TOP FIVE THINGS LAW STUDENT NEEDS TO KNOW

TOP five THINGS LAW STUDENT NEEDS TO KNOW

1 there is a lot of reading

You have develop a reading habit, Law students get a reputation for clocking up the library hours because each week you need to learn what the law actually is and academics’ opinions of it from scratch, and neither of these will be particularly short. There is definitely an art to managing the reading lists and you will get all the advice you need from older students when you first arrive, but it does take a while to get used to the pace of learning. That said, by the end of your first term you won’t believe how quickly you can pick up the key themes of an article or find the important passages from a case. Just be ready for the inevitable long nights when you need to stay up getting through an endless reading list.

2 Everyone is going to ask you for legal advice. And you won’t want to give it.

Somewhat ironically, the more law you know the less confident you become definitively stating what the legal position in a certain area is. You are, after all, focusing on the more controversial and uncertain areas of law so it is easy to forget that some are actually quite simple and clear-cut. There also comes a week where you learn about liability for giving advice and accepting responsibility for it being correct. It’s fairly well-accepted that casual remarks in social situations don’t come within this category but as soon as law students learn these cases they immediately stop wanting to give any form of legal advice!

All this of course assumes that you know the area of law your friends are asking about in practical detail in the first place, which usually isn’t the case because law degrees are more theoretical than practical. No matter how many times you try to explain this to your friends however, you will still be asked. It’s something you will find frustrating, but it won’t stop you from asking the medical students about your twinging knee so it’s just something to resign yourself to I’m afraid.

3 Join your law society

 law society, which may or may not be run in accordance with your law faculty, will put on events in order to get you meeting people from various legal fields, as well as highlighting any events outside of the university which may be of benefit. It is fundamental that you join your law society to get the most out of your time at university. Some universities also run a Bar Society for students who are specifically considering a career at the Bar. Remember that these societies exist for your benefit; if you feel that you have ideas for events then tell them, as you know what you want and need as a law student.

4 Advocacy & debating

Most universities will have an advocacy programmes or run classes on mooting and mock trials, and there are lots of mooting competitions that take place up and down the country for students to get involved in.

Advocacy is a skill that any law student should be keen to develop – even those students not considering a career at the Bar. It provides a lot of transferable skills in confidence, public speaking and good presentation; a good foundation regardless of the line of work you pursue in the future. Sometimes in moot court practices, law student will be face with real client to interview and in most cases with supervision by the lecture offer legal and non-legal advice. Mock trials also enable you to write precisely, develop your argument, and speak with client interviewing, accuracy and confidence. Debating, a sought-after skill for many employers, is very similar to advocacy. It allows you to practice stating your argument clearly and concisely and upholding your argument throughout a debate. The legal scenarios you will face in exams and tutorials require you to pick an argument and stick with it, so debating will inevitably help your academic studies too.

5 law student need to develop creative power in thinking

Perhaps the lawyer's most valuable asset is the power to think clearly, carefully, and independently. The role of the lawyer involves constant problem-solving and sound judgment. Creative power in thinking has as its prerequisite the acquisition of skills in research, use of facts, inductive, deductive, and analytic reasoning, critical analysis, and the systematic formulation of principles and concepts