I've been doing the sorting things out thing lately as well. My arm hurts from the tetanus shot and I'm headed back tomorrow so they can tell me I don't have TB and so I can return some overpriced outlines I picked up. Also I got my orientation assignment with a sample brief and read the first case, and didn't understand most of it. Is it normal to think that they were headed to a different decision than the one they make? I hope it gets easier to read these things at least.
yes. it gets easier. it's never like reading the newspaper, but it's not completely impenetrable forever. you'll see a marked difference by october and you won't have any problems reading case law by december. they tell you to brief cases, and it's important that you actually do it. i would read the whole assignment in one sitting a day or two before it's due, and go back the next day or so and skim the cases and write paragraph-long briefs summarizing who was there and what the point is, to jog my brain
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Thanks for the advice and support. That is reassuring. Right now it seems as though briefing every case would take forever since I am not sure if I am picking out the right things for each summary section, but the orientation packet says it's normal to seem like a very long process at first. I was hoping we would have a long session on briefing in the orientation since it seems so important, but it looks like they've only set aside an hour or so for that. When I looked at things this morning, they made a little bit more sense. I'm glad now that I spent the summer learning another language because this seems very similar already.
Did you brief all the cases you read? Did you also keep an outline? I am not sure I understand the difference between the two except that I would guess that an outline is much broader and covers things in class.
ugh. i hate that they do stuff like that. have someone teach a class on briefing. don't listen to them. they're morons. it is a STUDY METHOD. for YOUR BENEFIT. so you want to remember what your professors seem to think is important, and, as always, if you're lucky, they'll tell you what they want and not lie about it. do not write long briefs. a paragraph is about the length that is useful. figure out who the parties are, who's suing whom over what, and who the court says was right. the most important part of each case will always be the court's reasoning- how they drew the conclusion they drew. if your brief restates correctly in your own words what the court's reasoning is, you win the game. that is all there is to it. everything else they tell you is useless
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On another note, welcome back to the east coast.
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Did you brief all the cases you read? Did you also keep an outline? I am not sure I understand the difference between the two except that I would guess that an outline is much broader and covers things in class.
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