I am fortunate to be a part of several active listservs, which allow me to learn from my amazingly generous colleagues each and every day. Today, I learned something that is simply too good not to share—particularly with exams on the horizon.

If you are concerned about making efficient use of your time during distance learning, consider time keeping in a way similar to private practice. To keep track of your time, use these activity codes, along with a detailed description, to identify how you are spending your time. Use 15 minutes increments, e.g., 15 minutes equals .25 on the time diary.

Keeping accurate and honest time diaries is extremely important. If, while reading cases, for example, you respond to e-mail, text a friend, surf the web, eat a snack, etc., the time spent on these other activities must be accounted for on your time diary. In addition, your descriptions should be as detailed as possible. For instance, rather than “read cases,” your description might be “read two cases in preparation for 4/1 property class.”

Activity Codes

T100 Time Management Activities

T110 Create draft study schedule

T120 Revise draft study schedule

T130 Inventory requirements for online learning

T140 Create a “to do” list, including relevant deadlines

Use this self-evaluation to consider your memorization techniques and to explore alternative methods for improvement.

Are you using just one method to a memorize information (i.e., going over and over it until you’ve mastered it)?

There is no question that you are being inundated with messages from your law school administration and professors about Covit-19 and how your legal education will proceed in the coming weeks and months. These messages are important, so I have been vacillating between staying quiet for a while and providing tips to help you navigate your education amidst this crisis.

Today, it occurred to me that the message you might need most is about channeling your anxiety and stress. Here’s the disclaimer: I am a lawyer and not a mental health counselor. This is not professional advice. But I do plenty of small “c” counseling in my office and have long suffered from anxiety myself. So, here are my thoughts:

Many institutions are moving to synchronous classes using online platforms like Zoom. There are some dos and don’ts you should keep in mind when joining your virtual classroom.

As law students across the country are shifting to online learning for a period of time, it is critically important to establish and maintain good habits at the outset. If you plan to learn and study at home, consider setting both mental and physical boundaries.

I’ve started my deep dive into the topic of procrastination. I found this gem from Procrastination: Why You Do It, What You Can Do About It NOW by Jane B. Burka, PhD & Lenora M. Yuen, PhD at p. 16: The Procrastinator’s Code

I recently asked students: How do you schedule non-homework tasks each week? A list or an app? How do you choose what you will do (e.g., flashcards, outlining, or a practice exam)?

These questions contain an important assumption—that students actually engage in non-homework tasks each week. That, as it turns out, was an unfounded assumption. I was disappointed to learn that the vast majority of law students focus nearly all of their time completing “homework,” at the expense of scheduling and engaging in the exam preparation that needs to be ongoing throughout the semester.

Professor Herbert N. Ramy, ASP Director at Suffolk University Law School and author of Succeeding in Law School, recommends dividing study into three phases—pre-class, in-class, and post-class review.

Most law schools are in Week 4 of the semester, so you have now covered sufficient material to begin an ongoing course summary. This means creating an outline or a mindmap with a discernible hierarchy that will serve as a study tool for your exam. 

Listening to music has well-documented benefits.  Music can improve cognitive performance and memory; relieve stress, anxiety, and depression; reduce insomnia; and increase motivation. See, e.g., https://thriveglobal.com/stories/6-miraculous-psychological-benefits-of-listening-music/

For these reasons, I recently asked students, faculty, and administrators what song they play to inspire positivity. The list that the follows includes their responses. Consider making it your law school pump-up playlist!  

A few of my upper-level writing students requested the names of publications to have on their bookshelves following graduation. The students were looking for “how to” practice resources that would provide easy reference for new lawyers. For advice, I turned to my generous colleagues on the Legal Writing Institute Listserv. Their very helpful responses are compiled here.

The Clash isn’t alone in asking, “Should I stay or should I go?” Fall grades were just released and many disappointed students are asking themselves the same question: should I stay in law school? If you are a student evaluating whether to continue in law school, the list below may be helpful.

My son is a high school soccer player. During the fall season, his team meets weekly to watch video of their most recent game. The reason for the review is clear: they watch what they did in the game to make improvements for the next game. Why do this? After all, the players were there—they know what they did.  Wouldn’t the time be better spent training?

Coaches across the board say no. Rather, the universally accepted opinion is that video is essential for improved performance.  Psychologists explain that our emo­tions can col­or per­cep­tion of an event, causing faulty recall of what actually took place. Also at issue is attribution bias, which can lead a person to develop a hypothesis of what transpired and look only for information that supports that hypothesis.  Videos, therefore, become a critical tool for player development.

This week marks the beginning of spring semester for many students. Thus, it is an excellent time to engage in the law school equivalent of a video review. Without a video to learn from, however, most students just jump into the daily “training” tasks without a thorough review process. Many students simply view the spring as a clean slate and vow to avoid what they perceive as weaknesses from prior performance.  You can do better.

We all have internal voices that drive our actions. A scientific concept called neuroplasticity tells us that these voices, whether driven by conscious or unconscious thoughts, can actually shape our brain structure and function. If you’re a science fan like I am, you’ll find this fascinating.

It sounds simple and even exciting—change your thoughts to change your brain! Think happy to feel happy! It’s not that easy, however, given that human brains are hardwired with a negativity bias.

In simple terms, the negativity bias means that we are much better at learning from our bad experiences than our good ones. This bias made sense in early human history when the fight-or-flight response was critical to survival. The negativity bias makes far less sense today, however, when it prompts me to sweat a single negative student evaluation as opposed to celebrate a stack of positive ones.

So how do we use self-talk to change our lives for the better? To begin, we must recognize our own inner voices. What are we saying to ourselves and is it helping or hurting? In my office, I can sense many students’ internal voices, some hurtful and some helpful.

I require my first-year students to complete a questionnaire and goal exercise during their first week of classes. One question asks, “What qualities do you believe a top law student has?” The answers this year included the following:

In 2010, Congress enacted a law requiring fast food chains to list the calories of items on the menu. The law was premised on the belief that customers were making uninformed decisions, unknowingly consuming more calories than they had intended. Providing this information would surely lead to better choices, Congress reasoned. But here’s the thing—it didn’t. A study released this week showed that listing calories on fast food menus had virtually no lasting impact on customer orders.

As an academic success professional, my beliefs are similar to Congress’s. I believe that first years may unknowingly make poor decisions like playing back recordings of entire classes because they don’t know to use a reliable supplement for clarification. Second years may fail to memorize seminal case names for courses like Constitutional Law or Criminal Procedure because they weren’t required to do so during their first year. At bottom, I believe that knowledge leads to better decisions.

My husband has gained national attention by drawing on Starbucks coffee cups.  Although drawing on a curved surface is tricky, he finds the smooth white surface “just aching to be decorated.”

I know what he means. In college, I regularly used a large whiteboard to study in the basement of my sorority house. I remember calling one of my friends down, so that I could use the whiteboard to “teach” her about the cases from my undergraduate Con Law class.  Many study rooms today still have whiteboards, and there are over 10,000 results for “dry erase whiteboard” on Amazon. Thus, all kinds of students are still working the whiteboard.

My students and I have been reviewing and reflecting on midterms this week.  A common, but easily addressed problem, involves failing to use the full range of facts.  Susan Gilles, a mentor and colleague of mine, calls this “one and done.”  A student uses one fact from the fact pattern and then concludes on an issue.  This leaves many points on the table, causing disappointing results despite knowledge of the applicable rule.

During coaching sessions, students often update me on the status of their outlines.  Some confess that they are behind, and others (happily) report that they are up to date.  Almost all students have a target date by which they plan to complete their outlines (typically reading week). 

Often underlying these discussions is the belief that an outline is static document, i.e., once a student completes a particular topic, such as “battery” or the “dying declaration hearsay exception,” that section is complete and will remain unchanged.  Under this belief, changes to the outline occur only through additions when a new topic is completed in the course.

This overlooks the important interplay of practice questions and outlines.

I’ve been curating content to help you do your best in law school.  For those of you who are not active on Facebook or LinkedIn (or if the elusive algorithm didn’t reach you), here are links to The Law School Playbook’s most recent posts: