financial commitment. I had to work several jobs while in law school to cover the costs my student loans did not. I did this while maintaining being a student, serving on journals, arguing in oral advocacy competitions, and working internships. As a first-generation law student, I had no choice but to work during school as my family’s financial assistance was limited, and scholarships only covered so much. Overall, these experiences have equipped me to work and advocate for myself and my peers in the profession.

What Have I Learned?

I and others like me are good enough, and we belong here. I realized this through interactions with peers, professors, other legal professionals, and my family. It is important to have a network of people who will keep you motivated, including your naysayers.

Be okay with being uncomfortable and placed into new situations. It is the only way to learn and grow professionally.

Own and accept being a first-generation law student. I now consider it a badge of honor. If you are a first-generation law student, take pride in making it to law school, and remember you are not alone. Others alongside you share the same experiences, and others who came before you to help guide you. Similarly, lean on family. While they were not being cold-called in class, my mother, sister, and other family members received plenty of calls when I was struggling or felt alone and needed some encouragement. Most importantly, I became my own biggest advocate and sponsor. I had to go into spaces, talk about myself, seek help when I was struggling, find my mentors, and let it be known that I would be an attorney.

My Advice for First-Generation Law Students

First-generation law students belong in law school. If you are a first-generation law student or young lawyer, forge your path to becoming that amazing lawyer. Immerse yourself in law school and enjoy all the opportunities provided to you. Seek mentors and sponsors in professors and other legal professionals. You are not in this fight alone, and there are peers around you who are happy and willing to help you. Join school organizations and bar associations to network with professionals across the legal field. Give back to your communities and schools. Be proud that you are a first-generation law student, and don’t forget to help those that come after you. Remember, it is okay to be the first as long as you are not the last.

The post First-Generation Law Student: I Know More Today Than I Did Yesterday first appeared on ABA for Law Students.

As a law student, you have spent years learning the intricacies of the legal system and honing your skills to become a legal professional. Congratulations on nearing the end of your journey and embarking on the next phase of your career! As you transition from student to legal professional, you may be considering opening your own law practice.

While being a law firm owner can be a fulfilling and rewarding experience, it can also present unique challenges. It’s important to develop effective time management skills and establish a well-rounded lifestyle that prioritizes personal and professional fulfillment. Below you will find valuable tips and insights on how to achieve a healthy work-life balance as a law firm owner so that you can not only excel in your legal career but also enjoy a fulfilling personal life.

Prioritize Your Time

As a law student, you already have a solid foundation in time management skills. Law school teaches you to balance rigorous coursework with extracurricular activities, internships, and social engagements. However, as a law firm owner, the stakes are higher, and the demands are greater. Effective time management is critical to running a successful law firm.

It’s important to prioritize tasks and allocate time based on their importance and urgency. Consider creating a to-do list and categorizing tasks accordingly. Be sure to assign realistic deadlines to each activity and stick to them.

You can also use tools like Google Calendar to schedule events, set reminders, and allocate time slots for essential tasks. This approach will help you remain focused on the task at hand and increase your productivity, ultimately leading to a successful and fulfilling law practice.

Set Boundaries

As you transition from law student to legal professional, it’s important to establish healthy boundaries that prioritize your personal life alongside your career. Creating a consistent work schedule can be a great starting point, ensuring you have time for both work and leisure. You may also want to consider avoiding working on weekends or holidays and prioritizing time with loved ones. Additionally, it’s important to reserve time for hobbies and other activities that bring you joy, and relaxation can contribute to your overall well-being and success, personally and professionally.

A healthy work-life balance requires mastering the art of saying “no.” While accepting every new case or project may be tempting, evaluating the potential impact on your workload and stress levels is crucial. When feeling swamped, it may be wiser for you to decline and delegate certain opportunities so that you can concentrate on fulfilling your current obligations.

Utilize Technology

It’s important to be aware of the various technological tools available to help streamline your workload and free up more time. Implementing legal practice management software is one such tool that can provide multiple benefits to your firm. By using comprehensive legal software, you can efficiently manage your caseload, time, and client interactions.

Legal software can help you work more effectively and enhance your clients’ experience. With features such as task tracking, deadline management, automated billing and invoicing, document creation, and client communication, legal software can significantly reduce your time spent on administrative tasks, leaving you with more time to focus on practicing law.

Create a Supportive Work Environment

In law school, you likely experienced the stress of heavy workloads and tight deadlines. As a law firm owner, it’s important to ensure your team members have the resources and support they need to manage their workload and personal responsibilities. Offering flexible working arrangements, such as remote work or flexible hours, can greatly benefit your staff. Encourage your team to take time off to recharge and prioritize their well-being. Promoting a positive work culture can enhance your team’s productivity, satisfaction, and overall success.

In the fast-paced and demanding field of law, it can be easy to get caught up in work and neglect personal well-being. However, prioritizing a healthy work-life balance is crucial for success and happiness, both in your personal and professional life. As a law firm owner, you face unique challenges in managing your time, delegating tasks, maintaining good health, utilizing technology, building a support network, and setting boundaries.

By taking intentional steps to achieve balance, you can reap the rewards of greater productivity, satisfaction, and overall well-being. Remember, achieving balance is an ongoing process that requires effort and commitment. With dedication and a focus on this, you can thrive as a law firm owner while also enjoying a fulfilling personal life.

The post Balancing Life and Law: Tips for Law Students Starting Their Own Firms first appeared on ABA for Law Students.

Each year, students leave law school and move into an intense period of studying for the bar exam. If you’re in this position, you might understandably find the prospect of studying for up to 600 hours over eight to ten weeks overwhelming. The following five tips will help you manage your time throughout bar study to maximize your study efforts.

1. Map Out Your Master Plan

The first step of time management is figuring out what bar study will look like for you. Take out a monthly calendar and mark the dates of your bar exam. Then, think about what’s happening between now and then. Is there a wedding coming up that you must attend? A family event? What about recurring obligations, like a weekly volunteer shift? It’s generally not recommended to work while studying, but if you are, note your workdays too.

Mark all those commitments on your calendar, also noting how long they’ll take. You may have to skip an entire day of studying if you’re in a friend’s wedding, but maybe you can squeeze in a half day around a family event.

Once you understand what non-bar obligations are on your calendar, it’s time to plug in your studying. This doesn’t need to be a detailed daily plan—your bar course will often give you that. Instead, this is where you note for yourself how many hours a day you plan to study. Remember that you should plan to study 400-600 hours for the bar exam, but you also need a sustainable schedule. Planning short breaks for yourself, such as taking a half-day off each week, will help keep you energized and on track.

2. Warn Your Family and Friends

Now that you know what your master plan looks like, it’s time to address distractions. Often, the hardest distractions to avoid are those that come from the outside. Maybe it’s a friend you don’t see often asking you to lunch or a family member wanting to go to the beach. Whatever it is, you must be ready to prioritize yourself and your career by prioritizing studying.

Communication makes managing these distractions easier. Tell your family and friends beforehand you will be studying for the bar exam and what that entails. Non-lawyers (and even lawyers!) may not understand how intense the bar exam is. Telling them in advance, and reminding them, if need be, that you must commit hundreds of hours to studying will help you manage their expectations and focus on the exam.

3. Establish a Daily Routine

Because many commercial prep courses provide the tasks you should complete each day, everyone’s precise daily schedule will look different. However, you should still create a consistent daily routine. A daily routine will help get you going on days you don’t feel motivated to study and builds opportunities to rest and recharge.

When building your daily routine, consider starting your day early. Even if you’re not an early riser, you’ll have to start early for the bar exam, so you should practice during studying. You should also pick a reasonable stopping time for each day. Don’t forget to include other necessary activities, such as eating regular meals and exercising.

A sample 10-hour study routine might be:

• 7:00–7:30 a.m.                        Exercise
• 7:30–8:00 a.m.                        Shower and Breakfast
• 8:00–10:00 a.m.                      Study
• 10:00–10:30 a.m.                    Break
• 10:30 a.m.–12:30 p.m.            Study
• 12:30–1:00 p.m.                      Lunch
• 1:00–3:00 p.m.                        Study
• 3:00–3:30 p.m.                        Break
• 3:30–5:30 p.m.                        Study
• 5:30–6:00 p.m.                        Dinner
• 6:00–8:00 p.m.                        Study

Creating a daily routine will help you have productive study days by eliminating uncertainty. Be sure to reevaluate your routine as you progress through bar study to ensure it continues to be manageable and productive.

4.  Bounce Back from Breaks

Breaks in your studying will happen, so it’s important to have a plan to get back on track. Your daily routine will help, but it may be hard even to get started the day after a break, so take time the night before to set yourself up for success the next day. Lay out the materials you’ll need, prepare meals and snacks, and plan a small reward for your first break of the day—whatever it will take to get you going that morning.

If the break is unplanned, you may feel guilty for taking that time off, but you shouldn’t let it hinder progress. Acknowledge that you had an unplanned break and reflect on what caused it. Were you burnt out? Did someone ask you to do something you couldn’t say no to? If you’re burning out, you may have to revise your routine and master plan. If it was just a one-time thing, think about how you might handle a similar situation in the future. The key is not to let an unexpected break impact the next study session—learn from it and move on, adjusting future study days if necessary to make up for the lost time.

5. Reevaluate

Part of time management during bar study is regularly asking yourself if your plans are working. Are you accomplishing your assigned tasks and spending time memorizing the material? Are you getting enough sleep? Do you have some time to recharge? If you’re not happy with an answer to one or more of these questions, it’s time to adjust. Perhaps you need to wake up earlier to get more study time in. Maybe you need to build in an afternoon break to rest before the next study period.

Ultimately, you need a plan that dedicates enough time to studying while avoiding burnout. It may take a few weeks to find a workable daily routine and master plan, and it might change as you get closer to the exam. Set yourself a reminder at least once a week to reflect and reevaluate your routine and schedule—it’s better to make the adjustments as you go rather than realize a week before the exam that you need more study time. 

The post 5 Time Management Tips for Bar Studying first appeared on ABA for Law Students.

The California Bar Exam is notorious for being the toughest licensing exam in the nation. If you’re contemplating a legal career in California, you’re likely already anticipating the California Bar Exam—perhaps with a little bit of trepidation. But we have you covered with answers to some of the most asked questions regarding the test to help you feel confident when it’s time to start prepping for exam day!

What is the format of the exam?

The California Bar Exam is a two-day exam administered twice a year—the last Tuesday and Wednesday of February and July. The first day is the written portion of the exam, which consists of five one-hour essays and a 90-minute performance test. California essays can cover any subjects tested on the MBE (more on that below), plus Community Property, Wills and Succession, Remedies, Professional Responsibility, Trusts, and Business Associations. Some essays are even “crossover” questions, testing multiple subjects. So be mindful that anything is fair game! Look at past California Bar Exam questions to give you an idea of what to expect.

On day one, in the morning session, you will answer three essay questions. Then in the afternoon session, you will answer two essay questions and spend the remaining 90 minutes on a performance test. The performance test is a closed-universe exam where you get to show off your lawyering skills. You receive an assignment from a fictional supervisor, as well as all the facts and rules you will need to complete your task (i.e., draft a motion or write a persuasive brief). It’s your job to read through the materials and plan and execute a cogent analysis of the legal issues within the time allocated. You can explore the California Bar Exam instructions and grading details to understand better what the bar examiners are looking for with the essays and performance test.

Day two is the Multistate Bar Examination (MBE). This is the multiple-choice portion of the exam that tests your knowledge of and ability to apply substantive law in specific and precise factual scenarios. There are 200 questions on the MBE, testing Contracts, Torts, Civil Procedure, Evidence, Real Property, Constitutional Law, and Criminal Law and Procedure. One hundred questions are administered in a three-hour morning session and another 100 in the afternoon. To learn more about the MBE (and how to prepare for it), check out this lesson on Ask EDNA!^®—The Education Network at AccessLex. (Create your free Ask EDNA! account to access helpful resources and tools to support your law school and bar prep journey.)

When do I need to apply for the California Bar Exam?

In addition to knowing what will be tested, make sure that you add important dates and deadlines for the California Bar Exam to your calendar now so that you don’t miss an application deadline and pay more in filing fees!

When should I start studying?

Here’s the lawyerly answer—it depends. Those following a traditional study path (taking the bar exam immediately following graduation) typically have about 10 weeks between graduation and the exam to prepare. During this 10-week study period, you will review (or re-learn) 13 subjects of law, distilling all the key rules and committing them to memory while simultaneously completing practice essays, performance tests, and MBE questions. To accomplish this feat in ten weeks, those who can are at a distinct advantage if they can study full-time.

However, not everyone can commit 40 hours per week to bar prep. If you know you will have other obligations, consider starting bar prep earlier. If possible, create an academic plan that gives you a light course load in the final semester of your 3L year, so you’ll have the bandwidth to start reviewing before graduation. Some courses, like Helix California, open up to 20 weeks before the bar exam, giving you a nice long runway to prepare. Really, any prep you can do—even light reviewing—during your 3L year will help you get a jump start!

When I’m ready to study, where do I begin?

Before you dive into bar review, it is helpful to know which topics you are confident in and where you may need more time and attention. Look at the courses on your transcript and compare them to the subjects tested on the California Bar Exam—you’ll see that most of the subjects tested on the exam were likely required courses in law school (see, you’ve already started studying!). Create a list of the remaining subjects you did not take and prioritize them from most difficult to learn to least difficult to learn. If you need help with the order, visit your academic support office! They can talk through your strengths and weaknesses to identify which subjects will require more time and attention. Once you have a good idea of your superpowers and shortcomings, you can begin developing your study plan.

How should I choose the best California Bar Exam prep program for me?

There is a plethora of bar review courses out there, as well as private tutors. How do you navigate the process of selecting the resources that will best support you during your bar study—without breaking the bank? You can get advice from friends, mentors, and academic support professionals, but make sure that you do some self-reflecting, too. Ask yourself the following questions:

How do I learn material best?

The California Bar Exam is different from law school exams; however, your approach to learning the material and general exam preparation shouldn’t change drastically. Do you learn by reading an outline, sitting through a lecture, doing practice questions—or maybe a combination of all three? Do you like to have physical books in front of you to highlight? Do you love using flashcards? Make sure that the bar program you choose is a good fit with the way you prefer to learn.

Are there specific portions of the exam that I am worried about?

Knowing this information will help you select tools, resources, and programs to target your weak areas. For example: if you typically do not perform well on multiple-choice exams, focus on finding tools and resources that will prepare you for the MBE portion of the exam (shameless plug: like Helix MBE).

Am I able to assess my own work?

Self-assessment on the bar exam is critical and you will not always have someone to evaluate your work. To accurately gauge your progress throughout bar prep, you must know how to grade your own assignments to ensure your practice sessions are productive. It is important to select a bar prep program that provides opportunities for external feedback and resources to help guide your own self-assessment so you will be able to identify your strengths and weaknesses and self-correct as needed!

How am I going to focus and stay engaged?

Remember that, with most bar prep programs, you will be spending long hours studying on your own. There’s no classroom debate to hold your interest or office hours to help you understand the rules. So, when selecting a bar program, make sure to take a test run—use the MPRE course or look around in the Sneak Peek—to see whether you think you’ll be able to remain actively engaged with your studies over the long bar prep period!

Remember, at the end of the day, this is just another exam. You were admitted to law school for a reason, and you have made it this far. Think about the hurdles you have overcome during your professional journey to becoming a lawyer. This is just one more jump. Have confidence in your abilities as a law student and future attorney. We are behind you every step of the way!

If you want to learn more about the California Bar Exam application and licensing process and are an ABA Law Student Division Member, join Helix Bar Review experts for the upcoming webinar, What You Need to Know About the California Bar Exam, on March 16, 2023, at 12:00 p.m. ET.

The post The California Bar Exam: Tackling the Beast first appeared on ABA for Law Students.

The JD Advising Scholars Program is a yearlong opportunity for historically underrepresented first-year law students from across the country to receive the highest quality educational support and resources, free of charge. For many students who may not otherwise have access to such resources and are first-generation students, this program is a critical tool during the often-challenging transition to law school that allows them to find immediate success. This initial academic success helps put students in a great position to secure competitive jobs while in law school and upon graduation.

What began as a 25-student class in the program’s first year has quickly doubled in its second year with the support and partnership of law firms from across the country. “We are honored to be part of the diversification of the legal profession, and we could not do so without sponsorship from so many law firms who share in our mission of seeing a more diverse legal profession that better matches the communities it serves,” said JD Advising founder and CEO Ashley Heidemann, Esq. As a result of this generosity, the program is pleased to announce that it will be offering even more scholarships for eligible students in the upcoming year. Heidemann believes the continued support will allow for exponential growth in the coming years.

As part of the JD Advising Scholars Program, students receive access to one-on-one tutoring and JD Advising’s Law School Study Aids throughout their first year of law school. Scholars also have access to assigned mentors from some of the country’s top law firms, allowing students to quickly expand their legal network and gain expert insight into building successful legal careers. Furthermore, students participate in several events throughout the school year, highlighting law firm associates, partners, and recruiters who offer insight into law firm life and advice on recruiting, interviewing, and networking.

The following firms participated in the 2022-2023 Scholars program:

• Bush Seyferth PLLC
• Covington & Burling LLP
• Haynes and Boone, LLP
• Honigman LLP
• Latham & Watkins LLP
• Lowenstein Sandler LLP
• Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone PLC
• Ogletree Deakins
• Robinson+Cole
• Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP
• Taft
• Troutman Pepper Hamilton Sanders LLP
• Varnum LLP
• Warner Norcross + Judd LLP
• Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP

Program Perspectives

Despite its relatively short history, the Scholars Program is already paying dividends for participants and alums. Rohan Gandhi (class of 2025) at UCLA School of Law says:

The JD Advising Scholars Program was instrumental to my early success in law school. I was not only assigned a tutor, but I was also given study aids, invited to exclusive networking events, and paired with a mentor from Skadden (who sponsored my scholarship). By leveraging these resources, I finished my first semester of law school with grades substantially higher than the median in my class. Additionally, the strong connection I had with my mentor, along with my grades, ultimately helped me secure a 1L summer associate position with Skadden in their Los Angeles office! I truly believe that if it wasn’t for the JD Advising Scholars program, I wouldn’t be where I am today.

As Heidemann reflects on the previous JD Advising Scholar participants, she is pleased with the critical role this program serves in the lives of students who need it. “As a first-generation college or law student, entering a demanding Juris Doctor program can easily be overwhelming. Our goal is to help students overcome the challenges presented in their first year, so they are able to perform to their highest potential.” Rachel Margiewicz, Esq., who co-leads the Scholars Program, adds, “Most of our Scholars are first-generation students who often lack the institutional knowledge others have. Our program lessens these disparities allowing historically underrepresented law students to find immediate success in the classroom and in their careers.”

JD Advising Scholars agree with this sentiment. Fred Freeman (class of 2025) at Yale Law School says, “As a first-generation professional with no idea how to navigate law school and the job hunt, JD Advising’s guidance has been invaluable in setting me up for success.”

Adan Carrillo (class of 2025) at Wayne State University Law School added:

As a first-generation law student, I had no idea what to expect or how to prepare myself for success in the field of law. JD Advising provided a holistic framework that not only aided tremendously in my studies through a wonderful tutor, but also facilitated consistent opportunities to connect with current lawyers/judges to build my professional network. Going into my second semester of law school, I feel confident that I have the tools to succeed in and out of the classroom due to my experience with the JD Advising Diversity Scholars Program.

Likewise, participating law firms have benefited from the opportunity to help new law students begin their legal journey. “We continue to invest in pipeline programs, like JD Advising, to help attract, cultivate and mentor the next generation of lawyers,” said Abid R. Qureshi, Global Chair of Latham’s Recruiting Committee. “By providing these talented students with mentorship, global law firm exposure, and financial support, we hope to diversify the legal profession, so that we can better serve our clients and communities.”

Partnering law firms play a vital role in the JD Advising Scholars Program by providing each accepted student with a scholarship to access hours of one-on-one tutoring, career panels, and mentorship opportunities.

Eligibility and Benefits

To be eligible for the JD Advising Scholars Program, first-year law students must meet the following requirements:

• Must be enrolled in an ABA-accredited law school for the upcoming fall semester.
• Must have a minimum of either a 3.0 undergraduate GPA or a 160 LSAT score.
• Must identify as a member of an underrepresented racial, ethnic, or gender group, a member of the LGBTQ community, or disabled.

Those selected for the JD Advising Scholars Program receive, at no cost to the law student:

• 10 hours of one-on-one tutoring before and throughout the first semester of law school (valued at over $2,000!)
• JD Advising Law School One-Sheets
• JD Advising Law School Study Aids (outlines, flashcards, short-answer questions, multiple-choice questions, and more!)
• The opportunity to connect with law firms, attorneys, and judges!

JD Advising is currently accepting applications for its 2023–2024 class of Scholars. You can learn more about and apply for the JD Advising Scholars Program here.

The post JD Advising Scholars Program Helps Historically Underrepresented Students Find Success in Law School first appeared on ABA for Law Students.

I’m often asked how I mapped out my path from lawyering to being an author with a TV show. I appreciate this question, but it also makes me laugh. Believe me; no one’s been more surprised by this roller-coaster ride than I’ve been. My legal and writing careers evolved more by serendipity than by actual plotting or design.

Be Less Terrified of Uncertainty

Back in law school, I wish I’d known to be less terrified of uncertainty. It can be perfectly OK to stray from the marked trail. But like many fellow students, I was so busy following the bread crumbs, head down, that I didn’t stop often enough to question where exactly they were leading me.

To mix in another metaphor (writers like metaphors!), I wish I’d known that just because you can collect another gold star doesn’t mean you have to.

You can do anything, but not everything.

Always Bring Your Authentic Self

I also wish I’d known how important it is to bring your authentic self to work, class, or wherever every day. (I realize this may sound a little, you know, “woo woo,” but bear with me.)

I’m not talking about the version of yourself you think others want or might assume you to be. I’m talking about your truest self, the one that allows you to turn in your best work and feel the most comfortable in your own skin.

As a newly minted first-year associate, starting my job in a rarefied corporate culture that felt utterly alien to me, I assumed that Big Law wanted an automaton, a tailored-suit-wearing, World-Series-bantering, license-agreement-drafting robot associate who’d eat, breathe, and sleep the law 24–7.

So, I tried. I tried hard and for a very long time to “pass” and blend in. Sometimes this worked, but not always. (This, incidentally, was when I started writing a book.)

It took a while to realize this, but I wasn’t being true to myself. I don’t follow major league baseball. So, it would seem inauthentic whenever I’d hover around the water cooler with all the guys in my firm practice group, standing about a head shorter than all of them (even in heels!), trying to get a word in edgewise about the final inning of last night’s game.

And whenever I did get a word in, they’d pause just long enough to stare at me as if I’d just blurted, “And how about that touchdown, huh?” It sounded inauthentic even to me, and now I know it sounded inauthentic to them.

Soon after this, I stopped pretending to be a huge sports fan and started writing earnestly.

Finally, I realized that my initial assumption had been wrong. Law firms didn’t want a robot. What any legal employer—or any colleague or partner, in every sense of that word—wants is a smart, competent, authentic person who’s pleasant and fun to be around.

Eureka!

Recognize the Value of Personal Relationships

This leads me to this last point: Recognize the value of personal, real relationships.

In law school and every place I’ve ever worked, I wish I’d known much sooner to seek out kindred spirits. No matter how alone I might have felt and how challenging I thought things were, these folks are almost always there.

And I don’t just mean finding and cultivating relationships with good mentors and sponsors. It’s equally—if not even more—important to seek out and keep close a trusted, honest sounding board of your peers because sometimes they can most easily see the forest for the trees, even when you can’t.

I wish I’d known that not everyone else knew some secret handshake. And that there are quite a few people who are willing to help.

Even in the most stressful and challenging times and circumstances, most people are still fundamentally kind.

The post I Wish I’d Known: Helen Wan first appeared on ABA for Law Students.

Career planning is a process that requires time and thought. Perhaps you’ve known what you want to be when you grow up for as long as you can remember. Or perhaps you’re still trying to figure it out. Most of us fit somewhere on the spectrum between “born to serve” and “stay loose and adjust.”

Wherever you land on that spectrum, you’ll still need to get a job. Here are 10 tips to help you identify and land the position that fits your skills and interests.

1. Think about Practice Areas

Before you start applying for jobs, some self-reflection may be helpful. In an interview, you’ll be asked why you applied for a job at the firm. You need to research the firm so that you can discuss the areas in which the firm practices. Be prepared to explain why a particular practice area interests you.

If you’re interviewing with a firm with multiple practice areas and you’re not ready to commit to a single area, ask the person interviewing you if the firm allows associates to rotate through specialty areas before choosing a practice area and a group of lawyers with whom you’d like to work.

2. Consider Culture

Understanding the culture and expectations of specific employers will help you decide whether you’ll be happy with your work environment. You want to avoid joining a firm with an environment that does not mesh with your lifestyle and compensation expectations.

3. Know the People

Read the biographical information for everyone at the firm who’ll interview you. If possible, find common ground with the interviewer. Did you go to the same undergraduate college? Did you major in the same undergraduate subject? Were you in the same fraternity, sorority, or other service club during undergrad? Did you play the same varsity or club sport? Are you fluent in a language listed on their bio?

Also, research some of the major cases the firm has handled so that you can discuss the cases with the interviewers. And if you’re interviewing with a judge, be ready to discuss at least one opinion the judge wrote that you agree with and one you disagree with, and be prepared to justify your answers.

4. Impress on the Strengths and Weaknesses Question

During interviews, you’ll be asked about your strengths and weaknesses. Avoid vague generalizations. Be very specific with your strengths, using examples of concrete instances that demonstrate your point. If you say you’re good with deadlines, be prepared to offer one or more specific examples of challenging tasks that required you to go the extra mile to comply with the deadline.

The same holds true for your weaknesses. It’s unacceptable to say that you don’t have any weaknesses. Choose one that won’t disqualify you from the job and avoid saying that you can never get to work on time or that you prefer to work alone so that you don’t have to listen to the opinions of others.

Instead, choose a weakness that demonstrates self-awareness. If you say that you’ve been told that you waste time by paying too much attention to details or that you over-research a problem, explain that you’re aware of the issue. Also, state that you appreciate the advice of experienced practitioners who can advise you on when it’s appropriate to proceed with what you have without additional research. Also, state that you know you’ll become more efficient as you develop as a lawyer.

5. Use Favorite Subjects to Your Advantage

Be prepared to discuss your favorite and least favorite subject in law school. Again, be prepared to justify your answer. If you’re interviewing with a litigation firm, evidence and civil procedure should be on the favorite list rather than the least favorite.

If the interviewer attended your law school, you might be asked about your favorite and least favorite professors. It’s not a good answer to say that a professor was too demanding.

6. Use Your Work Experience to Narrow Your Interests

The work you do during your first- and second-year summers can help you decide which practice areas you prefer. It can also help you eliminate areas that don’t interest you. If you can’t secure a summer legal position, enroll in summer school and volunteer at a legal nonprofit or for a judge. Listing the volunteer position on your resume will show ambition and dedication to the profession.

7. Consider a Joint Degree

A joint degree earned while in law school will separate you from the other members of your graduating class and may give you interesting options for employment. Many schools offer a joint JD/MBA program, but the list of joint degrees varies depending on the school. Consult your career planning office or your joint degree coordinator for application requirements. Your career planning office should also be able to share statistics on the costs and benefits of a joint degree.

There are LLM programs in just about any specialty area of law. Some LLM programs allow you to design your own program, and you may be able to earn an LLM from a school that’s higher ranked than the school in which you’re currently enrolled. You’ll also be able to use the career planning office at your LLM institution in addition to the office at your law school.

8. Visit Your Career Planning Office Early and Often

Your career planning office will be able to help you develop your resume, fine-tune your firm setting and subject matter preferences, and help arrange interviews with firms interested in students like you.

9. Do Your Own Interviewing and Research

Talk to associates who work at the firms you’re interested in to get an idea of the number of hours required to meet the firm’s billable hour minimum. Also, talk to as many people as possible to find out about the realities of their practice situation.

And remember that networking with alums and local lawyers will pay off in the long run. While you don’t want to get too distracted with outside activities that your grades suffer, you do want to join a limited number of organizations that offer opportunities to meet lawyers who practice in your areas of interest.

10. Get Involved Early

The American Bar Association allows students to join divisions, sections, and forums focusing on specific practice areas. Joining these groups and attending their meetings is an excellent opportunity to meet practitioners who can help you as your career evolves.

The Law Student Division offers leadership opportunities that can help introduce you to practice and bar leaders. It also has liaison positions with each of the divisions, sections, and forums that allow one lucky student to participate with the lawyer members of the group. Pursue these connections and use them to help you find the right practice setting for you.

If you’re lucky, you’ll land your dream job before you graduate from law school. But most new lawyers will have several jobs before they find the one that motivates them to wake up in the morning. Keep an open mind. The list of jobs that a law school education prepares you for is as vast as your imagination.

Good luck!

The post 10 Tips to Help You Find the Legal Career That’s Right for You first appeared on ABA for Law Students.

Derek Brainard, AFC® from non-profit AccessLex Institute shares and overview of Cryptocurrencies and what you need to know about them as both transaction mediums and volatile investment vehicles.

You can download the slides from the presentation as a PDF.

The Virtual Office Hours series connects you with experts to help you thrive as a law student and prepare for life after law school.

About Derek: Derek Brainard, AFC®, CRPC, is the National Director of Financial Education at the AccessLex Center for Education and Financial Capability. He has worked in both the private financial services sector as a licensed financial advisor, and in higher education as financial literacy coordinator at Syracuse University. His financial writing and commentary have been featured in the Wall Street Journal, U.S. News and World Report, NBC News, and USA Today.

About AccessLex Institute: For nearly 40 years, nonprofit AccessLex Institute has been partnering with its member institutions — the nearly 200 state-affiliated and nonprofit ABA-approved law schools — to meet the ever-changing needs and challenges of law students and the legal education community. From providing free resources for every step of the law school journey to maximizing the value and affordability of a law degree through research and policy advocacy, AccessLex exists to increase access and further the success of aspiring lawyers from admission to law school to admission to the bar.

The post Virtual Office Hours: Cryptocurrency Basics first appeared on ABA for Law Students.

Impostor syndrome is feeling chronic self-doubt despite evident success. You likely had yet to experience it before attending law school. However, a few weeks from your first-semester final exams, you might feel defeated–the kind of defeat where you aren’t sure if you should even show up to try. After attempting every self-help trick to restore the faith to keep going, you realize that you feel inadequate. Impostor syndrome is starting to consume you. While none of the symptoms of impostor syndrome are typically longed for (e.g., fear, self-sabotage, self-doubt), think about twisting the tale on impostor syndrome: instead of considering these feelings as all negative, consider how you can make these impostor feelings work for you as a unique and special person.

Attributing Success to Luck

You could feel that your acceptance into law school was a mistake or that a high final grade in a course was a typo. These thoughts are tough and can significantly affect you as you progress through law school because you may start attributing success to luck. However, what if you were to consider that attributing success to luck also makes you curious when constructing an argument? How about your detail-oriented mindset? Or that it makes you humble? Instead of it only haunting you about your law school acceptance or grades, think of your power to link events and create relationships as the key to opening the door to the wonderful unknown. That empowers you to realize that you lead yourself to your successes.

Fear of Falling Short

Humans naturally feel unsure. They feel the pressures of society and the bias within the four walls of law school. The main fear is of falling short and not making it. For example, the Socratic Method can cause you to doubt your abilities because cold calling can make you feel lost and confused. However, being fearful of not living up to expectations shows that you are reliable, dedicated, devoted, and compassionate. For example, without this fear and nerves pushing you, your academic accomplishments and the devotion you will have in practice wouldn’t be near your potential. Use this fear to strive to raise the bar and set yourself apart in your studies and, ultimately, in practice.

Being an Overachiever

Impostor syndrome can lead you to believe that the drive to overachieve comes from a negative place. However, it can make you hard-working, creative, willing to push the boundaries, and, in many instances, a leader. Instead of seeing yourself as being cursed with needing to overachieve, maybe thank it for making you a person who strives for improvement and progress. And excelling beyond the confines of bare minimums and raising the bar is not a characteristic to be ashamed of.

Feeling Self-Doubt

Law school culture amplifies the feeling of self-doubt; however, what about the characteristics of being caring, rational, unique, and confident? How do these characteristics and self-doubt connect? If you didn’t care about something, you wouldn’t be mindful of it. You’re cognizant of your performance (and, in this case, doubtful of your performance) because you care about what you are doing. Arguably, being doubtful means that you are confident. How so? Generally, it’s not a lasting thought if you can’t do something. Perhaps, you may feel self-doubt because you know you can accomplish that very thing. Your mind is bringing you to this place of uncertainty because you know you can do it.

Overall, it is not feasible to overlook these difficult feelings during your time in law school. However, looking at these common impostor-syndrome characteristics positively may help you accept them and more easily function with them, too. Just remember, impostor syndrome doesn’t make you any less when you twist the tale and focus on your positive characteristics.

The post Twisting the Tale on Impostor Syndrome first appeared on ABA for Law Students.

The IRAC method of legal reasoning and writing is fundamental to many entry-level law courses. It represents the acronym for Issue, Rule, Analysis/Application, and Conclusion. The method is helpful once understood, but it can be difficult to learn and teach. This article illustrates how to use the IRAC method by employing it to address a practical legal question facing many professors and students today: Do professors violate copyright law when they copy articles for students?

This legal question arises when professors assign articles for students to read from publications like the Wall Street Journal that provide access to only a limited number of free articles per month. Students who attempt to access more than the limited number of articles in a month are denied access unless they purchase a subscription. Professors and students may wonder if it would violate copyright law for these professors to make copies of the articles and give them to students who would otherwise not read the articles because they are unwilling or unable to pay for a subscription.

IRAC: Issue

The Issue in IRAC is the legal question one is trying to answer. It can be difficult to identify this question in complex or personal situations. For example, imagine that a professor is copying an article for a student that is defamatory, invades an individual’s privacy, compromises national security, contains trade secrets or child pornography, or involves important constitutional questions about free speech and academic freedom. It is tempting—and natural—to want to explore all or at least the most sensational of these issues, but answering all of these questions may not be essential to the real legal question that needs to be answered. For example, if you are the person who feels that you were defamed or had your privacy invaded or your speech silenced, it may be difficult to identify that the real issue is about copyright infringement and not legal issues surrounding defamation, invasion of privacy, or free speech.

Multiple IRACs and IRACs within IRACs

Legal questions may contain multiple issues or even issues within issues. The strength of the IRAC method requires boiling down potentially complex legal scenarios into specific, answerable legal questions. For example, if you are a potential plaintiff in the example above, you may have two specific IRACs: 1) Is the defendant liable for defamation? 2) Is the defendant liable for invasion of privacy? These are two distinct legal questions that you would want to address individually using two separate IRACs.

It is also common to have an IRAC within an IRAC. This often occurs after a rule statement. For example, if your issue was, “Is the defendant liable for defamation,” your rule statement may define defamation as a 1) false, 2) defamatory, 3) statement of fact, 4) of or concerning the plaintiff, that is 5) published to a third party. These five elements must be established to prove that someone is liable for defamation. It would then be helpful to analyze these elements in a series of five separate mini-IRACs asking, “Was the statement false, was the statement defamatory, was the statement a statement of fact, was the statement of or concerning the plaintiff, and was the statement published to a third party?” Each question would be its own IRAC with its own rule applied and analyzed to a logical conclusion.

For this article, the legal issue we will explore is provided: Do professors violate copyright law when they copy articles for students? In the process of answering this question, we will also discover the need to answer a mini-IRAC within this IRAC asking, “Does a professor copying articles for students qualify as a ‘fair use’ under Section 107 of the Copyright Code?”

Helpful tips: Phrase your issue statement as a question. Questions end with a question mark. Issue statements that begin with the word “whether” are confusing and lose the power to identify a real question that demands an answer.

IRAC: Rule

The Rule is the law that will provide the authority needed to answer the legal question identified in the issue. If the issue were about defamation, we would cite the applicable state or federal statutes on defamation. In our case, we are asking about copyright infringement, and so we need to look to the U.S. Copyright Code. The U.S. Copyright Code protects “original works of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression” (17 U.S. Code § 102). However, Section 107 of the Copyright Code specifically allows copying for what it calls a “fair use…for the purpose of criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, or research” (17 U.S. Code § 107).

In addition to looking at the words in an applicable statute, it is also important to see how prior courts have interpreted and applied the statutes because their interpretations create the precedent rules that future cases will follow. Here are examples of how prior courts have defined fair use:

• Not a Fair Use: Setting up an “off-campus, for profit, copy shop” to copy and sell anthologies to college students is not a fair use. Courts did not like that the protected materials were copied for a commercial purpose and for the “same intrinsic purpose” as the copyrighted material (Princeton Univ. Press v. Mich. Document Servs., 99 F.3d 1381).
• Fair Use: A court determined that copying is a fair use when done by “…nonprofit institutions, devoted solely to the advancement and dissemination of medical knowledge…[that] normally restricted copying on an individual scientist’s request to a single copy of an article and to articles of less than fifty pages…[and] medical science would be seriously hurt if such photocopying were stopped…[and] there was no showing of economic injury to publisher” (Williams & Wilkins Co. v. United States, 203 Ct. Cl. 74).

Helpful tips: Rules should be narrowly focused on the legal question addressed in the issue yet broad enough to address the intricacies of a complex fact pattern. If you are writing an IRAC essay for a school or state bar exam, your rule statement should state the precise definition of the law that controls your issue. If your rule statement is incomplete, your analysis will fail to address all of the nuances your answer should contemplate.

IRAC: Analysis/Application

The Application/Analysis section compares the facts of prior cases to our new situation. In our case, university professors have students who cannot read articles that the professors assign because the students cannot or will not spend money to read an article after they have reached their limit of free articles per month. And the professors do not receive any economic benefit from giving these articles to students. Are these facts more like the unfair “off-campus, for profit, copy shop” or the “fair use” of a nonprofit institution sharing knowledge with no showing of economic injury to the plaintiff?

If a student will not spend money for the article, and the professor and university will not spend money for the student to access the article, then one could argue that copying the article and providing it to the student would not deprive the publisher of any economic benefit because no one in the scenario is going to pay the publisher for the student to have access to the article. The question is not whether or not the publisher will be paid for the student accessing the article. The publisher will not be paid. The question is only whether the student will have access to the article.

Although it is helpful to find a case that appears to apply perfectly to a new situation—especially when it points to an outcome you desire—it is important to analyze precedent cases with different outcomes. Thorough analysis requires distinguishing why prior cases should or should not apply. The purpose of IRAC is to facilitate thoughtful, critical analysis. If the result feels like a thoughtless application of a rule…we’re probably not doing it right.

Helpful Hints: Improve your analysis by using the words “because,” “like,” and “unlike.” Using the word “because” forces you to provide some analysis instead of just a conclusion BECAUSE it requires you to finish the sentence with a clause defending your statement. Using the words “like” and “unlike” help you distinguish the facts in the current case from the facts in prior cases. For example, the facts in the current case are like the facts in the precedent “fair use” case because ___________ and unlike the facts in the “unfair use” case because _________.

IRAC: Conclusion

The conclusion should logically follow from the analysis and application of the rules to answer the question presented in the issue. It is a “therefore” statement. For example, imagine your issue is an arithmetic question. Your rule established how to add, your analysis determined that you were adding two plus two, and your conclusion might state, “Therefore, the answer is four.”

It is common for professors to say that the conclusion is less important than the process that came up with it. Although true, there are two ways to fail the conclusion section of an IRAC essay: 1) Not providing a conclusion, and 2) Providing a conclusion that does not logically follow the application/analysis of the rules.

Not Providing a Conclusion

The purpose of the IRAC format of legal reasoning and writing is to provide a logical answer to the question identified in the issue statement. In our example, we want to know if professors violate copyright law when they copy articles for students in a specific situation. Any analysis or description of the history of copyright law—however beautifully written—is ultimately useless for IRAC purposes if it fails to answer our legal question.

Providing a Conclusion That Does Not Logically Follow the Application/Analysis of the Rules

Again, the purpose of the IRAC format of legal reasoning and writing is to provide a logical answer to the question identified in the issue statement. If, throughout the analysis, we read that the current case is most like cases where courts have found that the copying is not a “fair use,” it would not logically follow to conclude that the copying is somehow fair in this similar case.

The conclusion should naturally flow from the analysis. For example:

Therefore, the limited, noncommercial classroom use of a professor copying articles for students who would not purchase them should qualify as a “fair use” under Section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Code. Based on the facts in our specific situation, we conclude that professors at nonprofit institutions do NOT violate copyright law if they copy articles for students when there is no economic injury to the plaintiff, no economic benefit to the professor, and “science would be seriously hurt if such photocopying were stopped”(Williams & Wilkins Co. v. United States, 203 Ct. Cl. 74).

Helpful Hints: Legal analysis is like math but with ideas instead of numbers. I plus R plus A should equal C. (I + R + A = C). The wrong answer is the one that doesn’t answer the question or doesn’t add up.

The post An IRAC Illustration: Do Professors Violate Copyright Law When They Copy Articles for Students? first appeared on ABA for Law Students.

If you are a law student, chances are you have come across that long-standing legal education motto: “In law school, you will learn how to think like a lawyer.” As a first-year student, you are taking doctrinal and legal writing courses to help you learn substantive law and employ logic to construct arguments. As an upper-class student, you are probably taking a clinical, experiential, or trial advocacy course (in addition to doctrinal courses) to develop your lawyering skills. Indeed, these cognitive-focused and skills-orientated courses are the hallmark of what law school is all about.

However, in learning, as in professional practice, substantive knowledge (doctrine) or procedural knowledge (skills training) alone are insufficient for self-directed growth. If you did not do as well on your exams as you hoped, you will need to commit to learning. You will need to understand how you learn so that it translates to self-directed improvement.

What Is Metacognition?

In recent years, educators and the bar have recognized that metacognition skills are important for exam performance and lifelong logic and reasoning. But don’t take my word for it. The Carnegie Report and the American Bar Association have also emphasized the value of striving to be self-reflective, self-regulated learners in law school and practice.

[T]he essential goal of professional schools must be to form practitioners who are aware of what it takes to become competent in their chosen domain and to equip them with the reflective capacity and motivation to pursue genuine expertise. They must become “metacognitive” about their own learning.—The Carnegie Report

For the purposes of Standard 302(d)….professional skills…include skills such as, interviewing, counseling, negotiation, fact development and analysis, trial practice, document drafting, conflict resolution, organization and management of legal work, collaboration, cultural competency, and self-evaluation.—ABA Interpretation 302-1

Often described informally as “thinking about how you think and learn,” metacognition involves: (1) the awareness of what you bring to the learning experience (awareness of your own personal resources—your cognitive knowledge) and (2) the ongoing process of actively planning, monitoring, evaluating, and creating learning strategies to complete a particular task (regulation of your learning).

The key to metacognition is continually asking yourself self-reflective questions throughout the learning process. This allows you to take inventory of the learning tasks involved, discover what’s working and what’s not, and actively monitor and adjust your cognitive processes to gauge if you have truly mastered the material. It is about being aware and in control of your cognitive processes to improve the quality and effectiveness of your learning.

How to Integrate Metacognition to Improve Grades

If you spend a lot of time studying but feel like your countless hours of hard work have yet to help you on exams, it is time to take a good look at your study habits. By incorporating metacognition into your study routine regularly, you can improve. In Expert Learning for Law Students, authors Michael Schwartz and Paula Manning recommend that students engage in the “self-regulated learning cycle”—a cycle consisting of 3 phases:

1. the planning phase,
2. the monitoring and implementing phase, and
3. the evaluating phase.

If we take a closer look at each phase, the cycle can best be understood as a series of steps:

Step 1: Get in the Right Mindset

Your mindset matters when you engage in a learning task because it drives you throughout the learning process. If you believe that you can master an academic task through deliberate practice and strategic effort, you will persist when you encounter setbacks or even when you fail. However, if you believe that your intelligence and abilities are set in stone and are things you cannot change (e.g., “I’ve always been bad at writing,” “Everyone here is naturally smarter than me,” or “I just don’t get constitutional law.”), you may hold yourself back by selecting tasks that are easy for you. This will limit your learning.

Students who embrace a growth mindset, first conceived by Stanford Professor Carol Dweck, believe that their most basic abilities and intelligence can be developed through purposeful effort, good strategies, and input from others. Their mindset leads them to take on challenges, work effectively, and persevere in the face of struggle. Expert learners understand that brains and talent—the abilities they were born with—are just the starting point. Expert learners understand that setbacks in the learning process are a necessary part of growth.

Studies show that mindset is malleable. All of us oscillate between fixed and growth mindsets, but we can become more growth minded over time.When you are confronted with an academic task, pause. Take some time to figure out where your mindset is. For example, if you are in class and not following the civil procedure lecture, or do not understand your professor’s comments on a legal writing assignment, recognize that you can manage your fixed mindset and develop strategies to help shift out of your fixed mindset thinking.

To illustrate, your self-talk could look like this:

• I can do better. I may not understand the court’s rationale in Pennoyer v. Neff right now, but I will.
• I can improve my legal writing. I just need to master the CREAC paradigm fully.

Step 2: Plan Your Learning Task

Once you are in the right mindset for your learning task, the second step involves planning and preparation. This is, essentially, all the thinking you need to do before performing your task. Often, students dismiss this step because they believe it is just “thinking about what they have to do” (eye roll—isn’t that a time waster?). Don’t be tricked. It is a crucial step because you are figuring out what you need to learn and how you will go about doing it. According to Schwartz and Manning, there are five metacognitive questions you can ask yourself as you plan your learning task:

Question 1: What is the task that’s required of me?

At the beginning of any learning task, all students ask this obvious question. Expert learners, however, frequently make conscious, thoughtful decisions when answering this question.

Let’s say your criminal law syllabus states the following:

Week 2            Actus Reus      pp. 86-117

Week 3            Mens Rea        pp. 119-140

Week 4            Quiz #1

When you look at these typical entries in a law school syllabus, it is clear that you will need to read specific pages in your casebook and prepare for the quiz that will take place in week four. However, many students get so wrapped up in the day-to-day grind of reading for class that they fail to engage in the necessary activities to prepare for a quiz, midterm, or exam. As you know, professors do not schedule in time for preparation activities. They expect students to schedule critical test-prepping activities on their own.

Question 2: How should I classify this task?

Not all learning tasks are alike. In law school, you are required to engage in multiple tasks every day, so classifying your learning tasks can help you select the most effective learning strategies.

Suppose your contracts professor assigns two cases to read (the task). Reading and briefing these cases will require you to engage in different learning strategies, such as:

• Reading comprehension (skimming the text before reading; actively engaging with and responding to the text)
• Synthesis (moving into the text in an evaluative manner; making sense of the two cases; extracting rules from each case, and evaluating the rules collectively to create a governing rule)
• Organizing concepts/cognitive schema (outlining the rules to understand the relationships between concepts)

Question 3: What is my higher motivational goal for this task?

Research shows that when students develop intrinsic motives for learning—when they engage not just for external reward (e.g., good grades, course credits, an interview with a prestigious firm) but because they find the learning task itself interesting and enjoyable—they are more likely to attach meaning to their studies. When students enjoy learning for its own sake, they outperform those with lower academic intrinsic motivation.

Expert learners consciously create interest in learning tasks (even the tedious ones) because they figure out why they are important for the course and their future. In other words, they self-motivate by focusing on their higher goals.

For instance, you could ask yourself:

• How will mastering this task help me to become a lawyer?
• Even though I’m in law school to fulfill my dream of becoming a public defender, I will develop an interest in my contracts course because (1) it’s important for all lawyers to have a basic understanding of contracts law because we enter contracts every day (e.g., contracts to buy a cup of coffee, to buy a home, to get medical treatment), and (2) criminal lawyers often sign contracts with their clients and employers (the district attorney’s or public defender’s offices).
• I just have a love for learning and revel in academic challenges!

Question 4: What are my learning goals when planning for this task?

Expert learners establish learning goals focused on learning the material instead of being preoccupied with just getting it done. They understand the importance of setting specific “mastery” learning goals that are concrete, short-term, and achievable. For example, instead of stating your learning goal like this: “I will learn the rules related to personal jurisdiction,” try rephrasing your goal so that it is more specific and concrete.

An expert learner may state their learning goal like this:

• By Friday afternoon, I will identify all the ways in which a defendant has sufficient minimum contacts with the forum state to justify forcing him to defend a lawsuit in that state. I will paraphrase the rules from my casebook and class notes in my own words and then enter them in my civil procedure outline.
• On Saturday morning, I will work through four short hypos I’ve agreed to work on with my study group to solidify my understanding of the “minimum contacts test.” Then, I will meet with my study group to review and compare our answers.

Question 5: What strategies will I select to reach my learning goal?

Expert learners select and tailor specific strategies or techniques to help them achieve their learning goal. They do this by deciding which cognitive techniques they will use to learn and which motivational techniques they will use to maintain focus when learning gets difficult.

Cognitive techniques. Because cognitive techniques are so varied and task-dependent, you should focus on how you learn best. What is your preferred learning style? The following is a list of the most common learning style classifications:

• Visual learners prefer to “see” concepts. They like all forms of visuals, such as flowcharts, concept maps, and charts.
• Auditory learners prefer to learn from hearing. They enjoy listening to lectures and class discussions. They enjoy participating in discussions to flesh out their ideas.
• Read/write learners prefer to learn through the written text. They like to learn through reading and often express themselves in writing.
• Kinesthetic learners prefer to learn by doing. They often learn best through the experience of applying what they are learning.
• Multi-modal learners may prefer a combination of these learning styles. They prefer using multiple strategies to absorb information.

Motivational techniques. Motivation is what can help students maintain their attention and behavior. It also gives them the energy needed to lead learning tasks to completion and helps them sustain activities over time. Using motivational techniques is especially helpful for students when they face burnout.

Strategies to increase motivation are largely a matter of personal preference, but here are some examples of what expert learners have found helpful:

• Create small rewards for yourself as you complete certain steps in the learning process (e.g., a walk to the coffee shop, a short workout, or a phone call with a friend).
• Cultivate affirming self-talk. (e.g., quotes, mantras, Bible verses, or passages of wisdom can help you inspire you to refocus)

Step 3: Perform Your Learning Task and Self-Monitor

The third step in the “self-regulated learning cycle” is the performance phase, where learners do the work they have been planning. This involves tracking your attention. For example, have you ever experienced reading a page in your casebook repeatedly, only to realize you have no idea what is going on? If yes, you have engaged in what Schwartz and Manning call “pseudo-studying”—participating in an activity that looks like studying but really is the result of poor attention monitoring. So, what can you do to focus your attention?

You could create a short checklist on a small pad of paper (not your computer) that indicates your immediate to-dos during your study time in the law library, your room, or wherever you are studying. The physical act of crossing each item off your list can bring a sense of personal satisfaction as you complete each task.

To illustrate, your list could state: “First, I will read and brief Marbury v. Madison for constitutional law. Second, I will review Prof. West’s comments in my appellate brief again and then fine-tune the analysis in my second CREAC. Third, I will…” By having this short checklist nearby, you will start to build momentum and sustain your motivation. You can even jot down your own mini reward for getting items one and two crossed off and completed.

Expert learners not only perform their learning tasks, they actively and accurately self-monitor learning. Expert learners closely assess whether they know the material by incorporating self-testing as an integral part of their study sessions. For example, they frequently apply the concepts they have just learned by doing practice problems and multiple-choice questions—they get their hands on anything that asks them to summon their knowledge and check if it is correct.

Expert learners also monitor and evaluate whether they are being efficient with their time. While they study, they keep their eyes on the clock and ask whether they need to streamline their activities to be more efficient.

Lastly, expert learners identify deficiencies in their comprehension and know when to ask for help. I once asked a teaching assistant (a high-performing student who was top 1 percent of his class) if he could share his number one “secret to academic success,” and he replied:

I absolutely took advantage of almost every available resource the law school provided—whether it was attending academic success workshops, meeting with my professors, asking for help from teaching assistants, and talking through the material with my study group. I never let a week go by without me fully understanding the concepts.

Step 4: Take Some Time to Self-reflect on the Learning Experience

Reflection is the act of looking back to process experiences. It involves reflecting on your learning experiences to facilitate more effective and fulfilling metacognition in the future. In other words, it is about looking back and reflecting on the strategies, tools, resources, and processes that were or were not helpful in achieving your desired outcome.

One way to self-reflect is to assess the learning experience with specific criteria. For example, after learning new material, you could ask yourself the following questions:

• After testing myself on the concept with practice problems, how well did I perform? Engage inopportunities to test your knowledge because it is the best way to gauge mastery of the material. As mentioned before, expert learners take advantage of as many resources as they can get their hands on. Whether taking optional practice exams, exercises, or problems or seeking help from professors or classmates, expert learners are eager to obtain an external, objective evaluation of their efforts.
• How well did I learn this concept? Did I master it? Be honest with yourself. What was the depth of your knowledge of the concept? Did you understand it on a deep level, or did you understand it on a surface level?
• Did I make efficient use of my time? Should I increase or decrease the time I spend on this task in the future? Law students have a limited amount of time and are required to engage in multiple tasks day-to-day, so assess whether you learned the concept as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Conclusion

After evaluating your learning task, explain why you did or did not perform well. If you did not master the concept because you failed to put forth sufficient effort or selected the wrong learning technique(s), it is time to try again with some adjustments. Be patient with yourself. It is common to go through several cycles and multiple instances of trial and error, struggle, and failure. That is how you will improve!

In sum, by going through each stage in the “self-regulated learning cycle,” you are actively using your metacognitive skills (e.g., thinking about your thinking) throughout the learning experience and taking control of your learning. Remember, poor academic outcomes are fixable. Bad grades or negative feedback are not the result of your poor ability or intellect but are due to correctable causes. But you need to figure out what went wrong and put forth the effort.

The post Metacognition for Law Students first appeared on ABA for Law Students.