Law School: Do your own CAN or Outline

Even if you find the very best CAN (Condensed Annotated Notes, also known as an outline) in the world for a particular course, you will want to create your very own, from scratch; CAN before you hit the exam room. You may think that you can get away without this step (and there may be a few of you out there who can do this), but for most of us, this is a necessary step in the learning, synthesizing and memorizing process. By physically writing your own review notes, you will most likely be able to recall information more quickly and efficiently. This is especially true for closed-book exams. For open-book exams, writing your own CAN will allow you to be more familiar with the information, and you will be able to flip more quickly through your notes during the exam.

I always found writing a CAN from scratch after studying my class notes and other materials to be an invaluable exercise to help me see where I am. I started with a fresh piece of paper or computer screen, and simply wrote out as much of the course as I wasable to in as little space as possible. I included all relevant cases, statutes, and supplementary information as possible, all the while trying to make as many links in the information as possible. I tried to remember why a particular case or statute was important in the big picture, whether it had altered or developed the law, and what the potential problems or solutions might be as a result of the reasoning of the case or statute. I may have included some personal comments about where I thought this case or statute may come up in an exam question, or would write myself little notes that would help me to readily recall a piece of information come exam time. Whatever helped, I included it. I tried to keep it as concise as possible, while trying not to omit potentially important information. This is a tough balance to strike, and it may take you a few times to get it figured out. The important thing is to avoid relying upon other people’s work in hopes that it will get you by. The truth of the matter is that it usually will only just get you by, or slightly less. To succeed, there is no better alternative than putting in that effort and making it happen for yourself.

A Word from the Wise – Practical Experience from some colleages of mine:

Unless you have a very bad and disorganized professor and you have to teach yourself the course, other people’s CANs are not the best or most efficient way to learn a course because it is actually the creation of the CAN that helps you learn the material much more than simply studying someone else’s. That said, it is better to read a commercial CAN or someone else’s CAN than nothing at all.
— Robin Penker, University of Alberta

To prepare for law school exams I would go through my notes and create my own “CAN”. Once that was finished, I would compare that to the commercial CAN and look for discrepancies. The next step was to create a list of cases from the course with a one-line explanation of the ratio. When I started, I would spend less time organizing and more time trying to study by reading the notes repeatedly. As school progressed, I found it more effective to spend much more time organizing notes and continuously revising them as I studied.
— Jaime Johnson, University of Alberta

What is your favourite way to prepare for an exam? (I know some of you like to keep it a secret, but remember, sharing always results in rewards later on - I speak from experience).

If you want some CANs/Outlines to help you get started, go to http://www.canadalawstudent.ca/cans.html where you will find links to CANs from different law schools, and all of my CANs from law school. Happy downloading!

Back in the the Saddle

Now that the Winter Olympics are over I can start posting on my blogs more regularly again.

I am joking, but only halfway. I have in the past two weeks experienced the Perfect Storm of (a) flu season in my household, (b) the Winter Olympics (mesmerizing to me even with NBC's atrocious coverage), and (c) some time-intensive scholarly research that together have waylaid me and kept me from my blogs. I note that the world has kept right on turning without me. But for those of you who check this blog regularly, thanks for doing so, and my apologies for not posting more frequently. I will try to do a little better from here on out. No promises, mind you--just good intentions.

Law School Admissions: Deferring law school in Canada

Many prospective law students do not realize that there is often an opportunity to defer your studies for up to one year. Note that not all law schools offer this option. However, it may be a good option for you. Some examples of good reasons to defer law studies for a year are:

1. Finishing a graduate degree. I know of one classmate who attempted to finish a Master of Arts degree concurrently, without joint-degree status, and ended up spending both summers tackling the issue. Had he taken a year off before studying law, he might have circumvented the high stress he experienced. He also would have opened up his summers to potentially work in the legal field. Another student attempted the same with a Master of Science and ended up spending her first summer doing something that she did not feel would help directly with her law career. However, both of these individuals had made a commitment to finish their graduate degrees.

2. Getting an offer for a job that you just cannot refuse. I had a friend who received an offer to work for the Liberal Party in Ottawa – something he had always wanted to do. He managed to get a deferral from some of the schools that he had applied to and was able to try the government job. It was a great résumé booster, and a fantastic opportunity that he would have missed otherwise.

3. You need to save up for school. Now you can take up to a year to work full time, get prepared, and the pressure will be off, because you have already been accepted.

Be sure that you apply for deferral in plenty of time, and that you put forward a very strong case. Do not just assume that a school will hold a spot for you once you have received an offer. Also check into tuition fee hikes or differential fees that your faculty may have scheduled. If waiting an extra year will add thousands of dollars to your cost, you should consider this in your decision-making.

Professor-Student Relations

No, this post is not about Professor-Student relationships. Rather, it's about how profs and students interact in this modern world of 24/7 access and e-mail. There's a great article in today's New York Times called To: Professor @ University.edu Subject: Why It's All About Me. You can link to the article here. I recommend it heartily.

This article paints a doom-and-gloom picture of teaching and the demise of deference from students to teachers. It's funny too; I never would have dreamed of skipping class and then asking the professor for copies of her teaching notes. And it's true that with e-mail, students are more likely than ever to contact professors, and ask some potentially odd questions.

Here's my take on it: this is just like anything else in our modern, internet-connected society. There's been a general decline in deference in our society for some decades now, but is that so bad, really? Is it better to expect people to earn respect than to automatically give it? Is it so bad to require professors, who live a wonderful life of relative academic freedom and flexible schedules, to be more responsive to their student constituencies? Isn't this a learning opportunity for teaching people how to interact as adults? Maybe some students didn't learn manners at home, and student-teacher relations are a perfect framework for reducing the manners deficit.

I have invariably found that when you tell someone what you expect from them, by and large you get it. I tell my students to be on time for class and to turn in assignments on time, and guess what: they do. I tell them how to analyze specific types of issues on a final exam--not giving the answer, but providing a useful framework for analysis--and guess what? Those who follow my instructions tend to do better on the exam. In the practice of law, the senior lawyer who tells the newbie lawyer what she expects and why is far more likely to get the desired result. So this is an opportunity to train students in the etiquette of proper communication with superiors.

Perhaps I am jaded by my years practicing in a big firm. A few student calls there and there, a few potential intrusions--they're nothing like what I am used to from my practice days. And we should never, ever, discourage professor/student interaction. Manage it, yes. Discourage it? No.

Law Practice and the Winter Olympics

I haven't posted for a while. Apologies for that, but the flu has hit my family pretty hard, and something had to give. So here's a quick post on two of my favorite topics: the practice of law and the Winter Olympics.

In my opinion, the Winter Olympics are far more fun to watch than the summer ones (curling and ice dancing aside), but that is beside the point. What is on point is that for the life of me I cannot fathom devoting four or more years of my life to pursuing a medal, when one slip can cost you the entire thing. Look at Michelle Kwan. She devoted a decade to pursuit of gold, dominated her sport, and came away without the ultimate prize. I'm not saying it's not a worthwhile pursuit; I'm just saying I don't get it.

Instead, I am much better at working to excel in the classroom and in the practice of law. Why? Because consistent excellency is what is rewarded there, not momentary shine. The practice of law is much more like the pro basketball season than it is like the Olympics. Long seasons filled with individual games that alone do not have a lot of meaning, but added up are terribly important. And a key to doing well in pro basketball (in addition to having natural talent, of course) is to make sure you have the fundamentals covered. No traveling violations. No shot clock violations. Strategic fouling. Inbounding the ball. You can be the best 3 point shooter ever, and if you don't do the basics, then you're toast. Getting back to the Olympics, if practicing law were an olympic sport it would be a marathon, not a sprint. But those are the summer games, which are largely boring in my view.

So in the practice of law, a lot of what you do is like dribbling the ball. You coordinate filings. Depose witnesses. Conduct factfinding teleconferences. Don't miss filing dates. It's not glamorous, but it's a key part of the game. And really, in becoming the expert on a particular deal or case, often you are the only one who can do these things efficiently--so you do them. For example, if a notebook of exhibits needs to be put together, who knows what exhibits are the proper ones? You do. Not your secretary. She might make the copies, but you do the prep work and the final check of the work product--that is, you do the very ordinary, but very crucial prep work.

And here's the real point: if you don't do that kind of thing, you will never get the opportunity to try the really big case or put together the novel corporate deal. You will not be getting the job done for either your client or the partners you work for. You likely will flunk out of practice. I have seen a number of lawyers, very bright people, flunk out of practice because they refused to master fundamentals like these. What a shame.

So for you students, bear this in mind the next time you are reading the "big cases" in your Con Law book. Remember that for every big case, there were thousands of more ordinary cases, with a lot of background work to them. But those cases were important to the clients involved--and after all, the clients are who you are supposed to be serving.

Success Stories: Trailer park to law school dean: The journey of Mayo Moran

If you are looking for some inspiration today, consider reading this article, written in the globe and mail about the University of Toronto law school's new dean, Mayo Moran. I was grateful to read that she is bucking the stodgy trends set by her predecessors and by the Bay-street firms. I hope that she can achieve some of her lofty goals to set a higher standard for our profession. She says Canadian law schools must rise to the challenge of producing a new generation of lawyers who respect "the significant ideals of our profession" and are fortified by "formidable intellectual strength and rigour." I especially liked her stated mortification of the classrooms that, in her words, have morphed into clattering "typing pools" with students clicking away on laptops.

I would also like to see the bar set higher for law school education. I would like a return to the more active, engaging style of lecture that one might have seen in The Paper Chase, a movie about the first year of law school at Harvard. All too many students get caught up in the details and forget to see the law through the forest. One of my favourite law school classes was one where the professor provided the class notes on-line the day before each class. This allowed you to download the notes, supplement them with your preparation reading, and then to truly listen and engage yourself each class. It was so much nicer to just plug in a few comments each class to further supplement your notes. Students engaged in dialogue more often, we covered far more material in a shorter period of time compared to other law school classes, and I genuinely enjoyed the class because of all of these things. Typing notes like crazy does not help you to learn legal concepts. Engaging in serious, and often difficult dialogue creates better students and better lawyers.

It was also refreshing to read about a legal education leader who has high ideals, who is not afraid to put up a fight for what she believes in.

If you know more about Dean Moran, feel free to leave a comment. Or, if you have a comment about a law professor or dean from your law school, I am sure that the rest of us would like to hear about it.

If you want to see other's ratings and comments about law professors at your law school, or a prospective law school, visit http://www.ratemyprofessors.com/SelectSchool.jsp. It is pretty amusing to see how various professors have been rated. I was surprised at how accurate the ratings were for some of my former law professors.

Big Firm Salaries Going Up (Again)

Apparently the increase of many big firm starting associate salaries to $135,ooo wasn't enough. Now some firms have raised the stakes with a move to $145,000. The Wall Street Journal's Law Blog has a detailed scoop on the subject.

This is such bad news. First year associates already can't earn their pay. It's impossible. Their billing rates are too high, so their collection percentages are low. And there's this thing called mentoring which has gone by the wayside (see my previous posts on this here and here), so associates have to learn by the "sink or swim" method. Quality training and learning involves achieving a balance between being quick on the uptake (a fair expectation for high paid associates) and allowing associates to engage in sometimes time-intensive learning that cannot be billed but makes them better lawyers. That does not happen at many firms, although some do emphasize learning, much to their credit.

This latest pay hike will just make the vicious cycle worse if it ripples through the private law firm community. Higher pay will mean more pressure on associates. More pressure will mean less leeway to make mistakes. Less leeway means more pressure. And so on. Where does it end?