Written by Polina Krivoshejeva
A little bit about me:
I am a first class graduate from the University of Law, where I studied LLB. I will soon be joining DAC Beachcroft as a paralegal in their property recoveries team to gain more practical experience before undertaking the SQE path to qualification in a couple of years’ time. While completing my undergraduate degree, I run the International Students’ Society for two years and I really enjoyed supporting and engaging with international students from diverse backgrounds. Therefore, I am excited to join It’s All Hearsay, as a blogger to assist our wonderful founder, Meg, in supporting such an amazing community of aspiring lawyers on your unique paths to a career in law.
LET’S GET INTO IT!
As the new academic year is in full force, we think this is the perfect opportunity to set out, or if you have already, to polish your strategy and study plan. At this point, we often have a little more time to get our thoughts together and think about how we are going to tackle not only the crunch points, but also the endless amounts of consolidation and revision that comes with it.
In this article, we will cover our top tips for studying, as well as, how you can really excel throughout the year.
Figuring out workable study tips and tricks will certainly help you to stay on top of things and have a great time at uni. That said, it took me a whole year to find an approach that works. Therefore, I am excited to be sharing with you tips that I have discovered much later in my degree. Both myself and our founder, Meg, were able to obtain first-class honour degrees at university with these tips.
PLEASE remember, though, that everyone has their own learning style and this method should be adapted to fit one’s own preferences.
First and foremost…
THE MINDSET IS KEY!
Doing well throughout your degree is not a crash course, it’s a pipeline. Therefore, it’s very helpful to set a learning-oriented, rather than a performance-oriented mindset.
And this is why: if you set a performance-oriented mindset, this means that your focus is essentially set on achieving praise for your knowledge and competencies. If you are solely focused on your performance, it is harder to accept the importance of making mistakes and getting constructive feedback for mistakes you make. Conversely, a learning-oriented mindset helps you to shift focus on long-term development and on building up the skills necessary to attain high performance. And what do we mean by a learning-oriented mindset in practice? For example, I never strived to top the course to begin with, rather I would set myself to enjoy every single day of the course by “learning less but more productively” over “cramming when the deadlines are tight”. I took time to learn from my mistakes and acknowledge a need for improvement does not equal failure. Equally, I found it very helpful to take time to reflect on whether my current approach yielded desired results and adjusted it regularly.
Additional tip:
Don’t set yourself to compete with your peers, they are your main support bubble as you are working towards the same goal. We can’t stress this enough. If you are set to compete with your peers, it creates an unhealthy mindset from the outset. Keep in touch and help each other out. Moreover, it boosts important transferrable skills that will help you in the future (think teamwork, collaboration, and communication).
NOW LET’S CONSIDER TWO WORKING STUDY TECHNIQUES: ACTIVE LEARNING AND SPACED MEMORY REPETITION
It’s been scientifically proven that these two methods are very powerful for university students to utilise. They are particularly helpful when you are required to learn, process and memorise a lot of information (which is exactly what law students are required to do).
Active learning involves using your brain power to retrieve information that you have already learned. It helps you to keep knowledge of the subject for a longer period of time. Here are two methods of active learning that I personally found very useful:
- Flashcards – start preparing them early in the year as you progress with the course and, once a week, spend 10-30 minutes revising materials that you’ve already covered in the course. IMPORTANT TIP: when you write flashcards, write down the number of points you’re trying to remember (for example, put the question on the front side, e.g. – is there a contract? Right below this question you put the number that refers to the number of points you are trying to remember, so we put 4, i.e. offer, acceptance, consideration and intention to create legal relations). That number will help you so much if you go over the flashcards multiple times. You’ll subconsciously recall that there are four key things to remember when you are setting out the law on whether there is a contract.
- “Explain to self” – this is a very helpful tip when you are making notes on complex concepts. Essentially, after taking notes on key concepts from every module you ask yourself – can I explain what [insert the concept] means? For example, what are the key ingredients to establish a claim of negligence? (duty of care, breach of that duty, damage caused by the breach, and foreseeability of such damage). You could go further and think about whether you can explain the tests necessary to establish each element. If you can’t – nothing to worry about, go back to your notes and try later.
Spaced repetition technique speaks for itself – you space your repetition of particular subjects over a period of time. It’s in contrast to cramming, which is a very approach to completing prep tasks. When you cram right before your workshop, you can probably remember quite a lot of what you’ve crammed, because it’s a short-term memory but by a few days, you’ve completely forgotten all of it. So cramming is not ideal, especially for law students because quite frankly we’d need to cram a lot and there are usually multiple unrelated subjects to prepare for.
NOW LET’S LOOK AT SOME PRACTICAL TIPS’S
Work smart, not hard!
This may sound silly but it is a really important trait for an aspiring lawyer to grasp early on. Lawyers can face immense workloads and if you are trying to work to your absolute hardest for every single task, then you are going to waste your time and burn out quickly. Therefore, you must know when to stop and this applies to studying!
So what do we mean by that?
Reading
One example of working smart, not hard, is to: only read what is required for each workshop and lecture. This will give you bitesize insights into the current subject and set you up with the necessary knowledge to do the initial work.
I used to read all the prep reading, but kept my focus on the most important parts (i.e. the substantive law and legal principles, or concepts I found difficult to understand in a lecture) and avoided becoming too caught up in the less essential arguments. Sometimes I did extra reading by googling articles written by scholars to get to the bottom of how the law came about and how historical events shaped it over time. This approach helped me to build stronger arguments in my essays. More specifically, it allowed me to argue desired changes in the law factoring in changes in societal norms and values. However, this approach is not sustainable if you adopt it to prepare for every workshop. So, I did extra reading only for the topics that may be assessed in an essay format. Reading too much will almost certainly overcrowd your learning and slow you down.
So, what is important, is to read the right things. For example, you may consider reading only the core textbook chapters and only recommended case law or journal articles for any workshop prep. If you pick your resources carefully, you will be able to read at an advanced analytical level with minimum effort.
Meg only read the reading that was set out each week while studying and found this to be plentiful. However, when it came to doing assignments or coursework, Meg would use the reading that was set to explore other journal articles and books through the references at the bottom of the page. This would help to expand on the knowledge that was already learnt and to find more reputable authors and opinions that would help extend the arguments being made.
Notes
Your notes are your best friend. Make sure they are presentable and easy to read and, importantly, are written in a way that matches your learning style, whether it’s bullet pointing your thoughts, drawing tables or using spider diagrams. If you stay on top of things and create summaries and useful guides early on, your future self will thank you when it comes to revision.
The @thelegalnortherner is a fantastic example for this. Jordon, throughout the LLB and LPC, has spent time perfecting his layout and the way in which he likes his notes to look. Jordon was incredibly consistent with using the same formatting, fonts and highlights to make his work smart and easy to navigate.
An example can be seen below:
This might not be for everyone but there are lots of great studies that have shown writing your notes in a form that stands out to you or that is aesthetically pleasing, can help you to remember the information and locate it in your long-term memory more easily!
Meg found typing her reading and notes helped to retain information and then after the prep, lecture and workshop would consolidate all her notes into one document for future use (blog article on revision techniques in more detail coming soon). Whereas I used to handwrite my notes and bullet point important points, as I remember and interact with the information better when I handwrite things down. So, try different methods and find what works best for you.
Summaries
Writing summaries of key case law is a vital use of time. Understanding the facts of each case/reasoning behind judgments will help you to develop a deeper understanding of the subject matter to make stronger arguments in the essays and show a broader understanding of the law in the problem questions.
That said, you don’t have to always read the full law report unless the task specifically asks you to analyse reasoning behind the decision. Otherwise, read case digests first to give you a snapshot of what the case is all about and when you’re reading the judgment itself refer to subheadings or key word searches to navigate through the essential parts including (but not limited to) factual background, relevant law and the outcome.
Have a look at All About Law’s article on tips on how you can read statutes and cases to get the most out of them when writing essays and answering problem questions.
The article suggests that while headnotes are useful, it may be worth reading as much of the case as possible to understand legal reasoning, and potentially read similar cases to build stronger arguments. Again, it’s important that you constantly think about what works best for you.
Other resources
Use stick notes to help you navigate through your student guides and colour code everything.
We mean EVERYTHING: folders, notebooks, highlighters, key words etc. It is psychologically proven that if you match specific colours to certain topics you remember things better. This can even work with your music choices so stick on certain playlists when you are doing certain modules!
Our Founder’s secret to gaining top marks
Meg’s biggest studying secret is to record yourself reading your notes.
This will create useful snapshots that you can listen to at any point. You can listen to them while you are cooking dinner, while you are in the shower, walking to university or even in the gym. These recordings will allow for less study time and more socials too: win, win.
It may seem like quite a laboursome task at first but it really does help with consolidation and keeping your revision in the front of your mind.
AND LASTLY… DON’T JUST STUDY
It’s vital to do what you love and what brings you joy – dedicate some of your time to your favourite hobbies, get involved in extracurricular activities and volunteering opportunities and don’t forget to rest – give yourself an opportunity to recharge your batteries. I believe that dedicating time to my hobbies was one of the most important factors in my academic success because it helps to boost creativity and enhances productivity.
TO CONCLUDE
It is crucial to set up your mindset for success as early as possible in the study year. Identifying a learning style that works for you and using the right learning strategies will help you develop a growth mindset. Finding the best techniques to enrich your learning process will increase your mastery of new concepts and your motivation for lifelong learning which will lead to higher levels of achievement both at the university and, more generally, in your career.
There’s no one prescribed formula as to how you approach your studies – what works for one may not work for another as we are all unique in the way we approach doing things. But we hope that you found some useful tips that you may wish to implement and that they will help you to achieve your study goals, as well as allow you to spare more time for your hobbies. Remember, it’s crucial that you take time off from your studies. It will help you to work productively and achieve the goals you have set for yourself.
it's all hearsay 