In a little over a month, I’ll be starting my 3rd and final (Finally!) year of law school.  It occurred to me that as I start my last year of law school, thousands of 1L’s around the country will be starting their first year of law school.  Many of them will be terrified or at least worried about what to expect.  So I thought I’d take this opportunity to pass along some advice after 2 years of law school.  In no particular order;

• If you don’t have Microsoft OneNote – buy it.  It’s the best tool for taking notes on a computer out there.  If you have one of those professors who bans computers in the classroom, I pity you.
• Your 1st year professors will mess with you.  The surest way to make an ass out of yourself in class is to appear clueless or cocky.  Professors will sniff out either and smack them down.  Appearing cautiously confident is probably the best way to go.  Cautious confidence comes of course from being reasonably well prepared.
• Westlaw and Lexis are your new best friends.  The headnotes of the cases in there will tell you probably 50% of what you need to know about a case if you get called on.  I *always* check a case out on Westlaw if I’m going to read it at all.
• You’re not in high school or undergrad anymore.  Being a drunk, a slut, or a druggie is NOT the way to make professional connections.  And the slut comment goes for both genders.  If you’re going to sleep around, don’t sleep around with your classmates.
• If you are going to sleep with your classmates, don’t do it during a school competition, with the lights on, with other people in the room.  That actually happened.
• Also, being the pervert who sleeps with the 18 year old freshmen won’t help your reputation, either.  That actually happens often.
• If you’ve got a drinking problem, law school won’t help it get better.  And everyone will know you’re an alcoholic.  Why not straighten yourself out before school starts?
• Ditto with drugs.  I can tell you the names of three or four people in my school who have serious substance abuse problems, but I’ve never met them.  That’s the kind of stuff that gets passed around as gossip.
• Don’t surf porn or play video games in class.  People have done it, and it just distracts everyone.
• On the other hand, don’t let yourself be distracted if the girl ahead of you is surfing TMZ, or the guy ahead of you is surfing some “guy” site.  If they’re not paying attention in class, that helps the curve for you.
• Don’t be an ass.  Don’t be cocky.  Don’t be smarmy.  Don’t be condescending.  You never know which of your classmates will end up as judges, or end up being in a position to send you business.  Be friendly to everyone.
• Check out the audio CD’s from the library for every class you have.  Those will be the best study aids you’re likely to get.  Flashcards aren’t bad, either.  I’m convinced you could pass law school exams by doing nothing but using CD’s and flashcards.  Not ACE, but pass.  Acing will require some extra study.
• If you’re not on LinkedIN, get on there.
• If you’ve got pictures/posts/etc. on Facebook you wouldn’t want a hiring partner to see, take them off now.  I get into all kinds of shenanigans, but I don’t let people take pictures of it.  And if I did, I’d sure as hell not let them end up on Facebook.
• Do a moot court, a mock trial, or both.  It’s the one time in law school that you’ll really feel like a lawyer.  Taking notes, getting called on, and studying is just like undergrad.  But arguing a case before a mock (or real) judge is something else entirely.  It’s when you feel that you’re actually becoming a professional.  And don’t sweat it if you lose.  The only losers in competitions are the students too spineless to enter them in the first place.
• Flip off your Bluebook the first day you buy it.  Trust me, there will be something in there you’ll hate.  For me, it was the particularity as to when to put a space after a period and when not to.  You’ll learn what that means soon enough.
• For the love of God turn your ringer off before you go to class.  If your phone rings during class, you’re automatically going to look like a jerk.  Especially if you have a prof who is a real hard ass about cell phones.
• Similarly, turn your sound off on your damned laptop.  No one wants to hear your “new mail” sound, your Facebook alert, or any other sound your PC makes.
• Buy yourself an external hard drive, and learn how to make backups of your notes.  I’m sure your school will have an IT department who can help you.  And be nice to your IT department.  Believe it or not, their lives don’t revolve around your needs.
• Professors who make you do “Justice counts” suck.  Sometimes, a Supreme Court opinion will have multiple opinions in it, each authored by multiple Justices.  Having to be able to say which justices signed on to which opinion is a waste of time for everyone.
• Professors who care about the dissenting opinions also suck.  A dissenting opinion carries just as much force as your opinion.  Why some professors make you pay attention to stuff that isn’t the law is beyond me.  Except of course when the dissenting opinion is later adopted.
• Pennoyer is the worst case you’ll read in law school.  My Civ Pro Professor had us do it on the first day.  It wasn’t fun for anyone.
• Use Black’s Law Dictionary to learn how to pronounce words you don’t already know how to pronounce.  And there’s no shame in admitting you need to use a dictionary.
• Learn to use Westlaw or Lexis to search law review articles.  They often discuss the landmark cases you’ll need to learn, and they discuss it in a much cleaner way.
• Join the ABA as a student member, and join the Litigation section. The free magazine that comes with it is the best legal publication you’ll ever get for free.
• Consider plaintiffs’ work.  All plaintiffs’ lawyers aren’t ambulance chasers.  You won’t have billable hours to worry about, and your bosses will probably be much more laid back than at a defense firm.
• It’s not the end of the world if you don’t get many A’s in law school.  Aim for just one a semester, and figure out the class you want it in.
• Figure out the attendance policy of each prof – do they make you sign in, do they take role, etc.  As the semester comes to a close, you’ll want to know which classes you can safely skip.
• Don’t do what I did and bore the class every day in Torts (or whatever your favorite class is) by talking endlessly about your opinion of what the law should be. 
• Just because a Professor is a total jerk in class doesn’t mean he or she won’t be very nice if you go to his or her office for help.  Part of the first year is weeding out the weaklings, and that’s partially done by being gruff in class.  But 98 out of 100 professors truly want to help their students learn.
• If you didn’t get in to a great school, don’t worry about it.  Some of the most successful lawyers out there didn’t, either.
• If you’re not sure why you want to be a lawyer, or you’re only in it for the money… you may have made a bad decision to go to law school.  Especially in this economy.
• The single most important factor that will determine your long-term success as a lawyer is the quality of your writing.  If you turn out sloppy writing, word will get around and you won’t get much work assigned to you… unless you’re one of those rare orators who can get by on his or her rhetorical skills alone.  But even if you are, the chances to orate are few and far between.  So take your writing seriously.
• Don’t just take “bar courses.”  That’s what bar prep courses are for.  Take some electives you’ll actually enjoy.  Maybe one of them will give you the opportunity to write a paper worthy of putting in your portfolio.  Because you do need a writing portfolio.
• Learn to create Tables of Contents and Tables of Authority in Word. 
• If you think it’s OK to use txt language in a final exam, it isn’t.  If you do, your exam will probably be shown to other professors, and they will all laugh at you.  But for some reason, it IS ok to abbreviate with things like P, D, K, etc. in law school exams. 
• Don’t be one of those people who gets ridiculously wound up before finals.  A little stress and tension is OK.  But don’t take it to an extreme.
• Do work on your outlines for classes from Day 1. 
• For the men out there, grow a finals beard.  Few things feel nicer than shaving off a 2-week finals beard.
• Watch The Hustler and learn the lesson about the importance of character.
• Speaking of Paul Newman movies, watch The Verdict.
• After your first year, quit buying your books and just check them out from the library.
• Remember that any convictions for things like possession of marijuana or drunk driving, or other criminal offenses might prevent you from taking the bar.  Translation: Getting buzzed and driving home can cause you to throw away your career and still have $100k+ in student loans.  From here on out, you’ve gotta be on the straight and narrow. 
• If your school offers an “etiquette dinner” or some other program that teaches you how to eat and drink socially but professionally, take it and learn some social graces.
• Never underestimate the importance of networking with people at your school and other schools.  Where you’ll interview and where you’ll work will often have more to do with who you know than your class rank.
• Speaking of class rank, remember that half of all lawyers graduated in the bottom half of their class.  Whether you use that as a cautionary tale or a crutch says a lot about whether you’ve learned The Hustler’s lesson about character.
• Don’t talk all “lawyerly” to your friends and family to prove how smart you are.  Unless they ask you to, in which case feel free to drop some Latin on them.  A fortiori is always a good one.
• Don’t think that because you’ve taken a criminal law class that it’s a good idea to mouth off to a cop now that you “know your rights.”
• Above all, try and have a good time in law school.  Once you get out there in the real world, the scary stuff happens.  Like having to find a job, pass the bar, and pay your student loans.  Law school is two weeks of pressure every semester.  Real life is pressure every day.

I hope someone out there finds at least something in this to be useful.  Good luck in law school!