Automate Your Blogs

1)      NEVER pay attention to anyone else. This is the absolute MOST important rule. Now, sure, there might be some exceptions, like a study partner, but for the most part you want to avoid others, at least on an academic basis. (Don’t take me too literally and become a recluse!) Everyone works at a different pace, and everyone works best in a different environment. Listening to how many hours Bob, your neighbor in Torts, spent in the library will just stress you out one way or another. Same goes for talking extensively about exams or other homework assignments, it will just make you insane. And let’s face it, law school already makes you a bit insane.

2)      Stay Ahead. By this I mean don’t get behind. I know, easier said than done, right? This doesn’t mean just doing the assigned work from day to day, but UNDERSTAND what you are doing from day to day. Don’t wait until a week before exams to attempt to master something from the first week of classes.

3)      Ask Questions. This is one way to accomplish number 2. Do not be afraid to ask your professors questions – it’s what they are there for! If it seems too intimidating to ask a question in class, schedule a meeting with your professor during office hours. If this doesn’t work, you have lovely people like LawTutors (hint hint! Ha ha!) to help you out!

4)      Use Class time wisely. Remember, you don’t have to understand everything going INTO class, you go to class for a reason, to LEARN. I realize that class can be intimidating, and it seems like you have to go in understanding absolutely everything. This is simply not true. The purpose of class is to help you understand the information. You still want to prepare for class, so that you can understand the cases the professor is going over, and keep up with the lecture, but you do not have to comprehend every nuance of the law before class starts.

5)      Outlining. First understand that there is not a perfect outline. The purpose of outlining is to synthesize and understand the information, and to help you prepare for your exam.  This means that every outline might be a bit different.

6)      Practice, Practice Practice. Do not start practicing exam writing the week before the exam, start practicing day one of class. The purpose of the exam is to see how well you can APPLY the law, not how well you can memorize it. This means that knowing the law is only half the battle. The best way to do this is to find old exams that your professor has used, and many offer them online. This allows you to not only practice, but familiarize yourself with your professor’s style. I also suggest LawTutor’s MiniEssays (www.lawtutors.net), which are paragraph long questions, designed to test just one topic (for instance, battery , or offer) and your IRAC skills. You might also try Aspen’s Examples and Explanations, which are a great source of black letter law AND hypotheticals.

7)      Use your time effectively. Don’t study for the sake of studying – study EFFECTIVELY. How you might ask? By not trying to memorize law, but by applying it. Go through hypos with a friend, practice essays, think of different scenarios in your head, or rewrite rules of law in  your own words. Remember, this is not a game of memorization, it’s a game of understanding and application.

      Master IRAC. Isssue. Rule. Analysis. Conclusion. This will help you through all exams, including the bar, and remember, analysis is the most important part.

9)      Find a good study partner. I’m not a huge advocate of study groups, or relying on others too much, but finding one other person whose study style matches your own can be a benefit. The two of you can answer questions for each other, AND you can bounce ideas off of one another and practice hypos together.

10)   Last, RELAX. Get good rest, as hard as that is, go out once in awhile, and add a bit of humor into your life, like this site! http://overheardinlawschool.blogspot.com/

Hopefully these 10 tips help you get settled in. I’m going to be expanding on these topics throughout the semester.

LawTutors would like to take this time to encourage all law students to join the student division of the ABA!

I think the most helpful method is to assign the same question to everyone in your group. All will prepare a list of the legal theories they spot in the question. Under each legal theory, they should write a rule for the theory and the words from the fact pattern they used to decide which legal theories were applicable. When the group meets, you can share your insights. What one person doesn’t find, another will. When you have agreed on a list of issues, send everyone home to write out an answer. When everyone has a written answer, meet again to share. You can compare the organization of your answers and discuss the problems you had in writing.

As you near exam time, practice under timed conditions. If the question you choose to work on is an hour question, give everyone a half hour to prepare their notes for an answer. Then meet and share notes. Next everyone should take a half hour to write the answer. If you have written answers to one-issue fact patterns throughout the semester and have started your exam preparation by practicing with the multi-issue questions, you should be prepared. You should be able to spot the issues in a long fact pattern, know which words are in it for what purpose, and have a workable format for an answer. At this point in your exam preparation your major concern should be the organization of the answers to your professor’s complex questions.

This method works just as well for policy questions for which this book cannot prepare you. You and your classmates should be able to list the professor’s favorite “buzz” words and figure out how to use them to answer a question.Your undergraduate essay and paper writing have probably prepared you adequately for this type of question once you have determined just what your professor is after.

Howard Stern repeatedly and willfully breached his written contract
with CBS Radio over the last 22 months of that contract,
misappropriated millions of dollars worth of CBS Radio airtime for his
own financial benefit, and fraudulently concealed his interest in
hundreds of millions of dollars of Sirius stock while promoting it on
the air.

That on or about January 9, 2006, Sirius paid over 34 million shares of
stock, valued at approximately $220 million, to Stern and his agent
because Sirius exceeded by the end of 2005 certain subscriber targets
that were set in the Sirius-Stern contract. The complaint alleges that
the Sirius-Stern contract provided that Stern was to receive this stock
payment in 2010, but it had an acceleration provision that allowed
Stern to receive the compensation as early as January 2006 if these
subscriber targets were met. All of Stern’s actions for which he
received this expedited compensation occurred during the time that
Stern was under exclusive contract with CBS Radio, when the Sirius
payment terms to Stern were kept secret.

This contract thus provided a compelling incentive for Stern to do all
that he could to help Sirius reach the subscriber targets by the end of
2005 so that he could receive his Sirius stock payment as soon as
possible while Sirius’s stock was extremely valuable. Without the
accelerated payment, Stern would risk the decline of the Sirius stock
value. By taking action on CBS Radio’s airtime in 2004 and 2005, Stern
assured himself of immediate access to $200 million in assets that
could be readily converted to cash.

By engaging in continuous promotion of Sirius on CBS Radio airtime
without any payment by Sirius to CBS for these advertisements and by
pocketing over $200 million dollars for his personal benefit, Stern
misappropriated millions of dollars worth of CBS Radio airtime for his
own financial benefit and the financial benefit of Don Buchwald, his
agent, and Sirius in contravention of repeated directives by CBS Radio.

That Stern also breached his contractual obligation to inform CBS Radio
of plans that might have a bearing on his future. Under the Agreement,
Stern had the obligation to give CBS Radio the first opportunity to
discuss participation in radio projects that are conceived during the
term of the Agreement, even if the concept or project was launched or
implemented after the term. Stern ignored that responsibility, and
negotiated and concluded his agreement with Sirius in secret.

To this day, Stern continues to breach his contract by refusing to
return property that belongs to CBS Radio — the recordings of his CBS
radio program that, under his Agreement with CBS Radio, belong to the
company.

The suit further charges that Sirius intentionally interfered with and procured Stern’s breach of the Agreement. Sirius knew that Stern had a contractual obligation to maximize the prospects for the success of the CBS Radio program and to comply with his duty of good faith. Sirius intentionally induced and caused Stern to breach these contractual provisions by offering to accelerate Stern’s payment of millions of dollars in stock options to promote Sirius on CBS airwaves and by concealing Stern’s stock interest from CBS Radio.
The complaint in this lawsuit was filed in the Supreme Court of the State of New York, County of New York.