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This is what I hear: LLP

Welcome to Contracts; I am Professor Smith. I am going to talk about what I am interested in Hogan Lovells
because this is my class and I am going to teach the way I want to. I am not going to advise
you on how to play tricky games to maximize your grades because when the end of the Jones Day
semester comes I am going to give out a fixed number of As, Bs, and Cs anyway. I care
about my research, not about how you guys fight it out amongst yourself for the 5 A and 15 A- Linklaters LLP
grades I will be awarding. I dont want you to read study guides or for you to practice tests all
year long, even though doing so will get the select few of you that do it better test grades. Mayer Brown LLP
Reading these books and practicing sample tests may get you great at taking tests, but you
are short-cutting past all of the hard work that will make you better suited for a career in legal Milbank Tweed Hadley &
academia in the long run. McCloy LLP

Or sometimes this: Morrison & Foerster LLP

Welcome to Contracts; I am Professor Smith. I am completely out of touch with what it is like
to be an average law school student with typical abilities relative to my peers. When I was at Munger Tolles & Olson
Harvard Law School in 1972 we used the Socratic Method, and I stand by that tradition. It LLP
doesnt matter that I was a 178 LSAT and 3.98 student in undergrad, with a 172 I.Q. and that I
O'Melveny & Myers LLP
could have only studied ten hours a week and still have made Harvard Law Review. I am
completely out of touch with what it would take for the typical law student to read or practice in
order to do well on my exam. Paul Weiss Rifkind
Wharton & Garrison LLP
The Law School Professor has no interest in helping you do well on his exam because his
grades will be fixed anyway. He is concerned about teaching you what he wants to teach you, Shearman & Sterling LLP
not helping you to be the one to get the A.
Simpson Thatcher &
It is up to you to figure out a good system, since there will always be a trick to excelling. Bartlett LLP

In no way do I intend to disparage any law school professor at my school or any other school. White and Case LLP
The law school professors I know and have known have been brilliant and professional while
still remaining approachable and helpful. However, in my opinion, many of these law school Williams and Connolly LLP
professors have been out of school for so long that they have lost touch with the law school
students perspective. When thinking about how to do well in school, I value the opinions of Akin Gump Strauss Hauer
those of similar intelligence and who have recently experienced law school. & Feld LLP

To excel in law school by definition, you must ace your final exam, which is the sole Allen & Overy
determinant of your grade. It is surprising to me that people do not start from the vantage
point of exam preparation when choosing how they study and prepare for law school. The
Freshfields Bruckhaus
road to success must lie in preparing in a way that optimizes your law school exam score.
Deringer LLP
III. Thinking Outside of the Box
Fried, Frank, Harrison,
It is a bad strategy to do exactly what everyone else is doing in terms of study and Shriver & Jacobson LLP
preparation. Students are afraid that if they vary from the pack, then they will end up falling to
the bottom of the class. This is a valid concern, especially if the system you propose is poorly Irell & Manella LLP
thought out. However, unless you are brilliant, following the pack by definition will get you
average grades, which is generally a B. If you are doing what everyone else is doing and are Orrick Herrington &
equally armed with the same weapons on test day, you must simply out-perform them on a Sutcliffe LLP
level playing field.
Paul Hastings Janofsky &
There is an alternative. You can bring a gun to a knife fight. Every single tactic I recommend Walker LLP
in this document will make you more armed for test day than your peers. If at any point you
cannot see or do not believe in a justification of how a proposed study strategy will improve Willkie Farr & Gallagher
your test score, then I would discourage adopting that method. However, I stand by every part LLP
of my system and the explanations for how and why they improve your exam score.

To quickly defend myself and my study system: I am not a lazy person. I can see how I could
be misconstrued as one by a reader of this guide. In reality, I am the opposite of lazy. I value
my time so much that I do not want to waste any minute of it doing things unimportant to my
life. I plan to practice at a large law firm, and I am fully aware that it is not the law review
students who make partner at most law firms. It is those with solid academic skills and superb
social skills that make partner. I push myself to socialize and network as much as possible.
These are the skills that are most important to me. Whether you value networking and
socializing, or having time to exercise or pursue other interests, following this system
efficiently allows you to do well in law school while having time to allocate as you choose.

I fully respect the law school tradition. However, the law school system is geared toward a
career in academia. For someone with my objective of private law firm practice, I do not have
to reread and spend hours studying and rereading Posners perspectives on torts when an
analysis of the professors last fourteen exams indicate that he does not test and never will
test on policy.

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