Tips and techniques for law students

The Manila Times · 29 Jun 2017 · BY MARION MORALES

ATTY. JIM LOPEZ has written a most helpful book for those entering the equivalent of Dante
Alighieri’s
DivinaCommedia (1307) – the law schools in the long assignments, cranky professors, vicious
insults, numerous case studies, and protracted recitation.”
Ranged against this “dark side” of law school is the book, (Anvil Publishing), a treasure trove
of history, lore, tips and techniques for the aspiring lawyer. The author is a three-time winner
of the National Book Award for his books The Law on Annulment of Marriage (2001), Judg-
ment Proof: How to Protect Your Property and Business from Lawsuits (2003), and The Law
on Alternative Dispute Resolutions (2004).
This UP College of Law alumnus asks outright: How should you cope with the rigors of law
school?
a lawyer.” Right. So those of us who took – and passed with high grades – the UP Law Apti-
tude Exams in 1984 but did not pursue it wouldn’t fare well anyway. Pushed by fathers who
were lawyers themselves and only following the template others have prepared for us, we
would have found the tomes too thick to read, the articles too many to memorize. The eyes
blur, the head aches, and you
Being a lawyer should be your dream, and since it is your dream, let nothing snatch it away
from you, including that demon called fear. “Nihiltimendumest. be the motto of law students
who wish to excel in law school and in the practice of law.” Atty. Lopez argues that the law is
relatively easy to study – if you have the strategy and the commitment to excel. Your mantra
should be this: “Nothing is better than a most diligent life.” And what is the cause of failure
and dropouts? “Unfamiliarity with the new environment and lack of preparation.”
Atty. Lopez shrewdly paraphrases Charles Darwin’s OntheOriginofSpeciesbyNaturalSelection
(1859). In law school, the one who survives is not the strongest of the species, or even the
most intelligent, but the one “most responsive to change.” And change begins in freshman
year, the period of adjustment and the scariest. “An intense culture shock will be felt, a time
in which the tectonic plates will be rubbing up against one another in ways that often make
law school a jarring experience.”
- ily Relations will ask you to make a digest of 200 cases – in your own penmanship, which he
will compare with your penmanship in the midterm do the digests for you. This is when your
professor articles in the Revised Penal Code, Book I, while you’re standing up, sweat dribbling
down your back because the professor said you missed “one word” in Article 5. This is when
everybody is watching the WonderWoman was two years ago, because you were busy
wrestling with the thousands of pages in your law books.
We are no longer in Wichita; we are no longer in college. Welcome to law school, where there
is little handholding from teachers and administrators, and you are on your own.
The former Dean of the UP College of Law, Dean Merlin Magallona, remembers his teacher,
Professor Troadio Quiason, asking him a question in class based on a footnote found in the
textbook. once asked a student to recite a case. The student did so, and with eloquence, too.
But the Dean’s last of the defendant in that case?”
But at year’s end, the freshman student begins to see how the laws intersect in a logical, if not
grand, design. It is what the late Senator and constitutional lawyer Miriam Defensor Santiago
called “the majesty of the law.”
Moreover, one begins to think like a lawyer, which “involves suspending judgment, much as
the reader A lawyer may have to argue either side of any case or question, so one should not
come to an opinion too quickly.”
How about study methods? Atty. Lopez gives us 10 tips. 1) Write a brief schedule and stick to it;
2) Schedule your study time for your hard courses during law-school hours so that you can get
help from law professors; 3) Do all of your homework and hand them on time; 4) Write your
work neatly because neat papers get better grades; 5) Make sure all your work is accurate and
complete; 6) Write brief outlines; 7) Study when you say you’re going to study; 8) Ask advice
from your law professors about problems you’re having and follow their suggestions; 9)
Listen closely and look interested in the classroom; and 10) Be persistent. - ing notes along
the way. You also have to read your notes after every class, and after every book chapter, to
understand them, or even to rewrite them neatly. The Rozakis Method also tells you to study
the sleepy or tired. Give yourself short breaks; stretch every 15 or 30 minutes or so. My
lawyer-friend who is now studying in Hungary told me that she would rest from the density
of the law texts every 30 minutes, scanning the green ceiling. Look at the big picture – what is
the issue, the law, and the application? What is the policy behind the legal ruling?
And do not forget to eat, sleep, exercise, and maintain good relations with your family and
friends – even if you rarely see them now. And that, ladies and gentleman, is the closing argu-
ment for anybody who wants to be a damned good lawyer.