For those of you with closed book law school exams coming up, here are a few exam prep strategies that you might find useful: (1) assess course expectations, (2) organize, memorize and master the course material, (3) practice, practice, practice, (4) rest your brain, and (5) take the exam with confidence.

Preparing for law school exams? Read our other Exam Week posts:
Winning the law school mind game
How to succeed on open book law school exams
How to succeed on take-home law school exams
10 steps to writing a great law school final paper

1. Assess course expectations

Before you begin studying for any law school exam, gather as much information as you can about the exam and the professor’s expectations.

• Ask the professor. Some professors are candid about the exam format and their expectations of students, while other professors hide the ball. If your professor is not forthcoming, I recommend that you ask. And it is best to do this during class so that your professor does not think that you are trying to get an unfair advantage over other students.
• Consult old exams. Find out if your professor has old exams on file and review them.
• Find students who have taken the exam and ask them about it. Mentors are particularly helpful here.
• Determine whether other students in your class have intel they could share.

Information is powerful in law school. Get and stay in the loop. In my experience, it is also helpful to share the information you learn with your fellow students. This may seem counterintuitive given that your classmates are technically your competition, but they are also your friends and support system, not to mention your future colleagues, clients, and professional network. Your professional reputation as a lawyer begins in law school. Cultivate your professional reputation as ethical and collaborative.  Share information and support your fellow law students.

2. Organize, memorize and master the course material

After you gather as much information as possible about exam expectations, it is time to study. Successful preparation for a closed book law school exam requires that you organize, memorize and master the material. These are three very different though equally important tasks.

• Organize the course material

Look at the syllabus and the textbook and create a skeleton outline of the major concepts covered in the course. Flesh out each concept by adding what you learned from class readings and lecture. Do not worry about formatting, grammar or editing, just fill it out. Cut and paste from your lecture notes and case briefs. You will end with a long document saturated with information. Print this document.

Set the printed document by your computer and open a new document. Synthesize the concepts in your mega-document by rewriting them in your new document. Be judicious with your words. Rewrite all the important concepts in the document.  Print this document.

Do it again. Do this over and again until you end up with the shortest possible document that you can create.  As a visual learner, I found diagrams useful here.  You may also like acronyms.

• Memorize the course material

Now, see if you can recreate the short outline from memory. Practice until you can do it quickly and with ease. When you walk into the exam you should be prepared to quickly recreate the basic outline on a piece of scratch paper.

For a “kitchen-sink” exam, the outline will operate as a check-list. For other exams, it will serve as a menu of potential issues. If you freeze or panic during the exam, having the outline scrawled out can help you refocus.

• Master the course material

Once you have the basic concepts organized and committed to memory, it is time to master the concepts. Too many law students overlook this essential step. It is not enough to know the buzz words, the tests and the factors.

Visualize what will happen when you sit down to take the exam. You will read fact patterns, spot issues, and provide rigorous analysis.  You cannot do this well unless you are fluent in the concepts.

To gain fluency, you need to practice explaining the concepts. Define the concept and then explain why it matters and where it fits in the taxonomy of the course. Try explaining the concepts verbally first. Do this several times. Explain the concepts to your study group, your dog, your mother, the mirror. Each time you explain a concept try to use fewer words. Be frugal. Go for pith.

Now, try to explain the concepts in writing.  This is a good study group activity, but you can do it on your own, as well. Do this over and over again until you can explain each concept with ease. On an exam, you will have to apply these concepts to fact patterns. And while there is only so much that you can do to prepare for fact patterns, you can be prepared to explain the concepts. That way, when you apply the concepts to fact patterns during the exam you will not have to spend precious time and brain power determining how to explain a concept.

3. Practice, practice, practice

Once you have organized, memorized and mastered the concepts, it is time to practice, practice, practice. Find a way to practice applying course material to fact patterns. The best way to do this it to take practice exams.

In an ideal world, each professor would offer a full-length practice exam involving one of his or her old exams. If not, get resourceful and be creative. Practice is essential. Find a sample exam online if necessary.

If time permits, do what you can to simulate the exam experience. Find a practice exam, sit in an empty classroom and take it under the same time constraints that you will face during the real exam. It is reassuring to know that you can complete the entire exam in the allotted time. Even though it is a big time commitment, I think exam simulation is well worth it. This is a great study group activity.

4. Rest your brain

Once you’ve done what you can to prepare, it is time to rest your brain. Allow your brain time to rest before the exam. If it is a morning exam, stop studying by dinner time the night before. If it is an afternoon exam, take the morning off and go out to brunch. Spend this time getting focused. Get your mind ready.

5. Take the exam with confidence

To succeed, you need to be confident, calm and focused during the exam.

Spend the hour before the exam doing whatever will get you mentally prepared to feel confident and calm when you walk into the exam room. For closed book exams, I would spend this time making sure that I could recreate my rough outline from memory.

When the exam starts, I recommend sketching out your rough outline first. I always did this before even reading the exam.

Then, read the exam and outline your answer. This is key: take the time to outline your answer. If you hear other students typing out answers while you are still outlining, ignore them. Stay calm and keep outlining. Remember that good answers are organized and comprehensive. Spend the time necessary to get organized and find all the issues.

Budget your time. You do not want to run out of time and get full points on the early questions and zero on the last question. Plan to finish early enough to review your answers.

If you panic during the exam, get up and leave the room. Take a minute to refocus. Then return to the room.

After the exam

After each exam during law school, I went to a movie. This allowed my mind to unwind. Have a plan for what you will do after each exam–particularly if you have other exams to prepare for in the coming days. You will be fried when you leave the exam room, have a plan for what you will do. If you do not have a plan, odds are good that you will end up congregating students who just finished the exam and you will all end up rehashing the test. Do not do this–nothing good can come of it.

(photo: umjanedoan)

Closed Book Law School Exam Preparation Tips is a post from: Lawyerist

As a speaker and coach on networking, one of the most frequently asked questions is “what is the best way to approach a contact to set up a breakfast or lunch; should I use the phone or email?”

Of course, the best answer is whichever you think will be more effective with the person you are contacting. Not a very useful answer though, since most of the time, you do not know. Given that void, I’m more convinced than ever, that e-mail, though not perfect, works better than the telephone. Here’s why.

Badmouthing the telephone

When was the last time you called someone and you actually got them in? So you leave a voice mail message that is not rehearsed and typically goes on longer than you thought it would or should. And if your message is left on a cell phone, will the recording capture everything you say? When you say ‘please call me back at….” will it be convenient for that person to write down the number and get back to you later? Maybe. And if the message does get through, is this a person who promptly returns calls? Here again, maybe.

Now, let’s say you are lucky and do get through. Good news? Not necessarily. Chances are 90% you have interrupted whatever that person was doing and that person may not be very happy about that. Not to mention, it may take them 30 seconds to figure out who you are since you mumbled your name when you started talking and therefore they have not remembered a thing you said while trying to recognize your voice. Finally, when you ask that person to get together, you are putting them on the spot and may make them feel awkward; many would prefer to think about it.

The “e” in e-mail means “effective”

Here are the reasons.

• Person is not interrupted; can be opened whenever the contact chooses
• When read, the person is not distracted
• Can decide whether to get together without feeling pressured

Email is not perfect. Some people ignore them for days or forever. There is also the chance that the email may get caught in a spam filter. But these downsides are not as significant as those for telephone use.

So when in doubt, click “send.”

(photo: jackhynes)

To “E” or not to “E”(mail) is a post from: Lawyerist

In the day and age of emails and texts, talking on the phone has become a lost art—and especially leaving voicemails. Take the time to think about what you want to say and how to convey it and your messages will get returned.

First and foremost, listen to the recording. Do they want you to leave your email? Do they just want your name and number? It sounds so simple, but I have listened to countless messages from clients where they do not leave their name or a number for callback purposes.

Second, if you are going to venture into describing why you are calling, sum it up in one or two sentences. Not enough information is frustrating for the person on the other hand, but too much information is obnoxious and overwhelming.

Three, make yourself credible by mentioning something connecting you—a friend in common, whoever referred you, etc. Dropping that name really is important and will connect you with whoever is on the other end.

In the event you do not follow these tips, and manage to leave a long winded message that cuts off before you leave your name and/or number, call back. There is nothing worse then listening to a long message and not being able to call the person back.

How to Leave a 15 Second Voicemail that Gets You the Meeting | The Blog of Keith Ferrazzi

(photo: jaymzx)

Leave a Voicemail that Gets Returned is a post from: Lawyerist

First things first. One of the most important pieces of advice I received during law school was: “first, win the mind game.” To do this: remember what you know, prioritize something that has nothing to do with law school, make a plan and stick to it, and limit talk of law school and exams.

Before law school, we were all successful students. If you had the grades and the LSAT score to get into law school, you know how to learn and you know how to test. Your academic talent made you exceptional in high school, undergrad, and elsewhere in life. But it does not make you special in law school, where you are surrounded by peers with equally stellar academic records.

“A”s are no longer guaranteed to bright students (which you no doubt are); they are reserved for the handful of students who perform best on law school exams (which you may or may not do). Winning the mental aspect of law school is hard, but it has a direct impact on your physical and mental health and thus on your academic performance. Are you winning?

Here are my top 4 tips for winning the law school mind game.

Preparing for law school exams? Read our other Exam Week posts:
Closed book law school exam preparation tips
How to succeed on open book law school exams
How to succeed on take-home law school exams
10 steps to writing a great law school final paper

1. Remember what you know

Law school is chock full of lore regarding success, much of it absurd and none of it surefire. Nonetheless, given the high stakes, otherwise bright and discriminating law students are loathe to disregard any tidbit of information and advice that might prove useful. My first piece of advice is to remember what you already know. How did you prepare for exams before law school? How did you study? What worked for you? And importantly, what did not work for you? Apply this knowledge to your legal studies. Filter law school wisdom through your own experience and knowledge. Exercise judgment and disregard bad advice.

2. Prioritize something that has nothing to do with law school

It is hard to abide by this, but the most successful and healthy law students I have known took this to heart. Think about how you remained balanced before law school. How did you deal (successfully) with stress in the past? Do that. Or do something else. Cook, run, golf, watch movies, play with your cat. It does not matter what you do, but it is essential that you do something other than law school. And make it a priority.

This is hardest, but most important, before and during finals. I recommend exercise of some sort—that law school stress has to go somewhere, and most people carry it in their bodies and end up sick or injured, either of which could ruin your ability to perform on exams.

3. Make a plan and stick to it

One of the worst parts of law school for me was never feeling like I could take a break. Enough was never enough, and this burned me out and ruined my free time. I learned to deal with this by making schedules. As finals approached, usually about six weeks out, I created a schedule of what I needed to accomplish each day in order to be prepared for finals. Each day I followed my schedule and when I met my goal, I stopped working. Because of my plan, I could set my work down and enjoy my breaks. Per #2, I prioritized non-law school activities by putting them on my calendar.

CAVEAT: To use this tool effectively, you need to be realistic and forgiving. That is, you must set realistic goals and you must forgive yourself if you do not meet your daily or weekly goals.

4. Limit talk of law school and exams

If you moved for law school, then odds are good that your closest friends are also law students. This is wonderful, on the one hand, because they know what you are going through and can truly empathize with your stress, frustration, exhaustion and panic. Therein lies the obvious downside: your friendship is anchored in shared law school experience. In my experience, one of the best things you can do to win the mind game is to avoid talk of law school and exams. Find something else to talk about with your friends.

As for your fellow law students with whom you are not close, avoid all talk of exams. If someone is sharing their stress with you, do not accept it. Some of my law school colleagues seemed to thrive on sharing their stress with others. They were draining, crazy-making, and toxic. Avoid those people. If you are one of them, then you are not winning the mind game. Take a deep breath and go back to #1.

Got more tips? Please weigh in. Got questions? Please ask.

(photo: ccarlstead)

Winning the Law School Mind Game is a post from: Lawyerist

A myth has arisen that multitasking is effective, and that those who are technologically savvy are particularly effective at it. But studies, including a 2009 Stanford University study—have shown that it is just that: a myth. In fact, frequent multitaskers were shown to have more difficulty filtering out useless information.

The truth is that no one can accomplish two things at once that require mental energy. You can only do one at a time. You may think that you’re multitasking if you are working on two things simultaneously, but in actuality, you are constantly switching between one activity and another. In his book The Myth of Multitasking: How “Doing It All” Gets Nothing Done, Dave Crenshaw calls this “switchtasking.”

Switchtasking costs time and damages relationships

Have you ever tried to speak to someone either in person or on the telephone while they are checking their email, text messaging or reviewing documents on their desk? How did that make you feel? Have you ever done it to someone else? Were both tasks really getting the attention they deserved? Did you have to go back and review or redo what you were doing? Did you have to ask the other person to repeat what they said or realize mid-stream that you were not paying attention?

Switchtasking will always cost you; it takes time for your brain to switch from one activity to another, to find your place, to return to full engagement with a task. You will always be less effective then if you focus on one thing at a time—sometimes up to 50% less effective. The more complicated the task, the higher the switching cost.

The next time you are tempted to check your email while you’re on the telephone or you catch yourself waving a colleague into your office while you are working on something else, ask yourself, “What will the switching cost of this interruption be?” Do yourself and your colleagues and clients a favor and stop switchtasking.

Cognitive control in media multitaskers | PNAS

(photo: totalAldo)

“Multitasking” is a Myth is a post from: Lawyerist

Even though legal jobs are hard to come by, investigate the opportunity before making a decision.

Talking to current employees is a must. This can be tricky, but most employers are willing to give you the names of a few current employees willing to talk to you if you ask. If you meet with them, try and have lunch or coffee outside of the office to ensure they can engage in unrestrained conversation. Find out how many hours they work, if they have an outside life, and how the employer treats employees.

If you know of any former employees, that is another great resource for insight into the job. Many times these people are harder to track down, but if you ask around, you should get at least one referral. Doing a quick Google search may turn up attorneys who have switched to another firm, and they are usually very willing to talk about past experiences.

If the job is local, be sure to check out the actual workplace. The physical surroundings will give you a better understanding of how the place is run. Sometimes the building is great, but the neighborhood is not. Depending on your level of comfort, that might rule out the job right there.

It is a tough market, and options are limited, but doing due diligence will payoff in the long run.

Do This One Thing Before You Accept that Web Job | Web Worker Daily

(photo: etringita)

Be a Detective Before Accepting a Job is a post from: Lawyerist

In case you missed any of them, here are our most popular posts from the past week:

1. Beware the Post-Bar-Exam Blues: When the busy schedules and constant pressure of law school and the bar exam are over, depression often sets in. Here are some tips to deal with it.
2. Why You Need An Office: If you have been working from home and coffee shops, now is the perfect time to make yourself more professional and productive with an actual office.
3. Add Some Emotion to Your Client Invoices: Use your monthly invoices to make a personal connection with your clients and keep them loyal.

(photo: dotbenjamin)

Top Lawyerist Posts: Week of November 8 is a post from: Lawyerist

If you can get your hands on a Google Voice account—do it. Google Voice can save you money, save you time, and you never have to give out your personal cell phone number again if you do not want to.

When you get a Google Voice account with a Google number, you get a free phone number that can be paired up with your current cell phone number. You get free visual voicemail—voicemails are organized like emails. You get free voicemail transcription—super handy for lawyers on the move. You can also require that callers identify themselves—when your phone rings and you answer you will hear their name before you choose whether to accept or reject the call. You can also easily record your phone calls and store them online in your Google Voice account (also super handy for lawyers). Lastly, you get free SMS text messaging. One major bummer, however, is that Google Voice will not work on your iPhone.

Overall—this is one great product. If you want clients to reach you on your cell phone, give them your Google Voice number and setup Google Voice to forward to your cell phone. You can also setup Google Voice to only forward Monday through Friday. You can easily call out from your cell phone with your Google Voice number by calling into your Google voicemail and pressing 2 to make a call. Another big advantage is that you can access Google Voice either using your cell phone or from a browser on your computer.

Google also just changed the program to allow Google Voice for existing numbers, minus some of the better features of Google Voice with a Google number. There is no free SMS texting, you cannot record your calls, and there is no caller identification feature. Even without those features, the visual voicemail and transcription is probably worth signing up.

Optimize Google Voice is a post from: Lawyerist

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Thanks to Our Lawyerist Advertisers! is a post from: Lawyerist

Law school finals are quickly approaching. Most of you law students (especially 1Ls) have either started studying or will begin in the next couple of weeks.

We are here to help.

All next week, we will offer up some of our best ideas for how to succeed on your final exams. You can check back each day for a new batch of advice.

(photo: themastershakesignal)

Law School Exam Tips All Next Week is a post from: Lawyerist