Law School Academic Support Blog

Staying on the Theme of Practice Questions for Exams

The posts on Wednesday and Thursday by Professors Luebbert and Johns gave excellent exam advice and suggestions about practice questions. In case you missed them, the links are: Professor Luebbert Post and Professor Johns Post .

To add to the theme, here are links to some law school or individual professor exams that were not passworded as of noon today.

• University of California, Berkeley
• Capital University
• University of Dayton
• Emory University
• University of Illinois
• University of Kentucky
• University of Missouri
• University of Nevada, Las Vegas
• University of New Hampshire
• University of Pittsburgh
• St. Mary's University
• Stetson University - Allen
• Stetson University - Jimenez
• Stetson University - Virelli

You need to consider several caveats about these exam sources, however:

• Some sites list exams by professor and not course, so it takes some patience in finding exams for your courses.
• Many sites do not include model answers or rubrics with the exam questions.
• Law schools outside your jurisdiction may test state-specific law for some subjects; you need to decide whether the questions/answers are relevant/correct for your course jurisdiction.
• Some posted exams are old; you need to decide whether changes in the law make the questions/answers no longer relevant or incorrect.
• Remember you can always rewrite a question for your jurisdiction or a change in the law if you need to do so.

Good luck with your exams! (Amy Jarmon)

Practice Tools for Approaching Law School Final Exams

As indicated in yesterday's wonderful post by Professor Nancy Luebett, one of the key steps for successfully preparing for final exams is to practice final exams. https://lapproaching-your-first-law-school-final.html. And, the best sources for practice exams are your professors' past exams.

But, what if your professor is new to the law school or there simply aren't many old exams available?  

Well, there are a number of sources for free practice essay problems.  

Here are a few to get you going:

First, you might dig into essays published by the National Conference of Bar Examiners (NCBE).  The NCBE maintains links for a number of retired past essay questions that are available free of charge (the more recent are only available by purchase).  I recommend sticking to the free materials.  Each essay question packet also contains analysis of what the examiners were looking for in good quality answers, so the materials are quite helpful in assessing and improving your own problem-solving abilities.  Unfortunately, the essays are not easily identified by subject matter.  It requires a bit of trial and error to match up the subjects that you are taking as a first-year law student with the essays asked in the past on that subject.  But, below is subject matter table that can help.  Just find the subject and the bar exam month and year that it was tested and then find the bar exam question and answer packet for that particular bar exam using the following link: http://www.ncbex.org/exams/mee/preparing/

Second, if you want to work through a number of shorter hypothetical essays, the University of Denver maintains - free of charge - a repository of retired Colorado bar exam essays.  But, please be careful as the law might have changed.  You'll notice that the essays are arranged by exam date and then again by subject matter.  And, there's more great news.  The essays contain point sheets with short answer discussions to help you assess your own learning.  Here's the link for the old Colorado essays: https://www.law.du.edu/coloradoessays

Finally, I like to look through past California bar exam essays.  California provides both past bar exam essay questions (with good passing answers) along with first-year law student exam questions.  The first-year law school questions cover contracts, torts, and criminal law.  But, please be aware that the answers provided are not model answers.  Here's the link for past California first-year exam essays and answers: http://www.calbar.ca.gov/pastfirstyearexams. In addition, here's the link for past California bar exam essays and answers: http://www.calbar.ca.gov/pastbarexamessays 

One last thought...

No one learns to fly or play the piano or dance...without practice...lots of practice.  

Similarly, to prepare for final exams takes practicing final exams.  So, instead of re-reading your notes or memorizing your outlines, focus first and foremost on taking your notes and outlines for practice test flights, using them as your "go-to" tools to work through lots of past exam questions.  And, along the way, guess what?  You'll actually begin to memorize your notes and outlines because you've been using them as learning tools rather than rote memorization tools.  Good luck on your final exams! (Scott Johns).

Approaching Your First Law School Final Exam

Treat your first law school final exam as an opportunity to show your excellence in thinking and writing like a lawyer. Here are some guidelines for the coming weeks.

Put together the final pieces:

• Learn your professors' individual preferences. Should you use IRAC, IPRAC, CIRAC, or another organizing structure? Does your professor favor headings, abbreviations, or use of case names? Tailor your writing to their predilections.
  
• Take practice exams. Use the professor's previous exams if available, but any exam with complex fact patterns and multiple issues will be useful. After writing your answer, set it aside for a time, then evaluate it, treating it as if it were written by a stranger. Peers and professors can provide useful feedback.
  
• Distill your outline down to a one-page issue checklist or "attack outline" you can handwrite in 2-3 minutes. Memorize it.

Organize early:

• Gather the items you want to bring to the exam room, and make sure you understand what is permitted. Common items include power cords, earplugs, watches, cough drops, and water bottles.
• Don't stay up late cramming, because exhaustion hampers your ability to analyze. Do something fun for a few hours before bed and get a solid night's sleep.
  
• Give yourself plenty of time to get to the exam: you don't need the anxiety of fearing you'll be late. And, remembering Hofstadter's Law, then give yourself more time than you planned.
  
• The hours before the exam are for you and you only. Talk with classmates if you like, but don't feel you have to be sociable.

Approach the exam with confidence:

• "Brain dump" (3 minutes). As soon as the exam starts, jot down your issue checklist from memory, or read through it carefully if the exam is open-book. Starting the exam with the issue checklist in mind prevents panic and helps you approach the exam from a position of knowledge and confidence.
• Skim the exam and allocate your time (3 minutes). Look over the entire exam, noting the number of questions and the points or suggested time for each. Allocate your time according to the number and weight of questions. Write down the ending time for each section.
  

Devote quality time to reading and organizing:

• For each question, read the call of the question first to make your reading and issue-spotting more efficient.
• Read multiple times to spot issues and identify relevant facts. On the first read, immediately jot down the issues as you recognize them. Then read the fact pattern line by line, looking for relevant facts in every sentence. Mark every relevant fact and identify the issues, elements, or defenses raised by these facts.
  
• Consult your issue checklist. It may alert you to issues in the fact pattern you did not previously notice.
• On essay problems, spend 1/3 of your time reading/marking the fact pattern and outlining your answer. Don't rely on cut-and-paste to organize. Your exam outline can be sparse, consisting of just the issues, elements, and facts relevant to each. Don't waste time writing rules in the outline: save that for your written answer. Time dedicated to careful reading and outlining helps you craft a well-organized, thoughtful answer.
  

Show your excellence in essay answers:

• Follow instructions: they are vital, not surplusage.
  
• Make your answer easy to follow. Use headings for major issues. Treat issues and elements in logical order. Write simply and clearly.
  
• Think inside the box. Thoroughly discuss each issue before moving on to the next. For instance, don't let a discussion of the mailbox rule creep into a paragraph about consideration.
  
• Stick to the facts, and make sure you have them correct. Distorting the facts can make you miss issues entirely.
  
• Interweave specific facts with the rule. Instead of blanket assertions ("Alonzo's actions show Alaska was his domicile"), interweave parts of the rule with specific facts ("Alonzo's intent to remain in Alaska was shown by him buying a house and voting in local elections.")
  
• Use IRAC (or the organizing structure your professor prefers) for each issue. When resolving an issue requires detailed discussion of several elements, use mini-IRACS or sub-IRACs to work through each element's requirements.
  
  • Issue -- Ask a question: if you conclude first, you may disregard facts or law that don't support your preconceptions.
  • Rule -- Be concise but thorough. State the rule before, not midway through, the analysis.
  • Analysis -- Explain how the rule applies to the specific facts. Explore any ambiguity in the law and the facts by going down each "fork in the road."
  • Conclusion -- Limit your conclusion to one sentence; don't bring in new arguments or restate your analysis ad nauseam.
    
• Omit needless paragraphs and issues. Nix any introductory paragraph that merely restates the facts. Discuss only issues that arise from the fact pattern. This is not the time to regurgitate everything you know just because you know it.
  
• If it's hard, that's where the points are. Rejoice when an issue is difficult or when the facts or law seem ambiguous. Here's where you get to strut your stuff!
  
• Keep track of your time, and move on. If you find yourself running out of time on a question, concisely treat the most important remaining issues, then move to the next question.
  

After the exam, let it go. Don't fret or dwell on mistakes. Avoid discussing the exam with your classmates, for someone in the group (maybe you, maybe a friend) will always leave dispirited after such a conversation. Take several hours off, then tackle the next challenge with confidence. You are now one step closer to achieving your goal of being an excellent lawyer.  (Nancy Luebbert)

3 Ways to Work Your Plan

AT&T sponsors a huge college football game each year in Dallas.  During the breaks in the game, they have celebrities, including the coaches from each team, take the pledge to not text and drive.  They blast their “it can wait” slogan.  AT&T’s campaign has over 20 million supporters.  However, data from dmv.org indicates 1 in 4 car crashes are the result of texting and driving, and 9 people die every day from distracted driving.  We know we shouldn’t text and drive.  Many of us even pledge to make changes, but in the end, many people still succumb to the same bad habits, even when they are extremely dangerous.

Students fall into similar traps as distracted drivers.  They make plans and pledge to study more.  Some even incorporate more practice questions into the plans.  However, many students fall back into the same bad habits of re-reading outlines and studying throughout the night.  If distracted driving is a hard habit to break when the dangers are serious, then changing study habits will be near impossible without mechanisms in place to ensure quality studying.

My wife has a great quote on her wall in her office.  It is “dreams don’t work unless you do.”  I write often about how to plan for finals and the bar exam.  I believe planning is critical for success, but I always tell students in my bar prep class that students must plan and execute the plan.  Execution is critical.  Plans only work when followed.  The key is to figure out how to follow your plan.

The first step after creating the plan is to remove distractions.  Plans are great until a Kardashian posts a new Instagram story that is breaking news or when a friend sends a text.  After chasing rabbits for an hour, you may get back to studying.  Too many rabbit holes and you studied half the planned time.  When sitting down to study, get rid of distractions.  You can put your phone in another room or under some papers.  Print out your outlines and turn off your computer.  Study in the library so you can’t see the clutter in your house.  Removing distractions is the first step to successful studying.

After removing distractions, chunk your studying to improve execution and motivation.  Studying for long periods the same way without breaks is exhausting.  When reviewing material, look at outlines in chunks.  Understand the big picture skeletal outline.  After understanding the big picture, look at information within sub-topics.  Then, complete a few practice multiple choice questions or issue spot an exam.  Switching between tasks helps improve focus because the tasks aren’t monotonous.  Also, completing a task is rewarding.  Finishing a chunk marks something off our list, which many people find satisfying.  We are then more motivated to completed the next chunk.

The last step to executing your plan is constant evaluation.  In theory, plans are great.  However, sometimes we make bad plans.  I make bad plans all the time.  I overschedule myself by underestimating how much time a task will take.  I think leaving the house each morning should only take 5 minutes, but my 8 and 4 year old tend to double that amount of time, on the best days.  Studying is the same way.  You may think it only takes a couple hours to study agency (or any other topic), but after 6 hours, you may be off schedule.  Evaluate your progress at each major break, which is normally lunch and dinner.  Make adjustments as needed.  Evaluation and modifying your plan can help improve how much you accomplish.

Making plans is a great first step to studying.  Work your plan to accomplish more by eliminating distractions, chunking studying, and evaluating progress.  Those steps will put you in a good position on exam day.

(Steven Foster)

NCBE Invitation for AALS Registrants to Participate in Focus Groups

Invitation from NCBE

The National Conference of Bar Examiners requests your assistance with a significant research study regarding the bar examination. NCBE has created a Testing Task Force to oversee a comprehensive, future-focused research study of the bar examination, and we want and need to tap the insights of legal academics. We would like to invite you to participate in one of six focus group sessions held at the AALS Annual Meeting in New Orleans on January 3 and 4, 2019.

The Task Force is approaching its study with no preconceived notions and is considering the content, format, timing, and delivery methods for the bar exam to ensure it keeps pace with a changing legal profession. For more information about the study, please read the overview of our research plan at www.testingtaskforce.org/research/.

As a legal educator, you are a vital part of the legal licensure process, and gathering input from you and other stakeholders is an essential component of the study. We hope you are as eager to share your ideas and opinions about the bar exam of the future as we are to hear them! The focus group sessions will be facilitated by one of the Testing Task Force’s independent research consulting firms, ACS Ventures LLC. The number of participants will be capped at 12-15 people per 90-minute session to ensure that everyone has an opportunity to provide their input, so you are encouraged to register early to reserve your spot in a session.

To sign up for a focus group session at the AALS Annual Meeting, complete this online registration form. You’ll receive a confirmation with logistical details and additional information about the session by email.

NCBE and its Testing Task Force are committed to creating additional opportunities for focus groups and web-based interactions to gain insights from legal academics, law students, and other stakeholders in the next six months. Subscribe at the Testing Task Force’s website to receive updates about the study and to be notified about other opportunities to participate.

Thank you for all you do to help prepare law students to become lawyers. If you have questions, please feel free to contact the Testing Task Force at [email protected]. We look forward to hearing from you!

Reminder: Deadline for NECASP Registration is Monday, November 26th

Dear Colleagues:

I am pleased to announce that we are now accepting registrations for the 2018 New England Consortium of Academic Support Professionals (NECASP) Conference, at University of Massachusetts School of Law – Dartmouth on Friday, December 7, 2018.

“What is ASP?: The Evolving Role of Academic Support Programs” will be our focus this year.  This one day conference is open to all and is FREE!  Come learn about the expanding role of academic support professionals including, inter alia, working with doctrinal professors, providing training to adjuncts, and law student wellness programming.  Full agenda to follow.

To register please email your name, email address, and institution to Sara Marshall at [email protected].  Deadline for registration is Monday, November 26, 2018.

We have a special hotel rate of $99.00 available for people who wish to come early and/or stay late.  Just me know when you register and I will forward the hotel information to you.

Hope to see you in December,

Sara

NECASP Board

Chair: Lori Albin

Director of Bar Success

UMASS School of Law, [email protected]

Vice Chair: Joe Brennan

Director of Academic Success and Assistant Professor

Vermont Law School, [email protected]

Treasurer: Liz Stillman

Associate Professor of Academic Support

Suffolk University Law School, [email protected]

Secretary: Sara Marshall

Assistant Professor of Academic Excellence

New England Law / Boston, [email protected]

Happy Thanksgiving!

All of us on the Law School Academic Support Blog want to wish you a restful Thanksgiving break! We hope you are able to recharge your batteries for the upcoming weeks of the semester.

Procrastination and Perfection

Procrastination reigns supreme during this time of year, in the last few weeks before the first set of finals. It's relatively easy to recognize procrastination in some of its forms, as when suddenly it becomes critical to clean behind the refrigerator and under the kitchen sink. Long "study breaks" for games, TV, or social media are another obvious sign of procrastination. But the most insidious form of procrastination is using law study itself to procrastinate from learning and practicing legal analysis.

During fall break, it's not unusual to find that outlining has become a form of procrastination, usually taking one of these forms:

• The student focuses on one outline to the exclusion of all others. Their torts outline, for example, is close to done, and once they have finished that they will start working on their other subjects.
  
• The outline becomes a detailed compendium of every case and every pearl of wisdom coming from the professor, rather than being a useful guide for how to approach a legal problem.
  
• The outline goes into excruciating detail on minor topics but fails to show a coherent approach to major issues. 
  
• The student is working exclusively on outlines, vowing that once the outlines are "done," they will turn to doing practice problems.

When students are getting bogged down in creating perfect outlines, this can be a symptom of depression or self-doubt, an honest but misguided attempt to master the material, or both. Depending on the situation, here are some approaches to consider:

• Self-care. Even more than the rest of the semester, self-care is critical during the time approaching and taking finals. While the student may feel strapped for time, they can get some exercise and fresh air: walking briskly around the block is the best possible study break. Especially when students feel they don't have time to rest, it's vital to remember that getting a full night's sleep will help their academic performance better than pulling an all-nighter to study.
• Self-confidence and goals. It's helpful for students to reflect on their strengths, especially the times that they have shown mastery of material in their law school classes. Finals is also a good time to reflect on their motivations for attending law school to give them the incentive to do work they might be avoiding.
  
• Big-picture focus. Sometimes students need to back away from their outline to determine if they understand the major issues and the rules that govern them.  A useful exercise is to give 30 minutes to handwrite the major rules covered by the course in a logical sequence. This helps cement major concepts and structure. And if they are afraid to work on an outline in a subject where they perceive they are weak, focusing on the big picture can give them confidence to step forward.
  
• The outline as pre-writing the exam. The most useful outlines essentially function as pre-writing the exam. A great outline will reflect in what order the student will tackle issues on an exam, and it will contain the rules the student will use to address those issues in words that the student can remember and recreate on the exam paper. Paraphrasing rules in the outline is far more useful than pasting in rules that come word-for-word from a case or Restatement, because the student can remember and write their own paraphrased rule on the exam far more easily than the arcane words of another.
  
• Rotate subjects. While it is tempting to work on one outline until it is "done," students should consistently rotate the subjects they work on, addressing at least two subjects a day, so they can better master the material, remember the material, and catch errors before the last minute.
  

Finally, and most importantly, at this point in the semester it is vital to work on problems every single day, even if -- and especially if -- the student has not mastered all the nuances of the subject. Doing problems helps the student understand the issues that must be addressed in an exam, pinpoint their areas of strength and weakness, and practice writing in a clear, easy-to-follow order.  (Nancy Luebbert)

It Is Always Darkest Before Finals

Law students about to head into their final exams -- especially those in their first year, facing this challenge for the first time -- are often weary, anxious, and despondent. Simultaneously burdened with too much to learn and too little time, they may feel like the universe is conspiring against them.  And some of them, in a sense, may be right.

The tilt of the Earth's axis and its movement around the Sun are responsible for our seasons, and, by chance or design, fall semester exams take place just as we are sliding into the winter solstice -- the day on which we in the Northern Hemisphere have the shortest day and receive the least amount of sunlight.  Two years ago, when I was teaching in Southern California, we received just under 10 hours of daylight on the solstice (December 21).  Now that I'm teaching in Buffalo, New York, we're already down to only 9 1/2 hours of daylight, and we'll get down to only 9 hours of light and 15 hours of darkness before the sun starts coming back.  It is little wonder that folks in the higher latitudes experience more instances of Seasonal Affective Disorder.

Seasonal Affective Disorder, or SAD, is a recognized mood disorder in which sufferers experience mood distortions -- most commonly, depression -- at particular times of the year.  Most commonly, these symptoms peak in the wintertime, and while the causes are not well understood, it seems very likely that the diminished amount of sunlight is a key trigger.  This may explain why SAD affects 8-10% of the population in states like New Hampshire and Alaska, but only 2% of the population in Florida.  Overall, about 6% of U.S. adults suffer from full-blown SAD, and another 14% suffer a milder, "subsyndromal" version.  This means that, on the average, one out of every five people -- including your students -- are clinically affected by the oncoming gloom.

When SAD manifests, as it usually does, as a type of depression, its symptoms (and those of its milder variant) are those of depression, including low energy and motivation, feelings of helplessness, withdrawal from social interaction, oversleeping, and difficulty concentrating or making decisions.  Any one of these symptoms would be a serious obstacle to success on final exams.  To have to bear a whole cluster of these decisions, on top of the intensity, stress, and anxiety normally experienced in law school, can be potentially debilitating.

Thus, it is important for Academic Success educators to observe their students with particular care as the autumn gloom descends.  Students who had seemed poised and optimistic in September might start to appear morose, scattered, or resigned as finals approach.  Of course, finals themselves can have a depressive effect, and after a semester of hard work, even the most buoyant student might be observed to sink a bit.  That is normal.  But if a student seems to be so down that it is pervasively affecting the quality of their work, consider offering the following suggestions:

• Light: One reason that the diminished rays of the sun are felt to be a key trigger is the strong evidence that light therapy -- regular additional exposure to direct sunlight or to specially-made artificial lamps -- has a beneficial effect.  Spending additional time outdoors can provide the necessary sunlight supplement -- if winter clouds do not interfere.  If the weather doesn't cooperate, light therapy lamps can be purchased online or in department and specialty stores for less than $50.  Either way, 30 to 60 minutes of extra light every day -- something that might be easily done while studying -- often helps SAD victims recover (particularly when combined with other treatments, as listed below).
• Exercise: Moderate aerobic exercise also appears to be helpful, particularly in combination with light therapy.  A walk outdoors or a 20-minute run on a treadmill under the glow of a light therapy lamp provides better relief than just light alone.  Exercise provides other benefits to students approaching the finals ordeal.  Regular workouts can alleviate stress and improve concentration, so a student with SAD who exercises and uses a light therapy lamp every day may actually end up in a better position than they were before they were affected by SAD.
• Professional treatment: Students contending with a particularly nasty manifestation of SAD -- one that does not improve with light therapy and exercise, and that causes feelings of worthlessness or thoughts of self-harm, or prevents a student from attending class or from undertaking basic preparation for exams -- should be referred or encouraged to seek professional help.  Counselors can provide talk therapy, and physicians can prescribe drugs that, in conjunction with exercise and/or light therapy, may provide additional help in overcoming SAD.

The good news is that, since SAD is seasonal, almost everyone suffering from it in November will probably get over it by February, as the days start to lengthen after Christmas passes.  But to help them get to that place, we sometimes have to help students recognize that they are suffering from a treatable condition, and we have to help them find the solution that works for them.

[Bill MacDonald]

Digital Preferences Decrease Comprehension

Law school is expensive.  Tuition continues to rise across the country.  I constantly hear anecdotal stories of students walking out of law school with $150,000-$200,000 in debt.  The debt load can be crippling when trying to buy a house or even consider starting a firm.  Many administrators will suggest to students to plan ahead and try to save money.  Saving money is a great idea unless the saving leads to decreased learning.

Students can now save money with digital textbooks.  Many publishers are offering digital options, and the digital books tend to be a little cheaper.  Students trying to save money are following our basic advice and making the logical move to buy digital books.  However, digital books may be harming their long term learning.

Business insider published a story a few weeks ago about reading digital materials.  The story is here.  The article initially considered previous research on comprehension.  Previous studies concluded students reading material longer than a page on digital devices had lower comprehension than if they read the material in print.  However, the story wanted to explore digital preferences, reading speed, and comprehension, so they conducted 3 new studies.

The conclusions were not surprising.  The overwhelming majority of participants preferred to read digitally.  Participants read material on screens significantly faster, and they believed their comprehension was much better.  However, their belief was wrong when testing for details.  Participants’ comprehension of details was much worse reading digitally, which has an extreme impact on law school and the practice of law.

Print material is much better for identifying the details and placing material in context.  One major complaint from law professors is students lack recall of details when reading cases and don’t respond to specific exam prompts.  Digital reading exacerbates that problem.  1 word can make a difference in each rule.  I recall my Criminal Law exam where the professor had 4 self-defense answers where the word “reasonably” was in a different place in the sentence.  Moving the word around changed the meaning of the sentence.  Not knowing the specific detail made answering the question impossible.  Many rules operate the same way, and the practice of law is similar.  1 word can be the difference between a good contract and malpractice. 

Sometimes what we prefer isn’t good for us.  That will be true this week when I eat an entire pumpkin pie in less than 24 hours.  It is also true for digital reading.  Our preference for online material will be less effective when preparing for finals, studying for the bar, and practicing law.  Take every advantage possible by using print materials.

(Steven Foster)

Cultivating Heart During the Focus on Head

During the demands of final papers, exam review, and practice questions, it is very easy to become so focused on intellectual "in your head" matters that all other aspects become blurs. Classmates who are typically collegial can become overly competitive. Intellectual discussions can degenerate into power struggles to show who is superior and always right. Unintended insults, judgmental put-downs, and clipped responses reflect the stress of the semester as students speak without thinking. 

Students handle the end-of-semester stress in differing ways. They can either give in to negativity or persevere with positivity. By taking intentional steps, it is possible to stay personally positive and contribute to a positive environment for others. Our thoughts and actions can build our resilience, grit, calm, and focus. 

• Count your blessings. As a law student, you have the privilege of gaining professional skills that will make a significant difference in the lives of your clients in the future. You will be their hope in crises and injustice. You will be someone's hero many times over your career.
• Make a list of encouraging quotes, scriptures, or sayings to read first thing in the morning and last thing at night. These positive affirmations will frame your mindset at both ends of the day.
• Model collegiality for your classmates: offer your class notes to a student who has been ill; share information about a good study aid; explain a legal concept to a confused classmate; compliment a classmate on a good in-class answer.
• Spread random acts of kindness throughout your day: hold the door for a classmate loaded down with books; buy a soda for the student behind you at the vending machine; smile and say good morning to a tired classmate; offer a slice of your pizza to someone with no lunch.
• Say "please" and "thank you" often throughout the day. And look the person in the eye when you do so. Politeness can get lost in the rush, but it is gold to those who are recognized in the process.
• At the end of the day, make a list of three things you did for others - however small they may be. Your humanity towards others will warm your heart and contribute to your outlook.
• Take care of yourself. Positive coping results from regular sleep every night, healthy food, and exercise. You are part of an academic marathon and not a sprint right now. Pace yourself.
• Take control of what you can control, and let the other things go. None of us is perfect. We can only do our best each day under that day's circumstances. The next day is a new start, and we can embrace that new start for it's possibilities. 
• If you start to give in to the stress, get some help. Talk to family. Check in with a professor, dean, or ASP professional to get your perspective back and make a study plan.

 Best wishes for the remainder of the semester. (Amy Jarmon)  

 

Strunk and White Come to Law School

Mrs. Ryan would be surprised -- and happy, I hope -- to know that the principles I teach 1Ls come straight out of my seventh grade English class.

Marilyn Ryan was smart, demanding, and talented -- the epitome of a good teacher.  The first day of seventh grade, she told us, "You're supposed to study grammar in high school but you probably won't get more than a smattering. So this year I'm going to drill grammar into you because you'll need it. It may not be fun right now, but you'll be glad later on." (She was right, by the way -- none of my high school or college teachers ever taught grammar.) So, in addition to enjoying and dissecting great English and American authors, we spent seventh grade diagramming sentences, learning parts of speech, and mastering grammatical rules. During class, Mrs. Ryan would often refer to Strunk and White's classic book, The Elements of Style. And so it was that I was introduced to one of my favorite paragraphs in the English language, from William White's Rule #13, "Omit needless words."  White explained his elementary principle this way:

Vigorous writing is concise.  A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts.  This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that every word tell.

"Omit needless words" and "[M]ake every word tell." It's clear how writing vigorous prose is useful in practice, in legal writing class, and in practice exam answers, but making every word tell is also, I submit, the key to effective outlines. I find that most 1Ls over-write their outlines. They are so afraid that they will leave something important out that they create monstrous "outlines" which not only record all the nuances of what was covered in class week by week but also add long excerpts from case briefs and sometimes material from hornbooks and other outside sources.  Often long quotations from cases and Restatements are pasted in verbatim. Creating a comprehensive record of the class can be a useful source document for students who want to make sure they haven't missed anything in class, but such a long, comprehensive "outline" is virtually useless for preparing for final exams.

It's more useful to think of an outline as a guide for solving a legal problem: in the law school context, this means the outline is a guide for taking an exam. When you approach an outline this way, the excess falls away, including long explanations of historical context, excruciatingly detailed statements of the facts in cases, and long quotations from Restatements and cases. What replaces the verbiage is a structured framework for what issues to address, the order in which to address those issues, the major rules, sub-rules, and elements needed to address the issues, and enough concise examples and context to help you spot the issues when they appear in a problem. In essence, by doing this you are pre-writing your exam, absent the specific facts the exam will supply.

It's especially helpful to write rules in your outline in the same manner in which you plan to write them on the exam. Many students are afraid to put rules into their own words in the outline: they copy rules from cases, restatements, or other sources because they are afraid they might miss the nuances of the rule, or they feel it takes too much time learn the rule well enough to put it into their own words. But that is "stinking thinking." You have more time during the fourteen weeks of the semester than during the three hours of the final. If you thoroughly digest rules well enough to put them into your own words in the outline, you will remember that phrasing during the final; otherwise, you'll waste precious time and mental energy during the exam struggling to translate obtuse phraseology from the outline into a concise sentence that captures the law -- time better spent applying law to the given facts. So prune and make every word tell so your outlines can be the best possible guide for taking your exams.  (Nancy Luebbert)

 

What is Simulation Training?

I have learned probably hundreds of tips, tricks, and techniques to improve one's performance on examinations.  But there is only one that I learned with ten million people watching.

In 2005, I took the Florida Bar Exam -- my second bar exam, after passing the DC Bar Exam seven years earlier.  When I returned to my car, the lone message waiting for me on my cell phone was not the expected call from my family.  Instead, it was Glenn, from Culver City, California, calling to inform me that I had been selected to be a contestant on Jeopardy! -- the fast-paced quiz show in which contestants vie to answer 61 questions in 22 minutes.

The taping was to be in a month, and so I went right from cramming for the bar to cramming for trivial warfare.  I knew there was no way I could study every possible subject that might come up on the show.  At the same time, I felt like I ought to be "training".  Today, there are websites that archive years of Jeopardy! clues, and old episodes on demand on Netflix, but these weren't available in 2005, so my main source of practice was watching the daily broadcast of the show at 7:30 p.m.  And, perhaps because I felt that it was a rather precious resource, I decided that I wasn't just going to casually sit on the couch and shout out responses with the contestants.  I decided that I was going to act like a contestant.  Each contestant stands behind a podium and holds in one hand a pen-sized electronic button, and the first person to press that button after host Alex Trebek finishes reading the clue gets the chance to give the response -- famously, in the form of a question (e.g., "Who is George Washington?").  So, for a month, I tried to simulate their actions.  I watched the show standing up, behind a living room chair.  I held a clickable ballpoint pen, and practiced pressing the top button after Trebek finished reading each clue, and only then did I allow myself to call out a response in the form of a question.  From time to time, I would feel a little goofy doing this, thinking, Isn't the show really about what you know?  But I kept at it, because it seemed like the only way to really practice.

Finally, I arrived in California for the taping.  Jeopardy! tapes five episodes in one day, a couple days every few weeks, so on the day on which I was scheduled to tape, I was herded into the studio with about a dozen other contestants.  We spent a few hours signing documents and having make-up applied and learning all the rules and, most important and exciting, playing a few practice rounds on the set to familiarize ourselves with the equipment.  I noticed some of the other contestants -- all clearly bright and as delighted as I was to be there -- seemed slightly awkward behind the podium.  We all knew intellectually what to do, of course; we had all been fans watching the show for years, and we had just received a thorough briefing on what was expected of us.  Even so, some contestants struggled to push their electronic button at the right time -- pushing it before Trebek was done talking would lock you out so that you could not answer, but if you waited too long, someone else would get in before you.  Others got the hang of the button, with concentration, but then could not remember the responses they were trying to give.  And there were times when contestants would press the button correctly, and give the right response, but forget to give it in the form of a question.

But when I went up on stage to practice, it was like I was standing back in my living room.  I had practiced the timing of pushing my pen button so many times that, when it came time to press the real thing, I did not even have to think about it.  I rang in quickly, focused entirely on recalling the information needed, and then gave the answer automatically in the form of a question.  It worked in practice, and it worked in the actual taping.  Yes, the show is about what you know, but it's important that nothing hinder you from demonstrating what you know.  I won four games, and eventually came back to be a finalist in the Tournament of Champions.

In the years since, I have learned that what I had stumbled onto is known as "simulation training".  It is a kind of practice that is not unlike the physical training that athletes do to develop muscle memory and automatic responses.  In the context of quiz shows and law examinations, though, what makes simulation training particularly useful is not just the physical skills that it develops.  What makes it useful is that it frees up mental space and focus for more complex thought.  Not having to think about when to push the button and how to phrase my answer enabled me to devote full attention to reading the clue and retrieving the correct response.

Practicing to take examinations -- whether final exams or Bar exams -- can provide the same kind of simulation training, under the right conditions.  Of course, students should write practice exams for other very good reasons, like improving legal analysis and uncovering weaknesses in subject matter knowledge, because law examinations should also be about what you know.  But there is an added benefit when practice exams are done under conditions that imitate expected exam conditions.  There are dozens of details and stimuli that students encounter consistently during an actual exam that, if unfamiliar, can demand valuable thought or cause detrimental distraction: dressing comfortably, locating a seat, timing bathroom use, logging into ExamSoft, calculating timing targets, contending with silence or noise, reading and following directions, cutting and pasting text, properly submitting responses, etc.  Encouraging students to incorporate attention to these elements during their practice work, even when they are not really necessary, can help them improve performance, not because performance depends on finding a proper seat, but because being able to do so with almost no thought allows them to devote their mental energies to the tasks that really need them.  Exam performance is about what you know, but it is important that nothing hinder you from demonstrating what you know.

[Bill MacDonald]

Embrace the Grind through Finals

Last Friday, I experienced the pure joy of coaching an 8 year old flag football game at 9:30pm with the wind chill in the 20s.  The temperature was the same for both teams, but everyone in attendance could see the difference between how the teams handled the conditions.  One team bounced around with everyone running to the ball, celebrating, and having a good time.  The other team shivered, jogged, and repeatedly shook their hands to try to stay warm.  Most of those kids couldn’t feel their hands by the 2^nd quarter, and as you would guess, they lost the game.

I witnessed a similar event a few years ago during the College Softball World Series.  In the final series, Oklahoma played Alabama.  Oklahoma dominated teams most of the year.  They had the best hitter and pitcher in the country.  During the second game of the best of 3 series, the heavens opened and rain drenched everything.  Oklahoma made a few bad plays, and then, the umpire delayed the game until the rain subsided.  During the rain delay, Alabama bounced around their dugout.  They danced and sang through the whole delay.  Oklahoma mulled around with their heads down from the couple bad plays.  After the rain delay, Alabama trounced the Sooners.  They subsequently won game 3 the next day for the National Championship beating an Oklahoma team that the following year with similar players was arguably one of the best in history. 

The ability to respond to undesirable conditions is critical from elementary school to elite athletes.  The same is true for law school final exams.  The conditions will be similar for most students.  Everyone is taking the same exam.  Everyone has the same amount of time between the last day of class and final exams.  Some people may have slightly different obligations during finals, but most students are on a similar playing field for finals.  The ability to embrace the situation can make a difference in performance on finals.

I tell students every semester that final exams are as much a test of mental strength and discipline as they are a test of legal knowledge and analysis.  The key is to embrace the grind of finals.  Complaining about the exam, the amount of time, or unknown expectations is the equivalent of shivering on the field.  Letting those thoughts creep in gives the final exam the edge before the test begins.  Complaining students are the ones sleeping on coaches around the law school or finding every excuse necessary to not study.  Making the final harder than it is becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy causing lower performance.

Overcoming negativity makes an impact of scores.  Michael Hunter Schwartz developed a program for pre-law students many years ago where he described how high self-efficacy leads to persistence.  Worry and other negative emotions don’t promote self-efficacy and tend to harm persistence.  Persistence, or the grind, is what leads to improvement and readiness for exams.  Final exams are hard.  There is an unknown element.  However, that is true for everyone taking the exam. 

Embrace the grind by planning.  As I have posted before, writing down a detailed monthly, weekly, and daily plan can make finals more manageable.  The unknown causes some people stress because of the lack of control.  Take that control back with a plan of attack.  Plan for the whole study period from now through the last final.  At the beginning of each day, plan the hours of the day.  Take adequate breaks to mentally refresh and eat.  Finish at a reasonable time each night.  Grab momentum with the areas you can control, which should alleviate some stress.  Remember, the vast majority of exams will come from material discussed in class.  Exam period is a review of what everyone already experienced throughout the semester.

Start each day with positive affirmations to stop the negative emotion spiral before it starts.  Be confident with statements about the ability to succeed, completing the necessary tasks, and overcoming obstacles.  Focus affirmations on the study process or overcoming obstacles.  Statements about the ability to study hard material or previous hard tasks can motivate anyone to push through the tasks for that day.  Exams are a culmination of studies throughout a long period of time.  Don’t focus affirmations on final exam results, which is unattainable on a given day.  Focus on attainable goals for that day, for example “I am always able to recite sections of my outline after a few hours of study.  I will be able to do that by lunch.”  Affirmations on attainable goals builds over time for an impact on final exams.

Hard conditions can affect anyone, and law school exam conditions are difficult.  However, planning and positivity can put everyone in the best possible position for success.  The goal is to be able to walk into the exam with your head up and not shivering.  Embrace the opportunity to demonstrate your ability on each exam.

(Steven Foster)

Guest Blogger Post 3 - Louis Schulze: "Don't Even THINK About Using Supplements" Part One

Ever found yourself giving this advice to students?  Do you have colleagues who do so?  In this series of posts, I hope to push back against this practice … sort of.  There are five reasons why giving this advice is generally unwise.  Here goes….

1. Missed opportunity. We all know that students will use supplements regardless of our advice.  I am a realist, and so I doubt that each of my 60 students will blindly and universally heed every word I say.  (Dear students reading this:  You should blindly and universally heed every word I say.) 

As a result, if my only input on this issue is a blanket policy lacking any nuance, I’ve lost my ability to guide students towards the good stuff (which I call “hornbooks”) and away from the schlocky stuff (which I call “supplements”).  (I make this nomenclature distinction because I want to capture the positive connotation of the former, and the negative connotation of the latter.  This allows me to focus students on professor-authored resources written with the primary purpose of supporting students, and non-professor-authored resources written for the primary purpose of revenue).    

Moreover, if some of my students’ other professors do recommend certain sources, I have just undercut my colleagues and probably undermined my credibility.  I would rather influence my students and support my colleagues than posit myself as the all-knowing sage. 

2. Mitigating the advantage legal education grants to students from privileged backgrounds. Imagine a student whose mother, father, aunt, uncle, or cousins attended law school.  No doubt these family members will spend hours at a family barbeque in July inflicting imparting their advice upon the anxious pre-1L, especially if they attended the same law school.  This student now knows that her Criminal Law professor closely follows “Understanding Criminal Law.” The student then positively kills it (pun intended) when cold-called on Queen v. Dudley & Stephens, and she gains points for doing so.

Now imagine the student who is first in his family to attend college, let alone law school.  Not surrounded by those “in-the-know,” this student goes through law school not knowing some of the crucial hints that might support his success.  He struggles through State v. Wilson and loses points.  He does less well in the course not because he lacked aptitude or diligence but because he did not enjoy the privileged background that provided others with pre-knowledge.

If the professor admonished the students not to use supplements, she can share the blame for this troublesome reproduction of socio-economic hierarchy.  Not only did her blanket rule likely intimidate the second student more than the first, but her failure to guide her students towards quality materials exacerbated the imbalanced playing field that already existed.  

In my next post, I’ll continue to lay out the arguments against the blanket policy of “Don’t Even THINK of Using Supplements.”

New England Consortium (NECASP) Conference Registration

Dear Colleagues:

I am pleased to announce that we are now accepting registrations for the 2018 New England Consortium of Academic Support Professionals (NECASP) Conference, at University of Massachusetts School of Law – Dartmouth on Friday, December 7, 2018.

“What is ASP?: The Evolving Role of Academic Support Programs” will be our focus this year.  This one day conference is open to all and is FREE!  Come learn about the expanding role of academic support professionals including, inter alia, working with doctrinal professors, providing training to adjuncts, and law student wellness programming.  Full agenda to follow.

To register please email your name, email address, and institution to Sara Marshall at [email protected].  Deadline for registration is Monday, November 26, 2018.

We have a special hotel rate of $99.00 available for people who wish to come early and/or stay late.  Just me know when you register and I will forward the hotel information to you.

Hope to see you in December,

Sara

NECASP Board

Chair: Lori Albin

Director of Bar Success

UMASS School of Law, [email protected]

Vice Chair: Joe Brennan

Director of Academic Success and Assistant Professor

Vermont Law School, [email protected]

Treasurer: Liz Stillman

Associate Professor of Academic Support

Suffolk University Law School, [email protected]

Secretary: Sara Marshall

Assistant Professor of Academic Excellence

New England Law / Boston, [email protected]

Summer/Fall 2018 Learning Curve and Winter/Spring 2019 Submission Announcement

Dear Colleagues:

 

The editors of The Learning Curve are pleased to publish Summer/Fall 2018 edition which is [linked below]. In this edition, you will find articles related to the theme of diversity. We hope you will find these authors’ articles as insightful as we did as editors.

 

We are currently considering articles for the Winter/Spring 2019 issue, and we want to hear from you! We encourage both new and seasoned ASP professionals to submit their work.

 

We are publishing a general issue so we are considering all ideas related to academic support. If you have a classroom activity you would like to share, individual counseling techniques, advice for the academic support professional, and any other ideas, we want to hear from you!

 

Please ensure that your articles are applicable to our wide readership. Principles that apply broadly — i.e., to all teaching or support program environments — are especially welcome. While we always want to be supportive of your work, we discourage articles that focus solely on advertising for an individual school’s program.

 

Please send inquiries or your article submission to [email protected] by no later than December 15, 2019. (Please do not send inquiries to the Gmail account, as it is not regularly monitored.) Attach your submission to your message as a Word file. Please do not send a hard-copy manuscript or paste a manuscript into the body of an email message.

 

Articles should be 500 to 2,000 words in length, with light references, if appropriate. Please include any references in a references list at the end of your manuscript, not in footnotes. (See articles in this issue for examples.)

We look forward to reading your work and learning from you!

 

-The Editors

 

DeShun Harris, Executive Editor

Kevin Sherrill, Associate Editor

Sarira Sadeghi, Assistant Editor

Nancy Reeves, Technology Editor*

 

*Special thanks to Christina Chong (outgoing Technology Editor) for her contributions to this edition.

  Download Learning Curve Summer Fall 2018

"Feedback" vs. "Feedforward:" A Path to Improve Learning & Final Exam Performance

I'm worried about final exams.  To be frank, I don't like the word "final."  I have to say that the word "final" particularly bothered me in my previous aviation career, where air traffic controllers clear airliners for the "final approach to runway 18."  I just didn't want that to be my final approach. I hoped to have at least a few more years in aviation.

But, here's the biggest rub that I have with final exams.  

Because law students frequently have only a few mid-term exams to assess their learning (and to therefore improve before their final exams), final exams are, well, too final to make an improvement in one's learning.  In fact, I suspect that the term "final exams" tends to lead to more of a fixed mindset with respect to our law students' learning.  They get their grades, often weeks after finals, and most students - it seems - never review their exams to identify what they did that was good (nor to look for ways to improve in the next round of final exams).

Nevertheless, it's not just final exams that can be a hurdle in improving learning for the future.

Our feedback can be too.  

As summarized by Jennifer Gonzalez in her blog "The Cult of Pedagogy," where she writes that "[r]eally, the experience of school could be described as one long feedback session, where every day, people show up with the goal of improving, while other people tell them how to do it.  And it doesn’t always go well. As we give and receive feedback, people get defensive. Feelings get hurt. Too often, the improvements we’re going for don’t happen, because the feedback isn’t given in a way that the receiver can embrace."  https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/feedforward/.  In short, feedback might just stunt growth, which is another way of saying that feedback might stunt learning.

But, there's great news! 

Rather than providing our students with more and more feedback, we might consider providing them with "feedforward" instead.  

But first, here are the problems with feedback.  Feedback focuses on the past.  It focuses on the negative without  necessarily providing ways forward to improve.  It focuses on being stuck rather than helping people get unstuck.  Indeed, as outlined by Jennifer Gonzalez, there are at least three ways that feedback hinders learning:

• First, citing to author and educator Joe Hirsch, feedback shuts down our "mental dashboards." In my words, it crashes our brain.  That's because the "red marks" and the many comments to "change this" or to "change that" tend to cause us to believe that all is lost; there's no hope for us. We just don't see a way forward because, frankly, we are stunned with a horrible feeling that we just don't get it...and never will.  We are locked in the past. The future is hidden from us.

• Second, citing again to Joe Hirsch, feedback tends to reinforce negative thoughts because the comments tend to lead us to believe that we are stuck in a sort of "learned hopelessness" in which we cannot change our future. Rather than building a growth mindset in our students, feedback that is focused solely on what our students have done in the past creates a fixed mindset with students believing that there's little that they can do to improve their learning in the future.

• Third, citing again to Joe Hirsch, we tend to approach feedback with a single-minded crystalized focus to see what grades or marks or numbers we received (rather than seeing feedback as providing us with helpful and hopeful positive tools forward to achieve better grades in the future).  In short, despite all the feedback given, students tend to see and internalize their grades first, and, because first impressions lead to lasting impressions, feedback often falls short in producing improvements in learning for future assessments.  Too often, the grades on feedback crystalize into final exam grades, too.

In contrast, "feedforward" focus on the future.  It takes the work of today and provides insights, comments, and tips framed in a communicative, generative way that leads to improvement in the future. It is forward looking; never backward looking.  Feedforward believes in the future - a bright future - and provides particular ways for our students to move forward towards that future of improvements in their learning.

So, what is "feedforward?"

Simply put, it's coaching students about their current performance with heart-felt questions and insights that get our students thinking for themselves about how they can improve their learning for the future.  

Curious? Rather than going through the six steps in providing helpful "feedforward" to our students, let me just point me to you the steps as cited by Jennifer Gonzalez in her blog article about "Feedforward," available at:  https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/feedforward/.  

And, one last thought...

As academic support professionals, this month is a great opportunity.  In particular, nothing really needs to be "final" about final exams.  That's because we can provide our students with opportunities to receive positive "feedforward" well before final exams - via practice exams, exam writing workshops, academic support small group tutoring sessions, etc. - such that our students will learn to improve well before they take their final exams.  Indeed, the key to a great final exam experience is to have great "feedforward" experiences on the way to taking final exams.  So cheers to the future - our students futures! (Scott Johns).

The Life-Changing Magic of Pinching Pennies

Some years back, a law student came into our office seeking an emergency loan. Like many law schools, we had a fund available to help students weather financial exigencies caused by situations beyond their control like unexpected medical expenses. Rather than having unexpected emergency expenses, it turned out that this student couldn't make ends meet, even with the maximum possible financial aid package. As we talked, it turned out that the student couldn't possibly do anything about the expenses that burdened him each month. He and his spouse needed to rent a large house because they needed the space. They needed the most expensive cable package because they needed to be able to access all the TV channels as well as internet at home. They couldn't cut rental expenses by taking in roommates because they needed their privacy. The law student couldn't pick up a part-time job because he needed to concentrate on only law school and family. The spouse needed to stay unemployed and not tied down to a job because they expected to start a family within the next few years. They needed to keep their both their late-model SUVs. They needed to eat out at least twice a week. And so on, and so on. We didn't hand the student an emergency loan, but instead referred him to Consumer Credit Counseling. Not surprisingly, this student graduated with an enormous amount of student loan debt, debt which limited his career opportunities not only at graduation but for years afterwards.

Since student success is affected by anything that creates stress, it behooves academic support faculty to address financial issues openly. Most law students now have access to useful financial education tools, such as those offered by AccessLex Max, with great tools, calculators, and advice on financial management. But all the tools in the world can't help if students aren't empowered to say "No" to the consumerism that surrounds them, whether that consists of the pressure to join classmates in the bars every weekend or the expectation that everyone will have the newest smartphone. Like the "It's OK Not to Drink" movement, we can help create a positive "It's OK Not to Spend" culture in which frugality is supported and even commended.

We can help create this culture in at least three ways.  First, we can tell stories and model good financial decision-making by being open about the financial choices we and others have made and continue to make.  In my experience, students on a budget appreciate hearing a teacher say, "I can't afford spending my money on ____; I'm saving it for ____." The punch is even more powerful when they hear fellow students talk openly about their frugal lifestyles. Second, we can be open in asking questions about financial matters without prying into personal details. For instance, I routinely ask students who contemplate taking one of our summer courses whether it's a better choice for them to tighten their belt and pay out-of-pocket or to take extra credits so they are eligible for financial aid. Finally, we can connect frugality to their goals in attending law school.  How many law students have abandoned their goal for attending law school because they needed a higher-paying job to pay off their student loans? Especially as we work with those motivated by public service and helping underserved communities, we can emphasize that the lower their debt, the wider their range of practice choices will be.  (Nancy Luebbert)

Recall Your Purpose for the Finals Push

The wind is gently blowing while the sun rises over the horizon.  A cool morning inviting everyone to enjoy the sunrise with a nice run.  Many dream of the excitement of running another race, feeling healthy, or being outside.  I am not one of those people.  Mornings are meant for sleeping.  Running is only useful for competitive sports or survival, and I am long past my competitive sports prime.

While I don’t want to run races, especially long distance races, I do run for about half the year.  For the past 3 years, I trained for and ran in the Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon Relay from November to April.  I ran the 5k portion my first year and a 10k leg last year.  I plan to run the 12k leg this year.  I reluctantly started training a couple weeks ago and will continue until the end of April again.  I don’t like to run, but I am doing it.

I never enjoyed running in itself, so why would I put myself through the rigor?  The answer is the purpose for the run.  I was only 5 miles away on a middle school soccer field when the bomb exploded.  The explosion and smoke seemed to be around the corner.  No one knew what happened yet.

The bombing was surreal.  I watched the events unfold on a CRT TV on a rolling cart in English class.  My mom called my school to let me know she was ok because she worked across the street from the Murrah Building on the non-blast side.  I know numerous people who lost family in the bombing.  One of the staging areas for first responders was the original Oklahoma High School, which is the building OCU School of Law moved into a few years ago.  The bombing affected nearly everyone in OKC, so my purpose is more important than my disdain for running.

Passion and purpose are critical to success in law school and the practice of law.  Many people talk about grit, but some forget the passion aspect.  Dr. Angela Duckworth’s book titled Grit explicitly states passion is a large piece to overcoming adversity.  Perseverance without passion is unsustainable.  Having a purpose is what helps us continue through the roadblocks.

Recalling why you want to be an attorney is critical during law school, especially near finals.  You need to keep reading your assignments each day, but you should also start preparing for finals.  1Ls probably had a large memo or brief due recently.  2Ls have more classes and may even be working.  They are overwhelmed.  Pure perseverance may have sustained you up to now, but you probably need a recharge to push through November.  When getting the work done seems tough or when you feel like there is too much to accomplish, sit back for 5 minutes to think about why you want to become an attorney.  Are you in law school to help the underserved?  Do you want to fight injustice?  Do you want to change the trajectory of your own life?  Be specific to why you are in law school.

Know why you are putting yourself through the rigor of law school.  Seeing progress towards the end goal can make the pain worth it.  I don’t like running in my neighborhood, probably the only neighborhood in OKC with hills, but the pain is worth it knowing the cause I run for.  The rigor of law school is also worth it if you know what you can do when you are an attorney.  Now is the time to remember it to make that final push through finals!

(Steven Foster)