Looking Back on My First Semester of Law School

Looking Back on the Semester

I have finished my first semester of law school. I received an A+ in all four of my courses: Fundamental Rights in Constitutional Law, General Principles of Civil Law, Specific Topics in the Law of Obligations, and the General Part of Criminal Law.

I was genuinely happy when I saw the results. But the numbers alone were not the whole reason. I had never been confident that I would do particularly well, and throughout the semester I had no real sense of where I stood. What pleased me most was that, when I looked back carefully, a semester spent simply doing what I could and trying to stay consistent had ended with very little to regret.

At First, My Goal Was Simply Not to Fall Behind

The goal I set when I entered law school was honestly quite modest: “Let’s stay above average. Just don’t fall behind.”

Law school brings together people who are genuinely outstanding in their respective fields. For me, this was also one of the first times I had properly competed within a group like that. On top of that, I entered law school after working as a developer for many years. My previous career certainly helped in some ways as I began studying again, but when it came to legal study and exam preparation, I still had to adjust from the beginning.

Before enrolling, I had completed one pass through civil law. At the time, I heard so often that everyone entered with roughly that much preparation that I did not consider it a major advantage. Looking back after the semester, however, that preparation helped far more than I expected. Because I had already seen the overall structure once, I was less likely to lose my way in class, and I could redirect the time and energy I saved toward my other subjects.

Other than that, I did not think I had any special secret. I was not confident that I could study for more than ten hours every day, but I did believe that during exam periods I could put in around seven hours without missing a day. Rather than relying on occasional bursts of long hours, I placed my faith in how long I could sustain consistency and concentration.

A Routine That Began with an Iced Americano

On weekdays, I would make an iced Americano with my favorite espresso machine at home and take it with me to school. It was a small thing, but I liked beginning each day in more or less the same way.

After my morning classes, I would review what I had just heard and try to reconstruct the lesson in my head. During the semester, I usually ate only one meal a day and often skipped lunch, so I would use that time to organize my notes instead. This was less a study method than simply a personal habit I happened to have at the time.

Once my afternoon classes were over, I would return home and cook dinner. Coffee and cooking may have been my main sources of entertainment that semester. After eating, I took a fairly long break. Rather than holding on to my books while resting halfheartedly, I tried to step away from them altogether and clear my head for a while. Once I had rested enough, I would sit down again at night, finish the rest of my studying, and go to bed.

Outside of class, I usually managed around four hours of focused study a day. During exam periods, that increased to around seven hours, and on some weekends I studied for close to ten. I did not designate a separate rest day on weekends; with no classes, I instead used them to secure more study time.

Of course, I did not study at the same intensity every day. At one point, I felt that I would burn out completely if I kept going as I was. When that happened, I did not stop studying altogether. Instead, I reduced the day’s work to around two hours. It was effectively a rest day, but one that kept the rhythm from breaking. I would wrap up early, get a full night’s sleep, and usually find myself back at my normal pace the next day.

What I tried to protect that semester was not the ability to reach my maximum every single day. Even when I had to slow down because I was not feeling well, I wanted to hold on to the routine of studying itself. I cared about keeping that routine intact and making the hours I did spend genuinely focused, rather than chasing time for its own sake.

Class Was Ultimately at the Center of My Studying

The principle I set at the beginning of the semester was simple: pay attention in class, and do not let preparation and review fall behind.

Rather than trying to transcribe every sentence, I focused on following the professor’s “flow.” I watched the order in which the reasoning was built, why a particular case was introduced at a certain point, and which topics received lengthy explanations while others were passed over quickly. A university course has its own structure, distinct from online lectures or private prep courses, and I thought understanding that structure was the proper starting point for studying the subject.

Surprisingly, I did not consult general textbooks all that often during the semester. I mainly used them to clarify concepts that confused me. In courses based on lecture materials, I repeatedly reviewed those materials; in courses centered on a book written by the professor, I focused on that book. Rather than expanding my materials indiscriminately, I first tried to understand the scope actually covered in class.

As exams approached, I compressed what I had studied into my own summary notes—something like the densely packed “cram sheets” law students often make. They were not polished documents intended for anyone else to read. They were closer to documents in which I explained the material to myself. (They could therefore be rather cryptic, but since I was the only reader, I let that pass.) Instead of copying sentences directly from the book, I rewrote them in my own words and rearranged them into an order I found easier to remember.

As I organized the material, I kept asking myself: Does this sentence naturally prompt the next issue? Could I reproduce this expression in the exam room? Sentences I had copied without understanding were ultimately difficult to memorize, while ideas rewritten in my own language stayed with me far longer, even if the phrasing was somewhat rough.

The Study Group

Before entering law school, I had not given much thought to joining a study group. I was used to studying alone and probably assumed that studying was, by nature, something one did individually.

A few weeks into the semester, I formed a study group with friends from my orientation group. We met in the evenings about twice a week to explain legal issues to one another and review what we had covered in class. During exam periods, each of us also wrote true-or-false questions, pooled them together, and worked through them as a group. (That process also gave rise to a personal project I have grown quite attached to, Law Solver.)

The study group made me think more deeply about material I believed I already knew, explain it aloud, and then hear it explained again. Some things seemed clear in my head, only for my sentences to fall apart when I tried to explain them. Those points were exactly where my understanding was still incomplete. Hearing someone else explain the same material also revealed lines of reasoning I had not noticed while studying alone.

Writing true-or-false questions was useful as well. I had to consider which part of a case statement could be altered to change the outcome, and that naturally made me read each sentence more carefully. I had not expected it at first, but the study group became a major help both academically and in adjusting to life at law school.

Constitutional Law: Following the Reasoning of Constitutional Court Decisions

Constitutional law was the subject I liked most that semester. I found the relationship between state action and individual fundamental rights fascinating, and I liked the way constitutional reasoning looked beyond the individual right at issue to consider broader social circumstances. Its mode of thought was quite different from civil law, however, so moving between the two required a brief mental shift.

For constitutional law, I memorized what we called the “templates”: the essential points that had to appear in an answer, definitions of fundamental rights, and other basic structures. I did not want to reconstruct the framework from scratch in the exam room. Put simply, I would first get the memorized template onto the page almost on reflex, and then “freestyle” the substantive reasoning.

For that substantive reasoning, I tried to draw heavily from the original texts of Constitutional Court decisions. I read as many decisions as I could and tried to understand not only the result but why the Court had reached it. Reading the different opinions and arguments contained in those decisions gradually gave me ideas I could use even when faced with a new fact pattern.

My approach to constitutional law was therefore to place reasoning drawn from the cases onto a framework I had already memorized. Since it was a subject I genuinely liked, reading the decisions themselves was also relatively enjoyable.

General Principles of Civil Law: Reading the Professor’s Textbook Closely

General Principles of Civil Law was the subject I studied in the greatest depth. Because I had already seen the overall system before the semester began, I could roughly understand how individual issues connected to later topics throughout civil law. That made it easier to prioritize and allowed me to focus more closely on the detailed reasoning covered in class. I came to enjoy that seemingly bottomless depth of logic in its own way.

The course was centered on a textbook written by the professor, so it was important to read it without leaving gaps. Rather than ranging widely across other materials, I repeatedly reviewed the textbook’s detailed sentences, cases, hypothetical structures, and the points the professor emphasized in class. It would have been reasonable to wonder, “Will this even be on the bar exam?” Still, I studied deeply—very deeply—with the belief that building a stronger foundation in civil law would eventually prove useful.

One of the most difficult topics for me was agency. Limitation periods were complicated too, but after enough repetition, I could begin to see their internal rules. Agency, by contrast, involved several parties and legal relationships that varied greatly with the facts. Even if I knew the doctrine, a mistaken application to the facts could send the entire answer in the wrong direction. There were practice problems I tackled enthusiastically, thinking, “I’m actually pretty good at civil law,” only to open the model answer and realize that I had taken a completely different path halfway through. That was a little terrifying.

Perhaps because of those experiences, by the time finals approached I was reading each hypothetical with much greater care, paying close attention to both the facts and the relief being sought. I would first identify what had to be decided, reread the full fact pattern with that in mind, and mark the facts relevant to each legal element. I tried not merely to follow the story of the dispute, but to read while assigning legal significance to each fact.

Specific Topics in the Law of Obligations: Practicing Fast Recall of Cases

In the Law of Obligations, I constantly memorized case law. Some of the basic doctrines were relatively simple once understood, but there were a great many precedents, and in quite a few of them the outcome was difficult to predict from doctrine alone. They were the kind of cases where, as we often said, “If you don’t know it, you simply get it wrong.”

For that reason, rather than deciding which cases I could safely leave out, I tried to eliminate as many unfamiliar issues and precedents as possible. When I missed a multiple-choice question, I did not stop after checking the correct answer; I went back and read the cases behind the incorrect options as well. Later, I gathered only the questions I had missed and solved them again. I think I memorized close to 1,000 cases over the course of the semester. Once those were in my head, rereading the textbook became a strangely satisfying experience: the moment a familiar phrase appeared, the conclusion would come back to me as well.

The exam required an extremely high level of concentration and speed. I had a little room to spare on the midterm, but the final was far more tightly timed. I had to work through true-or-false questions, five-option multiple-choice questions, and the issues in the essay problems almost reflexively. Had I lingered on any one question, I probably would not have finished. I needed practice reading quickly with a clear head and retrieving the relevant cases and issues immediately. In the actual exam, I worked through the questions that way and reached the end at almost the exact moment time was called.

General Part of Criminal Law: Studying with Clear Priorities

For the General Part of Criminal Law, I matched my studying to the emphasis the professor placed on different topics in class. I did not organize every doctrinal theory to the same depth. Where a doctrinal dispute materially affected the outcome, I studied the competing views and their reasoning in detail. Elsewhere, I kept my notes simpler and focused on case law and basic doctrine.

In criminal-law hypotheticals, I felt it was especially important not to omit issues. Even with a sound understanding of the overall structure, missing a single point that had to be examined for a particular actor or issue could affect the entire answer. When I compared my work with model answers, I therefore checked first for issues I had failed to spot rather than merely asking whether my ultimate conclusion was correct.

I tried to memorize as much as possible. Still, I could not perfectly retain material that refused to stay in my head even after several reviews. For those topics, rather than holding a vague memory of every theory and argument, I made sure I could at least state the conclusion reached by the courts. Exam preparation takes place within a fixed amount of time, so it was also necessary to decide what to study deeply and which topics to retain only in their bare essentials.

What I Did After Solving a Problem Mattered More

During exam periods, I increased both my total study time and the proportion devoted to practice questions. After solving an essay hypothetical, I compared it with the model answer and marked every issue I had missed. For multiple-choice questions, I reread the precedents connected to the incorrect options, then returned later to solve only the questions I had previously missed.

Not every wrong answer had the same cause. Sometimes I had misunderstood the facts. Sometimes I knew the doctrine but failed to connect it to the problem. At other times, I skipped an issue I had not even considered. I had to distinguish among those causes before I could correct them in the next round of studying.

Ultimately, what I needed in the exam room was not the vague feeling that I had “seen this before.” I had to identify the issue, recall the necessary doctrine, and articulate it in an answer within the time limit. I memorized more relentlessly during exam periods precisely because retrieving material quickly mattered just as much as putting it into my head.

The Semester Was Not Spent on Studying Alone

At the beginning of the semester, the fact that I was still awkward around my classmates sometimes felt more intimidating than the studying itself. I was beginning a new kind of competition in an unfamiliar environment, and there were not yet many people with whom I could speak comfortably.

I gradually became closer to the friends in my orientation group as we ate lunch together and met for our study sessions. Even at my most exhausted, simply having them around gave me a sense of stability and relief. Each of us had to do our own studying, but that did not mean we had to endure the semester itself alone.

Joining the tennis club was another good decision. I signed up rather boldly despite having no experience, enjoyed the very first session so much that I immediately bought a racket, and began playing with friends to relieve stress. I also took lessons through the school and improved quite a bit along the way. Stepping away from exams and study talk for a while to get moving and work up a sweat helped more than I had expected.

Looking back, studying alone was not what carried me through the semester. I met good friends, and the time we spent eating, studying, and exercising together helped me maintain a steady pace.

Closing Thoughts

Immediately after finishing all my exams, I had almost no sense of how the results would turn out. Constitutional law was a subject I loved, so I felt that exam had gone reasonably well, but I had no intuition at all about the others. Still, I had done as much as I could, and I did not come away thinking that I should have studied much more.

When all the grades were released, I was genuinely overjoyed. Receiving an A+ in every course and finishing at the top of the class was of course gratifying, but what pleased me more was the fact that I had completed the semester without regret. I had studied consistently according to the method I set for myself, slowed down when I needed to, and kept up with class and review to the end. Seeing that process lead to a result gave me a quiet measure of confidence as well.

That said, I do not think this semester’s grades guarantee anything about the next one. The subjects will change, the exams will be different, and it is also true that my prior preparation in civil law helped me considerably during the first semester. I was fortunate to meet good friends, and many circumstances happened to align in my favor.

What I did learn, however, was a little more about the kind of studying that works for me: keeping the rhythm intact instead of setting an excessive goal every day; following the logic of the class and reorganizing what I learned in my own words; recognizing that each subject demands a different mode of thought; refusing to leave wrong answers unexplored; and not trying to endure difficult periods entirely alone.

At first, my only goal was to finish the semester without falling behind. The outcome was better than I expected, but the feeling that has stayed with me most is closer to relief than pride. I made it through my first semester of law school in my own way, and when I look back, there is very little about it that I regret.

That alone was enough to make it a good first semester.