Things to do Before Law School

The thing that I most wish I had learned is how to use all the fancy do-hickeys in Microsoft Office, specifically Word and Outlook. I'm an excellent typist, but I've learned that I knew jack-squat about how Word (and Outlook) could make my life easier. {My law school provides a license for Office with enrollment so I'm using it; however, if you are a WordPerfect aficionado by all means learn how to do the tasks I'm mentioning using Perfect.}

Seriously, if you're going to law school spend some time in the preceding year doing the tutorials that come with Word.

• Learn how to make and use section and page breaks effectively and efficiently.
• Learn how to format headers and footers.
• Learn the differences between footnoting and endnoting and the way to format each.
• Learn how to use styles for consistent formatting of text.
• Learn how to use the Outline view for organizing a document before you begin writing it.
• Learn how to make a table of contents and a table of authorities.

If you do only one of these, learn the ToC and ToA because it'll make your life easier when you write your appellate brief in the second semester, and you won't really have the time to learn how to do it then. The next highest priority should be using the Outline View because it will be really useful for exam prep as well as organizing your writing assignments before you draft them.

The next thing I wish I'd spent some of my time doing prior to law school is brushing up on grammar and writing mechanics. I've heard that our Legal Research and Writing department is a tad bit more draconian about grammar than other schools may be, but with good reason. Poor writing skills and an inability to observe the rules of "good" writing will follow a law student for his or her entire career unless bad habits are corrected at the outset. The faculty has regaled us with stories of judges taking poorly written briefs, bloodying them up with red pen by correcting mistakes, and posting them on the bulletein boards in their chambers. I don't know if there is a shred of truth to those stories, but having worked in a doctor's office, I know I was certainly tempted to do similar things with badly drafted letters from insurance companies.

Finally, I wish I'd revisited civics. In conjunction with reviewing civics, I wish I'd spend a little bit of time learning about the judicial branch and the Supreme Court. I hadn't thought about any of these things since junior high, and they are kind of important background information for learning about the law. This doesn't have to be a super-intensive review; watching the School house rock videos should be sufficient, or there is the ever-present Wikipedia to brush up with.