I based my whole analysis on what the courts SAID about my issue instead of focusing on which side had WON in each of the cases.

Be careful!

👉 A case can contain language that seems helpful to your position when the case itself actually HURTS your position.

Dear 1L, I got a 35 on my Contracts midterm.

(35 out of 100.)

It was Oct 1993.
It was my first & only feedback.
I thought the world was going to end.
And it forced some intense soul-searching.

To be sure, like most 1L midterms, mine was merely a “practice” exam. But to me, it was devastating.

Between midterms, the memo, AND recruiting for summer internships, there simply aren’t enough hours in the day.

And the memo is killing you.

It’s eating up way more time than expected, and you feel lost on how to structure the Discussion section.

You’ve got cases going both ways, arguments that seem to fit in multiple places, and no clear sense of what should come first.

🔷 FRAMEWORK

Assume your hypothetical asks whether a plaintiff can prevail on an issue that has three subparts, A, B, and C and that you conclude the plaintiff is likely to satisfy A, B, and C—and therefore likely to win on the overall issue.  For each subpart section (sections A, B, and C), you should proceed in this order:

A: Plaintiff should satisfy element A.

🛑 The WRONG WAY is to:

-Pick a random lawyer
-Learn nothing about them
-Send them a generic message
-Explain you want to “pick their brain”
-Make clear you seek a 1-time transaction
-Suggest that they “jump on” a 60-min Zoom

3.7+ GPA.
Three years of experience.
Impressive volunteer work and leadership.

Yet she had received not one interview through OCI.

Her career-services office could not understand why. Neither could I—until I saw the actual résumé.

The Habit: sticking a word in quotation marks, then stuffing it in parentheses (hereinafter, a "Parenthetical").

Once you start suffering from this Habit, you can't stop, which is a condition I call can’t-stop-itis ("Can't-Stop-Itis").

——Exhibit A ("Exhibit A")——

and 3 years from now,
only 1 of you will be here.”

Old law-school deans apparently used to say that to 1Ls on their first day of law school.

Maybe they thought it would incentivize students to work hard from Day 1, but boy doesn’t that quote miss the boat—

Here’s what I want you to think about instead:

"When doing all these readings, I find myself unable to really comprehend what I'm reading, even after a few rereads and taking hours upon hours for just one class. Do you have any tips for improving comprehension while not taking forever to get through all this material?"

Here is the letter I wrote back—

It’s for her, and for every new law student who is spending hours and hours reading and worrying that everyone else somehow "gets it."

Wow, see the difference it makes:

-- To err is human. However, to forgive is divine.

-- To err is human. To forgive, however, is divine. ‼

Try this edit today!

Learn them now so you don’t lose points when it counts.

1. In the legal world, we spell the word “judgment” without an “e.”

—> Change your Word settings so they autocorrect “judgement” to “judgment” when you type.

Although both spellings work in the non-legal context, now that you’re joining the legal world, you should probably just start using the “judgment” spelling in everything you write.

It lures you in with the promise of high grades, a job at a big firm that pays well, and a credential that makes your school look good.

And it is very hard to climb out of once it has you.

Before you know it, you're stuck—convinced Big Law is your only path to success, even if it was never part of your plan to begin with.