Dear Student,
Welcome to The Law School Playbook! I’m Halle Hara, a professor of academic success and personal skills coach to law students and attorneys. I’m glad you’re here! We’ve all had those moments when we are sitting in front of a book, with our head resting on our hand, when our eyes begin to close. You tell yourself that you are “just resting your eyes,” which is something my Dad would say to me if I tried to change the channel when he was asleep on the couch. As much as you try to fight it, your body keeps drifting back to sleep. What do you do?
Reading critically requires the energy to actively engage with the text. Reading your case book is and should be a mental workout. This is understandable in theory but difficult in practice when, for example, you pulled an all-nighter to finish a writing assignment or worked until 2:00 a.m. in your side hustle as a bartender. So how do you muster the energy you need to avoid wasting your time by reading in a way that won’t ultimately be helpful to you?
Here are a few ideas:
Do a “read aloud” with a classmate. You can share your hypotheses with one another and engage in the recursive process of moving backward and forward through the text to confirm or adjust your predictions.
Give yourself a mini-dose of cryotherapy, which you know is all the rage with elite athletes and the Hollywood set right now. No really, you don’t have to resort to anything that drastic, but you might want to expose yourself to some cold. Whether it’s drinking ice water, splashing cold water on your face, or blasting yourself with your car air conditioning, it’s difficult to fall asleep while you are cold.
Get up and move. Simply taking a short walk or otherwise raising your heart rate, even if briefly, will prompt you to be more alert.
Set a timer. Those who know me are aware that I’m a fan of the Pomodoro method, which is a time management tool that promotes efficiency by breaking work down into timed intervals with short breaks in between. Knowing you are on the clock may help to boost your energy to get the job done.
Relocate. If you are attempting to read in a particularly comfortable chair or with a blanket on your bed, consider moving to a less comfortable space. Try standing or perhaps sit on a folding chair or a bench. Activating your core muscles and embracing healthy posture may help you to feel less drowsy.
Speaking of time, you should generally try to do your reading during the time of day when you feel your best. If you are a morning person, try reading in the morning. If you are a night owl, try reading then. Importantly, don’t make the mistake that many first-year law students do by reading far ahead. Although it may feel productive, doing all of your reading for the week on the weekend is a waste of time because you won’t be able to remember it sufficiently during class. An ideal goal would be to read as close to class as possible, but not so late that you’ll fail to get the reading completed. We will discuss additional strategies for active reading later, such as role playing or talking to the text.
For now, just try to be conscious of your energy level before and during your reading to ensure you have sufficient energy to engage meaningfully with the text. In her book Reading Like a Lawyer: Time-saving Strategies for Reading Law Like an Expert, Ruth Ann McKinney suggests that you gauge your energy the way medical professionals assess pain. She uses the following scale:
10. I’m full of energy and am ready to take on the world
9. My energy is high and I’m looking forward to the task at hand
8. I’ve got plenty of energy and am enjoying what I’m doing
7. I am enjoying what I’m doing but my mind is wandering some
6. I am able to focus but it is taking some energy to stay with the task
5. I am having trouble focusing and it takes lots of energy to stay on task
4. My mind is wandering and I’m physically tired
3. I’m tired and I can’t focus
2. I’m very tired and I don’t want to try to focus
1. I’m exhausted and not getting anything done
McKinney says that your energy needs to be at least a 6 on this scale to have the ability to read critically. As a reminder, 6 is: “I am able to focus but it is taking some energy to stay with the task.” If you are reading below that energy level, you are not making effective use of your time.
In Expert Learning for Law Students, Michael Hunter Schwartz echoes this sentiment, explaining that critical reading requires more than just pulling information from a case but instead requires you to construct your own meaning from the text. In sum, there is no getting around the fact that you must have sufficient energy to reach your own conclusions as to what the reading means and why it is important.
If would you like to read this episode, get suggestions for further reading, or to request individual coaching with me, please visit my website at www.lawschoolplaybook.com.
As always, do your best, and I’ll be rooting for you!
References and Further Reading
Leah M. Christensen, Legal Reading and Success in Law School: The Reading Strategies of Law Students with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD), 12 Scholar 173, 207 (2010).
Franceso Cirillo, The Pomodoro Technique: The Acclaimed Time-Management System That Has Transformed How We Work (2018).
E. Scott Fruehwald, Think Like a Lawyer: Legal Reasoning for Law Students and Business Professionals 11–15 (2013).
Laura P. Graham, Why-RAC? Revisiting the Traditional Paradigm for Writing About Legal Analysis, 63 U. Kan. L. Rev. 681, 696 (2015).
Jane Bloom Grisé, Critical Reading Instruction: The Road to Successful Legal Writing Skills, 18 W. Mich. U. Cooley J. Prac. & Clinical L. 259, 282 (2017).
Jane Bloom Grisé, Critical Reading for Success in Law School and Beyond 25–28, 34–41 (2017).
Andrew J. McClurg, 1L of a Ride: A Well-Traveled Professor’s Roadmap to Success in the First Year of Law School 169 (3d ed. 2017).
Ruth Ann McKinney, Reading Like a Lawyer: Time-Saving Strategies for Reading Law Like an Expert 52–55, 59–67 (2d ed. 2012).
Nelson P. Miller & Bradley J. Charles, Meeting the Carnegie Report’s Challenge to Make Legal Analysis Explicit-Subsidiary Skills to the IRAC Framework, 59 J. Legal Educ. 192, 194 (2009).
Michael Hunter Schwartz, Expert Learning for Law Students 3 (2d ed. 2008).