Case Reading Topic 5: Find Your Inner Actor

Welcome to The Law School Playbook! I’m Halle Hara, a professor of academic success and personal skills coach to law students and attorneys. I’m glad you’re here! Congratulations on the steps you have taken toward earning your law degree. If you are a 1L just starting out, these letters on law school learning and training will guide you to get the most of out of your experience.

At the risk of sounding like a nagging parent, I implore you to please read for class—it is not optional. I know if you had your druthers, you’d mark every assignment on your syllabi with “TL; DR,” for “too long, didn’t read,” especially in the busiest year of your academic life. However, you are overlooking the critical fact that reading is what lawyers get paid to do.

I’m a few years older than you. When I wanted information growing up, I turned to an outdated set of encyclopedias my parents bought from a door-to-door salesman or I went to the library. Reading is different today. Inquiring minds no longer grab the musty, dust-covered encyclopedias from the shelf but instead are immersed in digital media approximately seven hours per day. This progress is truly amazing—nearly every question you can conceive of can be answered in a few clicks. However, reading in this digital age has taken a toll on our intellect.

My goal is not only to change if you read but also how you read for law school. For instance, you may be reading for class because you don’t want to be embarrassed if you are called on or want to cross the assignment off your always-growing “to do” list. When reading experts instruct you to read with a clear purpose, however, that’s not what they have in mind.

We’ve all had those moments when we are sitting in front of a book, with our head resting on our hand, when our eyes begin to close. You tell yourself that you are “just resting your eyes,” which is something my Dad would say to me if I tried to change the channel when he was asleep on the couch. As much as you try to fight it, your body keeps drifting back to sleep. What do you do?

If you find yourself just getting through your reading assignments, you’re not alone. The good news is that there are easy strategies that take no additional time but will ensure you’ll get a lot more out of your reading. One of those strategies involves finding your inner actor.

I was lucky enough to work in the federal trial court for a collective fifteen years. During that time, and in private practice, I saw countless jury trials. Whether civil or criminal, the trials always had one thing in common: the judge instructed the jury to exercise their common sense in deliberations. For example, the jury instruction about weighing the evidence would sound something like this: “Don’t leave your common sense at the courthouse door. It is up to you to decide what evidence is reliable. You should use your common sense in deciding which evidence is the best evidence and which evidence should not be relied upon in reaching your verdict.”

Law students, particularly in their first year, look for truth in the cases that they read. Even second-year law students likely figure that the judge knows much more about a given topic than they do, so they read cases to see what they can learn.

Some people say that talking to yourself means you’re crazy. Other people say that talking to themselves is the only way they can have an intelligent conversation. In this coaching session, I will explain how, jokes aside, talking to yourself as you read really does give rise to an intelligent conversation.

There is no question that time is the elephant in the room throughout the entire law school experience—there just isn’t enough of it. All law students struggle with time management, even those that are high achieving and well organized. The phrase “time matters” is not just relevant in law school. Indeed, LexisNexis aptly named its law practice management software “Time Matters,” which is a reminder that there typically isn’t much of it after you graduate either.