Digesting Cases in My Brain

As a law student we are bound to read countless cases, some interesting, some crazy, and quite some horrifying (criminal cases give me nightmares).  That is an understatement my dears.  During my earlier years in law school I would dread those classes (and professors) who assign 20-30 cases per session.  On a lucky semester,  I get to multiply that number by 3 or 4, that's almost 100 cases each day!

Then I realize that I should not look at case reading as a terrible experience and forcefully convinced myself that it should be a pain I ought to be looking forward to.  Just enjoy it to the fullest in the same way that I enjoy reading my Facebook timeline or as interesting as stalking my party-mates on IG.   From then on,  I started viewing this activity as an opportunity to learn about the 'chismis' of strangers' lives.   You bet this change in perspective made my life a lot easier!

Do the 'full monty' baby

As a rule,   I would read the full text and no, I am not being barbaric to myself.  There is something so fulfilling when you know you are not missing out on some useless details in each case.  Digests would be helpful if I did them in the first place.  I would only look at others digest as a last resort, or in emergency cases.  In fact, I seldom join digest groups because,  I just find it so limiting.  

I think I wrote a post about how to easily find the important points of every case you read.  Despite this,  I do not discount the power of other peoples digests when the full text is super lengthy or when I have a hard time finding the issues.  

How I Do Digests in my brain

Lately,  due to other commitments (like partying and doing my hair and makeup on a daily basis),  I am unable to spend much time doing case digests.  To resolve this,  I discovered an easier way to do it,  doing brain digests! This is how I do it.  Follow at your own risk!

a. Read the case, make a mental note of the important points, facts, issues, rulings.  Then I would go over it if there are some points that I forget or clarify. 

b. On the day itself, I would skim again and just focus on the main points.  

c.  If I still have time,  I guess by the third skimming, the brain is quite familiar with the important points and that's it.  Digest in my brain, no sweat!

Whys

1) I don't have much time

The thing is, digesting or summarizing cases takes time when you have to read then do an outline, and put it in writing or encode it.  For the past year,  I have done my case readings either the day or night before a class.  I do not get the hardcopy, I just make do with the online version because you save on ink and paper by doing so. 

2) I'm not rich enough to have a secretary or PA to gather my notes into an intelligible and organized whole

For one, I am not really good at note taking. I get distracted when I take notes.  I don't even have a proper notebook or note taking system.  Aside from the distraction, even if I get myself some notepad, I would either forget or lose it so what's the point?

Come exam time, somehow my brain retains those bits of digest.  In some weird twist I can recall infos and issues.   It works for me.   Mind you, I am just an average student,  I just find a way to learn things differently by trial and error method.  I guess you just have to find a way that will make it easier for you to survive your case assignments.   This is mine.

Nevertheless,  one of these days, I might get down and gather all these cases in my head to add to the case digest section of this blog for those emergency times, you know.  If you find this post enlightening or worth sharing don't be shy to share it in your social media or just click on the 'Follow' button on my Google+ located in the upper right side of this page, believe me, it would be the best decision you have ever made in your entire day. ;P

5 Tips in Dealing with Case Assignments

 Case list

We law students know the drill.  Every waking hour while we are in law school we will always be bombarded with tons of cases. These cases breathe life to all those laws that we read, they make everything come to life in full color to help us appreciate and learn how the law is applied in real life.

The case assignments come in all shapes and lengths.  Like you,  I dread those long cases.  Who could ever forget that plunder case against an ex-President which ran for hundreds of pages.  Did you read it?  Even if seeing how thick it was almost gave me a minor heart attack,  I attempted to read it somehow! Finishing it is another story though.

Fact is, there is simply no substitute to reading the full text of a case.  I know, I post digests of some cases here but that's because I've read the full version.  Here are a few strategies I use when it comes to reading and tackling those gazillions of cases.

1.  My first rule is to always read the full text of cases.  At least make an attempt to do just that.  This is quite a struggle for most people (like me) but there are ways you can improve your reading speed and still understand what the content is all about.  I have written a post before on speed reading please click here or on the link below.

2. If I have no time left,  as it usually happens during those semesters that I work and study,  I would get to my class earlier and ask a friend (who's good at summarizing) to give me a brief about a case.  I would always ask first what's the issue, then the details will just follow.  Knowing the ISSUE will guide you on what to look for and what to ask.

3.  I know you have had those cases that are just cray and hard to understand.  I am talking about those that contain multiple issues.  If it is a long case and it is possible for me to get a rough outline or digest about the issue, then that's when I would resort to a digest just to give me an idea of what it's all about. But still I would, if I could TRY to read (somehow) the full text of that case.

4. On digests,  I use them sparingly and only as a last resort.   I know some people live on digests, some CAN survive on digests and I have nothing to say bad about them.   Based on my own experience,  I always get this nagging voice in my head reminding me that if it is some big, significant or landmark case, then I owe it to myself to at least put an effort to read its full text.  That is the only way for me to really understand how the case progressed and how it was resolved.

5.  Finally, you should be able to recognize which long cases you should read because there are those cases you will encounter that run for pages but actually tackles a really simple issue.  Sometimes you get drowned in the details of the case that you actually get lost and lose time reading it.  Be aware of these kinds of cases.

There was a time when I wished I had a secretary or case reader who can simply digest all my cases for me to save on time (haha, wishful thinking).  After my first year in law school, I learned better. Always strive to read your full texts my dears.

5 Tips to Acing Your Law Midterm Exams Week

I dunno about you guys but since my load is so light this semester I am actually super excited for my midterms exams week. Since I actually read my materials faithfully this semester (a miracle),  I think I will just be needing little time to review them for the exams. I can understand the stress of those taking full load or overload this semester and I feel for you.

Exams week is definitely a time for law students to do more sleepless nights, drink more coffee and do stuff that normal people not in law school often see in movies.  I remember there were days before that I would not sleep for 2-3 days!

Stress is also very high on these week so if you know someone, a member of the family a bf/gf who is in law school, kindly give them more patience and understanding at these times.  For good measure, give them time to be alone (as if we don't do much alone time with our books already) to make and or review those outlines they painstakenly made for easier recall.  In fact, it would be great if you forget we do not exist in this world for a week.

Here are my few cents on how to survive your midterms exams week:

1. Cramming works only for some people.

Anyways, I hope everybody who are cramming for the exams will remember everything you read during your exam.  Cramming can work for some people (including me) but a better way to study is just really do your readings on regular days and not 3 days before the exams.

2.  Log off or lessen your social media 

I know it is hard but I admit that FaceBook and Twitter are great time-eaters.  During exams week,  I would suggest logging off or limiting your time to say 5 minutes per day to any of these social networks.  This long weekend, I actually logged off my my personal FB account just so I can spend more time to my books.

3.  Get some R & R before the actual exams week.

All study and no pay will make you a dull law student so take some time off this weekend for a movie, a chat, trip to the spa or any activity that will relax you brain a bit before going to 'war.' Trust me, it helps!  I am actually thinking of partying this weekend.  I hope my pre-exams night will push through!

4.  Get some sleep!

Okay this is really impossible for some people but sleeping will actually help you function more effectively during exams.  Thus, it will aid you in remembering stuff.  Being awake 24 hours or more before an exams is disaster and I am sure you'll agree.  I have experienced my mind going blank over a simple question as if my brain hang like a PC just because I did not sleep the night before.

5.  Do light exercises to improve blood circulation.

I would suggest you do light cardio, a 30 minute jog or briskwalk just around your neighborhood to get you blood circulation pumped up.  Your brain and heart will love it.  A healthy brain and heart is essential to surviving law school.

I would often budget my time when reading and take a break whenever I feel that I can no longer understand the text in front of me.  (You know that when you just read a paragraph over and over and it doesn't register anymore.)  Since I am a fond of fitness,  I would sometimes lift some weights during breaks just to break the monotony. It actually pushes me to read faster and understand better because I am now looking forward to hitting my fitness goal for the day during my study break!

Here's a crazy tip I started doing this myself since 2 weeks ago.   I would read in my bed and actually do sets of crunches while at it. Make sure you are lying on a flat surface while reading, no pillows under your head then start raising your legs until they are perpendicular to the your torso, that's it!  It is hard at first but you will get used to it and end up having a tighter abs if you do it regularly.  That's like hitting two birds in one stone.

Good luck guys! We shall slay these exams! :)


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• Time Flies Fast When You're in Law School
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The Blogger
Hi! I'm a law student from Manila, Philippines.  I did Political Science, then Industrial Relations major in H.R. (postgrad) studies from UP.  I vlog, weightlift, experiment with new makeup looks, try Bollywood and bellydance steps, and rant about my cray life in my YouTube channel.  Once in a blue moon, I create content for another YT channel,  10+ blogs,  20+ FB pages and in HubPages.  Check out my official site.  

Time Flies Fast When You're in Law School

Have you ever had that feeling that time is spinning faster than usual?  I do, these days in particular. This might have been caused by a myriad of factors.  Perhaps I have become more organized and now preoccupied with lists (both daily & yearly) that accomplishing each item as much as I can made time whirl as if on fast forward.

In line with my countdown to projected future phases in my law school life,  I downloaded this application called 'Countdown' (see screengrab above) which literally counts down to the last second of any event you find worth remembering or preparing for.  That is on Blackberry by the way but I am sure you can also download the same app on Android phones.

Based on the application's calculation I realized that I have only a little bit more than 200 days to finish the current school year and double that number of days before the major bar exams next year, oh la la!

These just puts my brain on survival and countdown mode and made me frantic for a few days now.  I would review my list of daily tasks all leading to these two major events and each time feel that I am doing barely enough.  I realized that I need to up the pace if I want to be on track.

How I Make a Study Time Table

Making a time table a year ahead is easy of you are clear about your study goals.  I just think of what I need to accomplish at particular dates in the future and work from there backwards.  What I do on a daily basis is to do something all leading to that study goal.  This is my effective way of eating my 'frog' one chew at a time.  Start mapping out your time table if you intend to take the bar soon.

Since I have a very light load this time,  I intend to advance my readings into those subjects I will get the next semester to make use of the precious time I have.  If I stay on course and follow strictly my task list,  I would finish reading all my materials by 31 October 2015.   This leaves me with about 75 days more to go!  Then after this,  I would give myself a fresh round of 3 months to re-read the material and finish it by 31 January 2016.  Still pushing with the time schedule I have for the following semester I will finish my 3rd reading by 30 April 2016.

Tall order, eh?  It is better to put all these things in perspective as early as now.  Knowing and realizing the urgency will make you study efficiently.  How about you?

When Penmanship Counts

Photo credits : Sybil Liberty via Flickr

Earlier I read an interesting article detailing about the secrets of a 2014 Philippine bar examiner and I learned that for him to be able to finish checking those bar exams booklet, he has to check at least 50 a day!  Now that is a lot.

This is where a bar examinee's handwriting is crucial.  If you are planning to take the bar and your handwriting resembles that of chicken scratch,  time to take note.  You better improve that handwriting while you have time.

If you are planning to be a doctor, having an unreadable handwriting is an asset. I really do not understand why doctors' handwriting are a class of their own but it is not for me to judge. Maybe it a requirement or maybe they are just too busy to write legibly, who knows.

However, if you are a law student planning to take the bar, your handwriting counts.  This is not to say that having the perfect handwriting will make you pass the bar. No matter how good the handwriting is if the content is nonsense then it will be useless. The main point here is that according to many law professors and other people I came across with who already passed the bar, a good handwriting is a skill that you should not take for granted.

Let's look at it this way, let's put ourselves in the shoes of a bar examiner who is tasked to check about 5000 plus exam booklets.  Would we be able to understand the answer written if the handwriting is unreadable? I don't think so.  If the examiner had a bad day before taking a look at your booklet, goodluck!

If you are one of those planning to have a pleasant bar exams experience and result and your handwriting is less than desirable, don't fret because you can still do something about it.  How about setting a goal and a daily schedule to improve your handwriting?  Of course it is doable.  You can set 15 minutes per day to write about anything under the sun. If you have an ideal handwriting that you would like to copy then by all means.

If you do practice religiously for a month, it will become a habit. Practice makes habit.  If you are serious about fixing that horrible handwriting, you better start now. :)

The Blogger
Hi! I'm a law student from Manila, Philippines.  I did Political Science, then Industrial Relations major in H.R. (postgrad) studies from UP.  I vlog, weightlift, experiment with new makeup looks, try Bollywood and bellydance steps, and rant about my cray life in my YouTube channel.  Once in a blue moon, I create content for another YT channel,  10+ blogs,  20+ FB pages and in HubPages.  Check out my official site.