Effective Learning Habits for Law Students
Academic success in law school is about adopting proven learning and study strategies earlier on in the semester. The goal of this workshop is to equip participants with the skills and strategies needed to cope with voluminous reading assignments and case-briefing. We will discuss best ways to prepare for class, take effective notes, manage time, and get organized.
Learn to Read & Think like a Lawyer
It is all about legal reasoning! Legal reading is specialized reading which requires application of critical and analytical skills to “get it”. This workshop focuses on how to hone the skills you already have to master what your professors expect of you: read and think like a lawyer so you can learn to speak and write like one.
Organizing Course Materials (or “Outlining”) Often for Academic Success
The first step to ensuring success on law school exams is to get organized early, properly, and continually. This workshop is designed to give you tips for putting together bits, pieces, and piles of course materials (class notes, case law, legal principles, rules, statutes, etc.) into a manageable and organized outline to be used as study aid for final exams. We will discuss the pros and cons of self-created outlines, peer-shared outlines as well as commercial outlines.
Legal Analysis for Essay Writing
Mid-terms are around the corner. The goals of mid-term exams are two: you get the opportunity to gauge how well you understand what is going on in class, and you get the chance to practice how to write a good answer. This workshop is designed to give you the framework for answering law school exam questions.
Research Tools for Writing Assignments
Legal research requires knowledge of a variety of specialized legal resources and is a key tool for success in writing for LRW class or term papers. These practice tools can assist you in locating hot topics in your area of interest, finding scholarly research literature on your selected topic, and much more.
Please join us for a workshop designed to teach you how to use these legal tools to your advantage for your writing assignments or term paper. Learn skills and get tips for selecting and navigating legal databases that will make your legal research effective, comprehensive, and efficient.
This workshop is beneficial for all law students.
Learning Styles, Personality Types and Law Students
Knowledge is power: knowing about learning styles in general and your preferred style in particular is a powerful tool to have as a student. One learning style, unfortunately, does not work for learning all subjects effectively. What works for understanding Torts may not work for grasping the legal concepts in Contracts. Students have different learning styles; they preferentially focus on different types of information, tend to operate on perceived information in different ways, and achieve understanding at different rates. The match or mismatch between the way that professors teach and the way that students learn has important ramifications for levels of student satisfaction.
In addition, understanding personality types can be useful in developing strategies for more effective study, better time management, smoother communications, more successful relationships, selecting courses, and developing our less-preferred ways of learning. As a student, you will encounter different teaching styles. Students whose learning styles are compatible with the teaching styles of a course instructor tend to retain information longer, apply it more effectively, learn more, and have a more positive attitude toward the course in general. So what is the strategy for being an effective learner regardless of the professor’s teaching style? The goal of this workshop is to help law students master law subjects through self-understanding.
Strategies for Writing Essays on Law Exams
This workshop builds on the “Studying and Preparing for Law Exams” workshop. We will carefully study exam-taking strategies that are unique to essay writing on Law School exams. Learn the most common mistakes that law professors say students make on finals, and plan to avoid them. Dean Margaret Raymond is our guest presenter.
Note that this workshop will be presented only once. Plan to attend.
Law Journal / Moot Court Outreach
The ability to communicate effectively, verbally and in writing, is the most essential skill for litigators, transactional experts, judicial clerks, and professors alike. Whether you are interested in public interest, firms of any size, government work, or something else, being able to communicate effectively will set you apart from other people (in a good way).
UW Law offers many opportunities to hone your communication skills; the two that offer you the most hands-on experiences are participation in a law journal and/or moot court competitions. Get more details on how to participate.
