The 3 Most Common Mistakes Students Make in Law School & How To Avoid Them!

This week in the Law School Insider we had the pleasure of interviewing Ashley Heideman of JD Advising as she shares the 3 most common mistakes students make in law school and how to avoid them. Ashley Heidemann has been working with current and prospective law students for a number of years helping them find success in the law school journey. 

She helps students in her company, JD Advising through preparation for the LSAT, prepartion for the bar exam, applying for law school and more. However, today I talked with Ashley Heidemann about preparing for the bar exam as well as what you need to be doing to find success during law school. 

Ashley Heidemann mentioned that the better that you do in the first year of law school the better you can do throughout your law school journey. This success will only continue as you prepare and then take the bar exam and will provide you with more opportunities for jobs that will be available to you as well.

When thinking about law school Ashley Heidemann says that you should think about:

1. Geographic Location - how far are you willing to travel to go to law school?
2. Debt - The amount of debt you are willing to incur as some law schools may be cost-prohibitive without a scholarship.
3. Environment - Some people thrive in small class settings while others want larger experiences.
4. Reason - The number one thing to consider is why you want a law degree. Make sure that you want the law degree for the right reasons.

Once you have been accepted to a law school you need to be thinking about the future. To do this and to find success Ashley Heidemann offers this advice:

1. Do the best that you can in the first year of law school to prepare yourself well for the bar exam.
2. The first year courses are all main topic areas for the bar exam. Make sure that you understand these core areas.
3. Focus on outlining.
4. Get practice exams from your professors.

Ashley Heidemann spent some time talking to me about the importajnce of outlining. While this is a skill that can be learned, it does take time and effort to master. To do well in your outlining consider:

• Start early in the term.
• Memorize and obsess over your outlines. Make the outlines strong and something that others can understand too.
• Start with your syllabus as a benchmark and map to your outline.
• Organize the outline based on the main subject areas being covered in the course.
• As you are outlining don't forget to include:
  • listing all of the rules being addressed.
  • listing all of the elements being addressed.
• No outline is perfect. The outline simply has to be your own and you need to know what is included in the outline.

Ashley Heidemann stated that there are three common mistakes students make in law school. They include:

1. Not starting outlining within your law classes right away.
2. Not getting practice exams from your professors early on in the term and practicing them.
3. Not obsessing over your cases so that you know them well, and thus meaning that you know the concepts and the law.

Did you like this interview? Do you have a question for Ashley Heidemann? Leave a comment below to let me know!

Are you a practicing lawyer? A law student? Would you like to be a guest on an upcoming episode of the Law School Insider? Send me an email at lawschoolinsider@cooley.edu