How to Manage Your Law School Readings With a Busy Schedule

If you ask any law student what takes up most of their time, they’ll probably say the hefty amount of readings.

I remember when it was my first week of law school. For this unit, I saw that there was only one chapter to read for that week. It turns out that the chapter had 80 pages.

I’ll admit, it took me until my last few semesters of law school to crack the code on how to manage all the law school readings… especially if all the units I’m doing in that semester are law units.

1 – Lecture Slides Before Doing the Readings

While this doesn’t lessen the amount of readings you do, it does help you “know what you’re getting into“.

I have found that when I reviewed the lecture slides before I did the 50+ pages of reading (whatever it may be), it helped me understand what I was reading better. The readings were like the “additional context” to the lecture slides.

That’s why it may be worth it for you to review the lecture slides instead of going into the readings “blind“.

2 – Pre-Reading Technique

So, what if the lecture slides aren’t made available beforehand?

My backup technique is the “pre-reading technique”. This was introduced to me by my 6th-grade science teacher. The technique is as follows:

1. Read the full first and last paragraphs of the chapter.
2. Read the first line of every paragraph.
3. Read all the key terms and definitions.

My science teacher has said that by doing this pre-reading technique, you have already previewed what the chapter is talking about.

Incorporating it into law school is the same thing. When you do the pre-reading technique, you can “know what you’re getting into” before you do the full pages of reading.

The reason I prefer reviewing the lecture slides instead of doing this technique is that with this one, you feel like you are doing more reading.

However, this technique also works for weeks when you feel like you lack time to do the full readings. While you are encouraged to do the full readings, doing a pre-reading is better than doing no readings at all.

3 – Spread your readings throughout the week

If doing 50+ pages of readings in one go seems overwhelming, spreading it throughout your week can be helpful.

During my first semester of law school, I was so overwhelmed with the amount of readings we had to do in law that spreading them out was a lifesaver for me.

For example, if I had 2 law units with 80+ pages of readings each, I would spread it around 25 pages (for each unit) per day. It would look like this.

For one unit:

• Monday – 25 pages
• Tuesday – 25 pages (50 total)
• Wednesday – 30 pages (80 total)
• Thursday – Attend/watch lecture
• Friday – Attend class

This way, I would get my readings completed before I watch the lecture and attend the class for that week.

4 – Theme Your Days

If you manage to have a schedule where your classes fall in 1-2 days, theming your days can be helpful.

For example, during semesters where I managed to put my classes in 1-2 days, it would look like this:

1. Monday – readings
2. Tuesday – watch lectures
3. Wednesday – classes
4. Thursday – classes
5. Friday – work on assessments*

*Working on assessments is part of the everyday schedule.

This technique wouldn’t really work if your classes are spread throughout the week. If you do manage to get it within 1-2 days, this technique can be helpful in getting all your readings out of the way in one day.

5 – Watch lectures only IF you really run out of time

It is encouraged that you do the full thing: readings, lectures, classes.

But, on extremely busy weeks where you feel like you’ll burn out, watching lectures only is better than doing no work at all.

What I have done during busy periods is that whenever I had an extremely busy week, I would watch the lectures. If there is anything I don’t understand or need to study more of, I would go to the relevant pages of the readings to do so.

To Wrap Up

Overall, these are the tips to manage your law school readings (as best you can):

1. Lecture Slides Before Doing the Reading
2. Pre-Reading Technique
3. Spread your readings throughout the week
4. Theme your days
5. Watch lectures IF you run out of time or in the midst of burnout.

Readings are a significant part of law school, and there are a lot of them. That’s why it is important to be strategic every semester on how you’ll manage them. When you don’t have some sort of strategy or plan, it can make the semester feel so overwhelming on top of the other work you need to do (e.g., lectures, assignments, preparing for exams).

If you want more law school tips, you can check out the law school blog here and also my Instagram.

Happy reading (if you can, haha)

-Lauren 🙂

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