1L Year - How to Succeed

Ultimately, you should have two goals in mind as you go through law school. The short-term goal is to do well in your courses, and the long-term goal is to succeed in practice. Most or all of your grade in your first year classes will depend on how well you do on the exams, so your short-term goal from the first day of law school forward should be to prepare for them. Here are some resources that will help you learn in a way that will pay off at the end of the semester.

Exam Taking Skills, Outlines, and Advice for Law Students Podcast: Panel 1, Panel 2, Panel 3 (CALI)
Six law professors talking about outlines, studying for class, preparing for exams, time management, and how professors grade exams.
 
Tips for Multiple Choice Exams in Law School Podcast (CALI)
Provides students with advice on multiple choice exam questions.

Top Ten Tips for Successfully Writing a Law School Essay (CALI)
This podcast discusses the top ten mistakes law students make in law school examinations.

Writing Better Law School Exams: The Importance of Structure (CALI)
This program is designed to be useful to students interested in improving their exam-writing techniques.     

How to Do Your Best on Law School Exams - Part One, Part Two
Professor John Delaney, law professor of thirty years and author of the book How to Do Your Best on Law School Exams, gives advice on how to prepare for first year law exams.

If you would like additional one-on-one academic support, whether it's with legal writing or preparing for final exams, Professor Amy Griffin is always happy to help. Contact her at amy.griffin@colorado.edu.

CALI (the Center for Computer-Assisted Legal Instruction) provides the resources needed for the challenges of law school. CALI provides over 1,000 online interactive tutorials in legal subjects. To register, you'll need to enter our authorization code. Contact us at lawref@colorado.edu to obtain it.