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 yo

Case Reading Topic 1: Dear Student, Please Read

Jul 28th, 2019

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

Dear Student, Think Beyond the Screen

Jul 27th, 2019

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 When I wanted information growing up, I turned to an outdated set of encyclopedias my parents bought from a door-to-door salesman or I went to the library.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 gr

Dear Student, Energy Matters

Jul 26th, 2019

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 t

Dear Student, Find Your Inner Actor

Jul 26th, 2019

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 strategie

Case Reading Topic 5: Find Your Inner Actor

Jul 26th, 2019

Dear Student, Bring Your Knowledge With You

Jul 25th, 2019

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 instru

Dear Student, Bring Your Opinions With You

Jul 22nd, 2019

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 lea

Dear Student, Talk to Yourself

Jul 20th, 2019

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 a

Case Reading Topic 9: Time Matters

Jul 19th, 2019

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 phr

Dear Student, Time Matters

Jul 19th, 2019

Dear Student, Find Your Inner Artist

Jul 19th, 2019

Who says law school doesn’t foster creativity? To the contrary, an effective reading strategy involves visualizing or using imagery to picture what is being described in your law school text.

Dear Student, Recognize the Strategies

Jul 19th, 2019

We have discussed numerous strategies that can prompt you to be an engaged, critical thinker while reading. It is important for you to recognize, however, that your willingness to continually monitor your own thoughts and assess your own unders

Dear Student, Put It All Together

Jul 19th, 2019

My parents were avid golfers when I was a teen. Every so often I’d join them on the golf course, although I was pretty unskilled. I’d step up to the tee and the well-intentioned coaching from my parents inevitably followed: keep your head down,

Reading and Interpreting Statutes Introduction: Dear Student, Enacted Laws Abound

Jul 19th, 2019

The law school experience is so focused on reading and interpreting appellate cases that students sometimes overlook the central role that legislation plays in practice. The reading and interpretation strategies in this series of episodes perta

Dear Student, Don't Grill, Barbecue

Jul 19th, 2019

Celebrity chef Guy Fieri has said:There are two different things: there’s grilling, and there’s barbecue. Grilling is when people say, ‘We’re going to turn up the heat, make it really hot and sear a steak, sear a burger, cook a chicken.’ Barbec

Reading and Interpreting Statutes Topic 2: Dear Student, In the Words of Sophocles, “Without Labor, Nothing Prospers”

Jul 17th, 2019

So today, our work of reading and interpreting statutes continues. After the first step—slowing down—the next step is to determine how the statute fits into the big picture. As you learned with case reading, background knowledge, even if acquir

Reading and Interpreting Statutes Topic 4: Dear Student, Craft an Argument

Jul 17th, 2019

Today, we are picking up our ongoing discussion of reading and interpreting statutes. We will discuss the final step in this episode, which is to resolve ambiguities or to add clarity to vague language.

Reading and Interpreting Statutes Topic 3: Dear Student, Find Meaning

Jul 16th, 2019

We are continuing our discussion of reading and interpreting statutes. To recap the steps we have covered thus far, when approaching a statute, you must: …

Reading and Interpreting Statutes Topic 4: Craft an Argument

Jul 15th, 2019

Reading and Interpreting Statutes Topic 5: Dear Student, Let's Practice (Steps 1 and 2)

Jul 14th, 2019

In this episode, we will be focusing on steps 1 and 2 of reading and interpreting statutes, which we know are to: slow down (step 1) and determine how the statute fits into the big picture by looking at surrounding statutory materials (step 2).

Reading and Interpreting Statutes Topic 6: Dear Student, Let's Practice (Step 3)

Jul 13th, 2019

We are going to pick up where we left off in the last episode, where a commercial airline pilot named Sean Fitzgerald showed up for work “rip-roaring drunk” and engaged in pre-flight work before he was arrested. The statute he is alleged to hav

Reading and Interpreting Statutes Topic 7: Dear Student, Let’s Practice (Steps 4 and 5)

Jul 12th, 2019

Today, we are going to pick up where we left off in the last episode, where commercial airline pilot Sean Fitzgerald showed up for work “rip-roaring drunk” and engaged in pre-flight work before he was arrested. The statute he is alleged to have

Legal Analysis Topic 2: Dear Student, Law Can Be Like Science

Jul 10th, 2019

The topic we are addressing today is inductive reasoning, another well-known type of reasoning often used in law school and in practice. While you are more likely to see rule-based reasoning on law school exams (particularly during your first y

Legal Analysis Topic 3: Dear Student, Law is Deliberate

Jul 9th, 2019

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! It’s so difficult for me to believe that I started law school almost 25 years ago