Customer Reviews

The Law School Rules: 115 Survival Strategies to Make the Challenges of Law School Seem Like "Small Stuff"

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4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
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This is the kind of book an uncle or aunt gives you as a present before you are about to start law school; you brush it off but then notice it's comforting to have around every now and then when you feel a bit crummy or discouraged during your 1L year. Definitely a fun little book to browse through. It's a little book of "tips" that are not totally commonplace (a lot are, but there are a few to pick from that aren't that bad...and work). For example, it may seem silly to use this as an example from all the tips, but the one on using air fresheners around your home is something small yet it really does make it a bit more pleasant to be home...and study...she explains it much more eloquently. But it all falls under the theme of giving yourself room to unwind in the stress that befalls your life during 1L year. As long as you're mentally prepared for it, you CAN begin to see that's it really is all just small stuff!

I got this book the summer before law school, the same summer I read Law School Confidential, Princeton Review's pre-law book, and anything else that might give me some insight into the mystifying process that is law school. I think that for me, this book might have been among the best of the lot.

Most law school prep books overwhelm you; quite frankly they freak you out needlessly about law school with their cynicism. To make it worse, their advice is often cumbersome and difficult to follow. In contrast to those books, this book had a very refreshing style. It was brief, friendly, humorous and uncynical. Not only was it a comfort to pull out and read on occasion during my 1L year, it presented, in a friendly way, some very solid common sense advice. A good example was the exhortation to sign up with a bar review as soon as possible after entering law school - something some other law school prep books tell you not to do. It's true that a lot of it was stuff I could have talked to a 3L about on my own - but when I went to law school, well I didn't know anyone there. Remember your 1L year? No matter how friendly your school is, starting law school is an intimidating time. I thought this book demystified a few things I wound up having questions about later on, and it was right at my fingertips.

Why I gave the book four stars: The advice is not supremely detailed, and though what it has is just fine, it could have done with some more detailed descriptions of study advice. (That's really the hardest thing to come by, is concrete and genuinely useful study advice - for non-robots and non-geniuses - for law school.) Also, there were some fluff tips the book didn't really need ("Make Lots of Whoopie"?). But even those little tidbits just added to the light and breezy tone of the book. And you don't get much light and breezy in law school!

If you are heading off to law school - this is a nice book to get used. I gave my copy to a friend of mine who is now applying to law schools. But do try to get a copy or at least flip through it when you need to come down from the inevitable tension that law school can impose.

This book isn't perfect, but it does have some great common sense advice. Definitely check this book out if you're entering law school. A lot of the info contained here, such as how to handle the stress, most people (such as myself) don't figure out until their third year.

You'd get about the same information from talking to a couple 3L's for ten minutes... There were a few useful pointers, mostly about what to expect. It helped me not to freak out so much in the first days.
But I found her to be very melodramatic about several things. Maybe she's just dating herself, or maybe it's just my law school, but the classroom is not nearly as confrontational as it used to be (and as she makes it out to be). Most of my professors are wonderful, interesting people who are not out to get me.
I would borrow this book from someone if you're curious or just that nervous (which I was).

A needed book that helped me get through the first year of law school