The Complete Law School Companion: How to Excel at America's Most Demanding Post-Graduate Curriculum

Having graduated with high honors from one of the top five law schools, I relied on this book and several others to identify the appropriate approach to taking law school exams. I applied the approach as follows: (1) read only those assignments provided by the professor (ignore commercial outlines, etc.); (2) take extensive notes of everything the professor says in class (and do not write down any student comments or student answers to Socratic questions); (3) organize your notes of the professor's lectures into your own outline; (4) read the professor's prior exam files, including any student answers selected by the professor as "model answers"; and (5) practice taking the professor's old exams in the few days leading up to exam day. The rationale is that your professor will be looking for you to spot those issues that he or she views as important. The more of these issues you spot, the higher your exam grade will be. Ditch those commercial outlines and study group meetings. In addition to the Companion, you should also prepare for law school by conditioning yourself to what its competition will feel like. Two excellent books that accomplish this goal are Scott Turow's One L (Harvard in the 1970s) and Scott Gaille's The Law Review (2002 book about competition at The University of Chicago Law School).

I can see why this book is still in print so long after it was first published, because it's advice is invaluable. This book is not just another "what law school is really like" type of thing (although some of that is in there), but focuses mainly on helping you understand those elements of law school which are vital to excelling.I found four things to be extremely useful. First, this book explains clearly and simply how to write a coherent brief. It gives you a basic outline to follow and tells you how to identify the relevant information in a given case. Second, this book gives a strategy for outlining class notes, textbook material, and other sources in such a way that if you follow the author's advice, you will always be on top of your classwork and will have a huge advantage come crunch time. Third, this book shows how to do well on exams using the outline mentioned above. And fourth, this book gives some good advice on writing papers.In addition to this, the beginning of the book is a pretty good introduction to preparing for law school, and the end of the book has some good stuff for law school students. I don't regret having bought this book, because now I feel I have a sound strategy for entering law school which I think will help me hit the ground running.

I've bought several similar books in an attempt to get some idea what to expect and how to attack law school. This is by far the best one. I feel much less anxious about starting law school next fall. The author gives specific systems for mastering breifing cases, preparing course outlines and preparing for exams. The emphasis in this book is to develop a system where you continually learn through excellent organization throughout the term so there is no burst of frantic studying before the exam. This book will continually be a good reference throughout my first year in law school. Its the only book you need!

I bought this book, and four others like it, prior attending law school. Of the five books, this was by far the best one. I have since passed it on to a friend who is using it to prepare for school, and I am about to order another copy for my brother who is also about to go to law school. What this book has that the others did not is a plan. All of the books described well what to expect in law school. What they did not do, and what this book did an excellent job doing, was provide a plan and system so that you are prepared walking in the door for that proverbial Scott Turow first day as a One L. This is the only preparation book you need to read before school starts.

This book is incredibly helpful for those planning on attending law school and are unsure of what to expect. Instead of merely urging discipline, Deaver details a concise plan of action with outlined strategies for study. The author is never pretentious and does not assume the reader has vast amounts of knowledge of the law prior to reading the book. I literally could not put this book down.