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(The failure of law schools; when to take LEEWS; much more. . .)

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(Most of which professors won't tell you, but any 2L, 3L, or lawyer will confirm.)

Introduction

Recently admitted to law school? Congratulations! Doubtless, you are nervous, yet excited.

We don't want to diminish your excitement. Law school will accomplish that soon enough. Rather, our aim is to enable you to progress through this necessary and expensive step toward acquiring a law license successfully, and with eyes wide open. To do this we must disabuse you of certain common misconceptions.

In doing so we may seem disrespectful to an institution and professors that initially must seem august, even awe inspiring. If the truth be told, it is necessary that law schools and law professors be taken down a peg. If this offends you somewhat, we apologize. However, trust us. A few weeks into law school you'll feel they deserve it. After the first set of exams you'll know they deserve it.

For near 30 years we at LEEWS have been in the business of instructing law students and law school graduates in nothing less than a proven effective science of preparation and essay exam writing technique. Mr. Miller, LEEWS founder and primary instructor, is a law school graduate (Yale '77), a onetime practicing attorney, and a member of the New York bar (retired status). He was a classmate or schoolmate of such Yale Law luminaries as Hillary Clinton, and Supreme Court justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas. We have instructed well over 100,000 law students from all of the 200+ American law schools, as well as law schools in foreign countries. We do not solicit support from any law school or law professor (although many of the latter are LEEWS grads). Rather, we are and have been clear-eyed and critical observers. Our focus and purpose is simple – to assist law students. In that regard we pull no punches.

Here is the primary and fundamental truth that most any practicing lawyer will confirm, that no less than United States Supreme Court justices have complained of, and that every entering law student should know. Given the cost of attending law school, given the mystique and majesty of the law and lawyers in America in even a mature adult's mind, it is likely a truth that an entering "1L," as beginning law students are termed, will find hard to accept. However, we have the experience and the boldness to state it. Our mission of assisting law students demands no less.

All law schools, from mighty Harvard to those on the internet, do a lousy job training lawyers! No exceptions!

The primary reason for this is the ineffectiveness of the so-called "case method" of instruction, pioneered at Harvard Law School, that virtually every law professor employs. Except that he or she may have learned something in a so-called "clinical program," or while working for a lawyer, judge, or law firm while in law school, as noted in the authoritative books, Planet Law School I and II (reviewed herein – see homepage), ...

No law school graduate, after 3-4 years of attending classes, briefing cases, and writing the occasional paper, is qualified to advise a prospective client!

Why this shocking circumstance is so is explored elsewhere at this website. Suffice that lawyers still learn how to think and function as lawyers the way Abraham Lincoln, Clarence Darrow, and all lawyers even today do – by practicing law, hopefully under the tutelage of an experienced lawyer. Moreover – here's the good news! – the law student who learns how to think and function as a lawyer while in law school, preferably early in law school, whether by dint of luck and/or knack, or by doing LEEWS, will enjoy a significant advantage over clueless classmates. Ipso facto (the thing speaks for itself), exam writing advice and programs offered by law schools and professors are ineffective in this regard. (See Standard Advice – Free!)

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The disconnect between hard work in law school instruction, and law school success

The following letter received two years after LEEWS came into being in 1981 is a classic. (We were pretty good then, but we've gotten so very much better since!) It sets forth certain truths that are as valid today as in 1983. It also encapsulates perfectly a very fundamental truth, namely the startling disconnect between hard work, law school teaching, and law school success. Its author, Randall Aiman-Smith, is currently a practicing attorney in San Francisco and a writing instructor at U. Calif. Hastings College of Law. Additional truths follow.

NOTE: Transferring from a lower to higher ranking law school after doing well first year is relatively easy. Many of our students do. So rare are A's in law school, so completely do professors and administrators believe that lawyering aptitude is an innate quality manifested in performance on law school exams, that once you perform at the top of the class – at any school! – you are golden.

Professors seek you out to be a research assistant. You are asked to instruct 1Ls the following year. At lesser schools you are (or should be) offered scholarship money. Other law schools want you. Your LSAT score and college gpa are now irrelevant.

Thus, the LEEWS rep at Nova SE Univ. in Ft. Lauderdale for 2000-2001 transferred to Duke (!!). He ordered the audio program, then attended live. Overkill? Probably, but he got all A's. He completely altered his prospects for a legal career. More recently (2006) the LEEWS rep at U. Dayton, who was unable to gain admittance to any of the six law schools in his home Chicago area, some of which are "fourth tier," was able to transfer to the University of Illinois Law School after his first year. Students come to mind who transferred from John Marshall in Chicago to Northwestern and Washington U., from Illinois Institute of Technology Chicago-Kent to U. Michigan, South Texas College of Law to U. Texas (see letter in Results section), U. Texas to Harvard, Ohio Northern to Ohio State, U. San Diego to Berkeley, Hofstra and U. Tulsa to Georgetown, etc.

Alternatively, let your school know that you are thinking of transferring, and that money is a concern. If it is a lower ranked school, they'll quickly come up with lots of cash – often a full tuition. This happened for students at U. Cincinnati, St. Louis U., Oklahoma City U., Georgia State U., U. Memphis, etc.

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More Basic Truths

Basic Truth – Curiously, law school doesn't instruct exactly what it is that lawyers do. Can that be right? If the purpose of law school is to train lawyers (which surely it must), then how can you not learn what, basically, lawyers do? The reason lies in the overly academic and theoretical way in which the "case method" of instruction is conducted. You read lots of cases (decisions by appellate courts respecting lawsuits). However, rarely are the words "lawyer" or "attorney" heard in law school. Mostly it's queries about "what are the facts of this case," "why do you think the judge ruled as he (or she) did?," "do you think this decision makes for good law," etc. This recitation of facts and theorizing and speculating both reinforces academic habits you bring to law school and obscures the fundamental task posed by law school exams – discern and solve problems posed by made up fact scenarios ("hypotheticals" or "hypos") as a lawyer would.

Okay. We'll help you here. In a nutshell, lawyers employ legal, procedural and other tools and strategies to assist clients in achieving objectives like money, clear title to property, protection of trade secrets, steering clear of jail, etc.

Basic Truth – If you are a prelaw (or a 1 or 2L!), the nervousness you likely feel about law school is natural. It is also unnecessary. Tens of thousands of students no more capable than you have successfully negotiated law school and the bar exam to become attorneys. Moreover, most of them did it without benefit of approaches and insights as effective as LEEWS offers. It is precisely those many law graduates, who worked harder than they needed to, felt more confusion and anxiety than necessary, and got poorer results than their efforts and intelligence would have predicted (yet got through!), who have constructed and perpetuated the idea of law school being so tough and scary and all the rest.

Well, yes. Law school is surely tough, confusing, and unrewarding – when you never catch on to how lawyers think, how to analyze, how to learn the law, etc. (as most law students don't). But as we say to students in both our live and audio programs, "lawyering is different, but not rocket science. If you are able to graduate from college, if you are able to find your way to the room in a hotel where our program is held, then you are more than able to think and analyze as a lawyer and handle law school." SO TAKE A DEEP BREATH. RELAX. Lawyering is a highly stimulating, intellectually engaging mental activity. Law school can even be (should be!) fun!

Basic Truth – You don't need most of the glut of study aids vying for your attention. You don't need to attend expensive, hand-holding, one and two-week prelaw simulations of law school – e.g., BAR-BRI/NILE, Law Preview, etc. Sure, you'll feel more relaxed and prepared. But they don't guarantee results, and they have no track record of proven results. They can't guarantee results because, like all other aids out there, they offer little beyond the standard advice offered free at this website and the experience of "being in law school." Our students who have taken such programs always lament the money they could have saved. Nor, once you have learned to "analyze as a lawyer" (and therefore know how to extract and think about the law in cases and [used] commercial outlines), do you need first year "Great Lecturer" tapes and reviews, primers on the law, flashcards, etc. If you have a knack for taking law essay exams – very hard to predict. See below.
– you may not even need LEEWS.

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Basic Truth – You needn't purchase "hornbooks," a law dictionary, or new textbooks. Use library copies of the former. Purchase used textbooks. (Your law school or the local bookstore will usually have a used book section. Ask about it.) Return books already purchased for a refund. Keep your textbooks clean for resale.

Basic Truth – Conventional case briefing (facts, issue, rule, holding, etc.) is largely a waste of time (as is "book briefing"). No one briefs after first semester. Extract relevant law, know how to apply it (the hard part); incorporate it weekly in a course outline. Our students typically brief cases in 2-4 lines, and take less than a page of notes per class hour.

Basic Truth – Class participation is normally unrelated to exam performance and/or grades. 9 of 10 who impress in class don't get A's. So you needn't worry about being called on. Even if the professor says class participation counts (did he/she say "will" or "may"?), it will only count a little, and only if you are super terrific (which would detract valuable time from exam preparation) or super bad (e.g., three "not prepareds"). Prepare (from day one) for what counts – the final exam.

Basic Truth – Midterms (at midsemester) are generally practice exercises that count only if they assist the final grade. Don't sweat them. Use them to test the effectiveness of your outlines and your approach to preparing for and writing exams. Midterms at mid year in year-long courses may count 25-30% of the final grade.

Basic Truth – The easier it is to get into a law school, generally the tougher the grading at that school, and vice versa. Thus, schools like Thomas Cooley (in Lansing, MI), Southwestern (LA), etc. tend to make it tough even to get B's. Conversely, it is practically impossible to flunk out of Yale or Harvard. The reason is that lesser schools are terribly concerned about their bar pass rate. It's a selling point for them, and many law schools are very much in the business of attracting students and their hefty tuitions. [Oh, yes! Most law schools are very much about making money. A few years ago George Washington U. law school provoked a furor among its students when it was revealed that 70 percent of its revenues were being shunted over to the university at large. That's right. It took only 30 percent of revenues to run the law school.] So practically anyone can get into law school – somewhere! $20,000+ in tuition is too hard to pass up. But then they set about weeding out the "weaker" students before they can mess up the bar pass rate. At some schools that means flunking students out in their third year, . . . after collecting all that tuition!

Basic Truth – Although A's were the norm for most law students in college, A's are rare in law school (even at Harvard). Despite grade inflation that has taken the mean grade to B and even B+ in many of the higher ranking schools (e.g., Harvard, Stanford, NYU, Duke, Penn, UVA), over 80% of 1Ls manage no A's on exams – none (!), even at Harvard. 5-7% of students have a knack for writing law exams and garner most of the A's (plus those who have taken LEEWS). LSAT score, college GPA, and long hours in the library are largely irrelevant in terms of predicting who will get the rare A's. All B+'s only puts you in the top half at many top schools, however the top fifth at many, many others.

Basic Truth – Grades are almost always based solely on a 3-4 hour final exam. Class participation and midterms are typically irrelevant, as is acquaintance with the professor. Grading is usually anonymous. There is a trend toward longer exams – i.e., 8-24 hour "take home" exams. This is intended to temper criticism of the time pressure of traditional exams. However, professors typically instruct that these "take homes" are to be thought of as 3-4 hour exercises, and limits are placed on how much you can write or type.

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Basic Truth – The biggest mistake 1Ls make is to concentrate on briefing and class preparation, while ignoring the all-important final exam. Cases, classes, new people, a new discipline – you're overwhelmed, not sure what to do, how to set priorities. Unless they have a midterm, most 1Ls don't even look at old exams (on file in the library) until days before finals. Then it's too late.

Basic Truth – However policy oriented the course (i.e., social, economic, philosophic emphasis), you must know "black letter law" (i.e., rules, legal definitions) – cold! But knowing the law is only the first step of effective preparation. [See the section herein, Excerpts From the LEEWS Primer, especially the reprinted text on "Policy – What is it? (If a professor wants it discussed – where, how?)"]

Basic Truth – Cases are not the best source of black letter law. Acquire a (used) commercial summary. [See Excerpts From the LEEWS Primer, especially the reprinted text on "The Role of Commercial Outlines."]

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Basic Truth – In terms of predicting whether you may have this knack (and therefore not need LEEWS), it may be noted that 1Ls with math and hard science backgrounds seem disproportionately to do well in law school. (So much for the popular myth in law school that doing well requires that one be a "good writer.") Why?

We think because they are in the habit of thinking closely and logically, and presenting their thinking concisely – which gives them an edge in performing and concisely presenting "lawyerlike analysis" on exams.

Basic Truth – Unless you happen to be one of the 5-7% of law students with the knack described above, a 2-hour freebie lecture featuring "IRAC" and the standard exam writing advice offered by professors, upperclassmen, and ALL LEEWS competitors (e.g., "make an outline; get organized; spot issues; argue both sides; be concise;" etc. – click on Standard Advice – Free!) will be of little help in getting A's.

Basic Truth – If you're in a study group, you'll have to get out after taking LEEWS (unless your fellow members also attended or shared the audio program). Why? Because explaining LEEWS is like the blind man trying to describe an elephant. Overall, it's too complex, too in depth. It's not like mere advice that can be easily passed along. Your thinking will be too different. Moreover, you don't want to find yourself in the position of having to instruct and lead them along.

Basic Truth – The view (near universal) that doing well on law school exams requires an innate, lawyering aptitude – the "right stuff," "you have it, or you don't" – is a fallacy. Some few students (5-7%) exhibit a seeming knack for handling law exams (see above). But are the rest – most equally bright and diligent – genetically impaired? Hardly. Two years into practice most lawyers exhibit what professors are looking for on exams. What have they learned?

Basic Truth (2nd term) – First semester performance is neither critical to job prospects, nor predictive of success as a lawyer. Consider first term a learning experience. You learned, for example, that endless hours in the library briefing cases has little to do with performance on exams. Now you do things differently. For example, start course outlines earlier. Concentrate on learning black letter law. Practice with old exams. And think about taking "LEEWS." Good grades second term will impress in job interviews next fall.

GIVE YOURSELF A CHANCE AT A's!
(We can guarantee B's, because you'll compete for A's.)

Skeptical of the above? Not sure we're on target?
Talk to lawyers. Talk to upperclassmen.

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