Hey /lit/izens,

I’m a law student struggling to get my act together in the reading department. My grades are embarrassingly low, and I blame it on lack of effort. I barely ever read, and when I do, I just feel like I’m skimming the surface. I skim case summaries, breeze through theory texts without really engaging, and nowhere deep enough. I know a lot of you here are sharp, analytical readers, so I’d love your input.

For those studying or who’ve studied law: How are your reading habits? How do you tackle theory reading? Cover to cover, focused chapters? Do you annotate, take notes, outline? How do you remember anything?

When you read cases, do you dive into full opinions or stick with briefs/summaries unless it’s a key case? How do you pick which ones to really dig into?

Do you follow a daily or weekly reading schedule? How do you carve out time for both theory and cases on top of class?

How do you check your understanding? Do you test yourself on concepts (“define Hart’s rule of recognition”) or cases (“what was the holding in Marbury, and why”)?

Which study habits actually improved things for you? Active recall, flashcards, discussion groups, teaching someone else?

I want to build real habits around intentional reading. Right now I just flit between summaries and quick skims. I need to read smarter, not harder.

Appreciate book recs, workflows, memory hacks, discipline tips, anything. Show me what works.

Kind retards,
A shit law student

>>24573291 (OP)
You should have made friends, actual friends, with 2Ls or 3Ls for outlines. Second, you're paying good money for it; talk to your professors after class to explain what you get out of the reading and have them clarify any gaps.
What helped me was going to the end of a case and working backwards.
Don't see how you scraped on by thus far if you're asking on reading schedule and classes require daily readings of 30+ pages a class. Read at your best time not when hungry or what have you. Don't treat it like a chore, you've chosen this because it's fun.
Bounce concepts off classmates and teach a family member. The latter helps even more for memory if you treat it like a presentation.

>>24573291 (OP)
Seems slopbrained, anon. Quit using the internet (yes, this includes /lit/).
That said, how do you find law school? Been considering it myself, though I'm somewhat offput by the culture.

>>24573291 (OP)
Hey anon I was in a similar position when I studied physics. One year I failed 6/8 classes and had to beg to be let in for another. I finished OK in the end, so here is my tips.

First and foremost you're not failing because of lack of willpower. Discipline is a finite resource for all of us, you have to slowly develop it over time.

Second you're likely addicted to all sort of shit like social media, games, browsing lit etc. You'll have these moments where you're just in the zone for 3 hours straight, you need to protect those times as sacred and get to a point where you can have 3/4/5 such sessions in a day.

Finally go read some Wikipedia articles on what other famous academics did to be able to build the focus needed to study a difficult topic. It's not easy anon else everyone would do it.

Posture is key.

>>24573555
>Finally go read some Wikipedia articles on what other famous academics did to be able to build the focus needed to study a difficult topic.
Any in particular you'd recommend, anon?

>>24573291 (OP)
Pump

>law student struggling to get act together
>low grades
If you’re in a T14 school it’s not the end of the world. You can still network and salvage those grades to land a decent job at the end. I’m not going to give you study advice because there’s nothing here that we can tell you that you (a faggot in law school) wouldn’t already know. If you haven’t figured this out by now: these final exams have nothing to do with how correct you are: you need to figure out EXACTLY what your professor wants and how they want you to outline toward that conclusion. And you’ll only get that kind of answer by going to office hours and asking them questions in class.

Now if you’re in a less than great school, you may want to consider leaving. I’m not saying this to be a dick but your first year grades are all employers are going to be looking at. Even as a 3L applying for jobs, you’re gonna get questioned by interviewers on “why did you get a C in contracts”. 1L grades are so important that if you fuck them up you’ll basically paying the two next years for a useless sheet of paper. Law is an oversaturated field and even the people with spotless grades and recommendations are struggling to land jobs. If you’re serious then mentally prepare yourself to be working at the public defenders office or some other gov job for little pay; it’s unlikely any big firms would take you.

>>24573291 (OP)
>I barely ever read, and when I do, I just feel like I’m skimming the surface
I did the same thing and I’m not in law school anymore. Nobody wants to hear that their lawyer is so retarded or lazy that they don’t read. I was a brutal combination of both and wrote a ten page final brief for LRW. Two of the pages were the title page and the table of contents

>>24575195
>1L grades are so important that if you fuck them up you’ll basically paying the two next years for a useless sheet of paper
O-oh.

>>24573291 (OP)
There are articles aplenty online about effective reading, note taking and spaced repetition, if you want to go the pure study tactic angle. But rote learning things has its limitations.

I have a question for you - what are you curious about? It doesn't have to be reading. Everyone's got something they're interested in.

At their foundation, cases are just stories about people.

The key insight is: the more you're curious about how the world works, the more you can link phenomena in your mind, which makes cases easier to comprehend and retain. Curiosity about the world is a quality of all good lawyers and people who are well-respected in their fields - and everybody has curiosity about something, it's just whether it's been encouraged or not.

This sort of curiosity is what breeds the 'sharp, analytical reader' you want to be. It takes years or decades to hone. Don't rush it.

I personally don't push myself to finish books, when I'm just learning about things in general. It takes the pressure off and I can learn something cool (and also suits my inattentive mind). Sometimes I read a few pages, or even the wikipedia summary if that's easier - anything it takes to get the gist of it in your head. Later in life I circle back and read it properly if I've experienced something in life to make me want to read it more closely.

>>24575247
>It takes years or decades to hone. Don't rush it
This faggot has two years to up his grades you fart-sniffing pontificate. If he wanted retarded truisms then he could just FaceTime grandma, you fat monkey

>>24575254
Everybody wants the fast way to success. I get it.

>>24573291 (OP)
Sleep more than 7 hours a night and turn off all notifications on uour phone.