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.

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.

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 puts you in the top quarter at most schools, the top fifth at many.

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.

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 the section herein, Excerpts From the LEEWS Primer, especially the reprinted text on "The Role of Commercial Outlines."]

Basic Truth -- Successful law students typically have a knack -- for organizing voluminous information for quick reference; for identifying "issues" hidden in complex fact patterns; for presenting concise, nitpicking ("lawyerlike") analysis under severe time pressure -- and practice with old exams -- a lot.  (And/or they have taken LEEWS [!!].)

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 -- 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.

Basic Truth -- The issue identification system and analysis/presentation skills, etc. we at LEEWS have instructed and polished for more than 20 years more than compensate for not having a knack for handling law essay exams.