#1 – Not only are you reading cases, but hornbooks and supplemental notes within the textbook that should give you a better understanding of the material. In addition, a lot of people took law classes in undergrad so they bring outside knowledge to the class.

#2 – Those conversations definitely did not go as “smooth” as they appear. I was incorporating the professor’s ideal answers into a lot of the dialogue for my own reference. There were definitely a lot of long pauses, uhm’s, uhhhh’s, and general fumbling.

Either way, don’t worry about it. I don’t know of anyone that was terribly caught off-guard by their first class. In fact, there was a collective agreement that after this very class that things were going to be a lot easier than we’d expected.

Good luck!

I’m a 0L right now, and wondering how your classmates knew what to say to the questions posed by the professor. Obviously there was pre-class reading, but it seemed as if these kids knew what they were talking about even on their first day.

Where are the “Uhhhhhhhh’s” and “I have no idea’s”???

As far as exam prep goes, I honestly have no idea. Even if you go to a normally friendly school, the atmosphere tends to change around crunch time. People outside of study groups are generally pretty secretive of exam prep techniques / books.

I didn’t really read anything to prepare for exams. Usually the professors or the school will make old exams available. I found that to be the most useful — especially if they had provided a key. The annoying part of law school is that every professor wants something different on an exam. The trick is figuring out what kind of responses a particular professor is looking for. The problem with all those books is that they often like to give advice like, “never joke on an exam!” However, if you looked at my Contracts exam, you’d find a joke about quantum electrodynamics, and you won’t hear me complaining about that grade anytime soon.

Good luck.

Have any of your classmates found “Getting to Maybe” helpful for exams? I’m in the middle of that book right now.