Look, some of youse guys will not have much guidance, and I want to impart what I know, in my humble opinion, about what I feel I should have done before even starting Law School and taking out Federally backed Student Loans.
You have all probably seen my Law School Transcript. Look here if any of youse ain't seen it yet:
I went to a Law School that was considered in the fourth tier, prior to the fairly recent modifications in the US News and World Report Rankings methodology.
As you can see, my first year grades were bad, and I was on academic probation until, I believe, the end of the first three semesters. It was quite a stressful and horrible time.
Some have said that Touro should have kicked me out with those grades, but I didn't think so back then, and so I pushed on.
Touro even had an option of taking the entire first year over, and I had heard of at least one student that had done so.
But in looking back, I really wish I had taken an entire year, prior to starting Law School, and devoted at least four or five hours a day/night to studying all of the PMBR Bar Exam review materials.
For instance, here is the outstanding lecture on Contracts by the good Professor Dan Fessler:
(You also might be able to find used PMBR materials on E-Bay or again Amazon, or maybe even Craigslist.)
I did not really discover, or at least appreciate and devote much time to, this Contracts lecture by Prof. Fessler, or any of the the PMBR Bar Review Lectures (Criminal Law, Torts, Evidence, etc) until after I had graduated from Law School, and was scrambling to study for the NY Bar Exam. While taking the Bar review course, I often said to myself, especially with respect to Contracts and Criminal Law: 'Why didn't they teach me this at Touro?' "Why didn't they teach me this at Touro?'
Instead, I was studying cases, and the useless class notes about those cases, and all the while sick in my gut from fear of being called on in class. Silly right?
But when it finally was time to study for the Bar Exam, I was engaged and later married, and had great financial pressure on me to just pay my basic bills (Rent and later Mortgage, Car, Gas, Car Insurance, Food, Clothing for the Office etc.) and was taking a Bar Review course at night after work, and trying to amass much of the knowledge that I should have amassed during Law School.
Time is a finite resource.
So, and I am pressed for time here as I have to leave for work, and to state briefly, here is what I recommend from experience, and take my advice or leave it:
1. Before starting Law School, somehow get hold of, and study all of the Kaplan/ PMBR (PMBR has been purchased by Kaplan since I was a student) recorded lectures, such as Prof. Dan Fessler's Contracts lecture, and the Criminal Law Lecture, and the Evidence Lecture, and Torts, Property, etc. These are the 6 main subject areas for the first year of Law School. Listen to these lectures over and over and over and over.
2. Then, do all of the multiple choice questions in the Kaplan/PMBR workbooks. There should be two workbooks, and the questions will be broken down into the respective subjects (Contrats, Crim Law, Con Law etc) Do these multiple choice questions over and over and over and over, until you know them cold, and can answer them in your sleep.
3. Then start your first year of Law School. You will have a good, basic grasp of Multistate Law, before you have even started.
4. Of course, if you are in NY, or California, or I think Massachusetts, Law School and later the Bar Review course you will take, will teach you the nuances between that state's law and the "Multistate Law, as it is taught in the Kaplan/PMBR review materials.
Anyway, I gotta go, and on a final note, if some of youse are still with me, especially Mark Levin, Rush, Coulter, Hannity, and others, youse should really, really go and read the blog of another good Professor here:
And so, I need to do my fall cleaning now, and will be back in due course.
Also, I do not mean to do a complete hatchet job on Touro. There were and are some excellent Faculty there, and excellent Professors and teachers.
But there were critical gaps, and that's all I am saying.
And again, I will take full blame and responsibility when and where it is due for my Student Loan debt.
As for my grades, you have only my word that I studied or worked hard. But as I have said before, "Hard Work" per se, in Law School, in my opinion, is a necessary condition, but not always a sufficient one.
One last thing: What technically kept me from flunking out was a couple of outrageously easy 2nd year electives: Jurisprudence, and Rights of the Poor (Taught by a Professor with a Harvard Degree), and Law and Literature. One only needed a pulse to get a grade of B or higher in those 3 classes.
I had thought of taking a class in "Commercial Paper" but decided not to, out of fear of yet another D plus grade, which might sink me.
OK youse all?
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* One more thing, and to needle my newfound Conservative talk Radio friends a little. Here again is a song, by Dick Gaughan (did I already mention how fiery the Scotts are, BTW :)
Somehow I don't think the message in the song, or at least the accompanying "Mob" images, square with Glenn Beck's book entitled: "Common Sense" or with Ann Coulter's recent book.
And laugh a little. And turn it up LOUD!
