The Law School Playbook

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 hav…

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,” f…

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 When I wanted information growing up, I turned to an outdated set of encyclopedias my parents bought from a door-to-door salesman or I went to the library.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

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 cro…

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 …

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 mor…

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 alw…

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…

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 ex…

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 a…

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.

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…

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 pare…

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 interpretatio…

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: …

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 langua…

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…

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 w…