Lyndsay Newell

Age: 24
Undergraduate School: University of Tennessee
Undergraduate Major: Child and Family Studies
Hometown: Knoxville, TN
Status: Full-Time Day
E-mail: lanewell@mail.txwes.edu

11/18/09 - Dear friends and family, thank you for your support and attempts to understand the stress I am under. Please hang on because the next month is about to get really crazy!

That being said…I have tried to think of an analogy that could describe to you what this past week has been like, but I cannot. I will have to steal the words of one my classmates, “This is a social experiment gone wrong.” Everyone in law school has to be slightly weird - anyone willing to subject themselves to this has to be slightly off their rocker. So you take all of these people, put them in a building with each other for an entire semester, pit them against each other in competition, sleep deprive them, and stress them out, and the result is slight chaos. I try to keep a positive attitude about everything, but it is starting to get to me. No one wants to let anyone else know they are stressing or are on the verge of “cracking” but I know I can’t be the only one feeling like this.

Looking back to this time last year as I was going through the application process, I spoke with several friends in their first year of law school, and it was a unanimous vote: “Don’t Do It!” I don’t agree with that thinking, but definitely can appreciate their struggles…I can’t see the light yet, but I am approaching the tunnel, and I am pretty scared about it. Wish me luck, and keep all the 1Ls in your thoughts, or at least be patient with us!

11/11/09 - Thanks to all of you who came to the Law Day luncheon and stayed for a tour. It was nice to meet all of you and I hoped you enjoyed seeing Texas Wesleyan! Thanks to all of you who have emailed me, I really enjoy hearing from y’all!
 
The theme this week is stress! I am stressing out! I am really starting to feel the pressure and it is taking a toll! I have heard from several people and am realizing it myself, that no one understands what you are going through except other law students. You can tell your family and friends how stressed you are, but they will not understand. It is impossible to convey what you are going through to someone unless they have been in your shoes.

I have just recovered from my first major freak out which just so happened to take place in my Academic Support TA’s office. Thankfully she is understanding and encouraged me to get it all out, then addressed my concerns one by one. Not only did she calm me down, but she introduced me to a valuable resource, the head of Academic Support. He also addressed my concerns and helped me wrap my head around exams and what I need to do to succeed.

Now that I have recovered from that, I have a memo to edit, a Civ Pro checklist to revise, Contracts multiple choice questions to review, and some outlining to do for Torts. Once again, the theme this week is stress!!


11/4/09 - Law school students try to have fun, too. For instance, this past Friday (the day before Halloween) our section decided to dress up as our Civil Procedure professor. Every day he wears a sport coat and jeans, so our 80 person section all wore jeans and sport coats! Thankfully, he has a good sense of humor, and posed for pictures with us. It’s kind of sad that this is what we find humor in these days, but what can you do?

Aside from our practical joking, this week has been stressful! We got our memo one grades back, which thankfully was a huge relief! Now, I am writing memo two, and I am hoping I can do just as well on this one. Also, we have a Contracts practice exam this week and we are discussing a practice essay in Civil Procedure. On top of this, I am studying and outlining as usual, and doing reading for class! This week in property we have been having a “King or Queen of possessory estates and future interests Mountain” competition in class. It has been fun, especially since I have not been called on to compete…yet.

A unique and more fun opportunity is occurring this week. Judge Berger is hosting a mock trial in her court room for Texas Wesleyan Law students to observe. I am excited about this because she is a family law judge, and I am definitely interested in that area of law. I will let you know next week how it went!


10/28/09 - Academic Support offers practice exams for each of our classes. They offer one per class and we have now taken two, Property and Torts.  These tests were written by our professors and are “graded” by our academic support TAs. Having the opportunity to take a practice exam in actual exam conditions is very helpful. My study partner and I take them very seriously (remember I never claimed not to be a dork) and we have been made fun of by several people, but we think it is going to pay off! This week we got feedback on our Torts exam and will be able to take them into the professor to receive even more feedback.

I have taken a practice exam on my own, but had not experienced the “time-crunch” anxious feeling that occurs when you are timed. Taking these tests really gives you a sense of what it will be like on exam day, and that way you are not going into the exam completely blind.  Some advice, take the practice exams! People may tell you it is a waste of time, but what do you have to lose? Nothing. What do have to gain? Well, I am hoping a lot!

In the following weeks we will have a practice exam for Contracts and Civil Procedure. These practice tests and opportunities for feedback is just another reason why I am happy I chose Texas Wesleyan Law.


10/21/09 - I’ve heard from some family members that all I do is study, talk about how I need to study, and only “blog” about studying! So this week I am going to try something new. I don’t think I can make a good case for myself that I have a life outside of studying, but I shall try.

When I chose Texas Wesleyan I was hesitant to move to an unfamiliar city and be surrounded by a bunch of strangers. However, it has been so much fun getting to know a new town, and especially new people! Fort Worth has so much to offer, and when I get a chance to experience it I really realize I made the right choice. There are so many amazing restaurants in the downtown and surrounding area - the food is reason enough to love living here!

The people I have met this year have been amazing as well. I was worried that I would not make friends, but that fear was unwarranted. Law school throws you into making new friends immediately. Granted, these friends are usually in your study group, but they will be there to go and explore all the wonderful restaurants with you as well.
 
My professors have far exceeded my expectations for my first year. They are all very approachable and encourage us to come to their office hours. One professor even handed out an evaluation and is using our feedback to help make the class fit our needs. I continue to realize that our professors want us to succeed, and I could not be happier with my choice of Texas Wesleyan Law.


10/14/09 - Congrats to all the 1Ls for finishing the memo! I don’t know which is more stressful, writing the memo or waiting to get your grade. Now that it is behind me, I feel I can bestow some helpful tips to you – well, they were helpful to me at least.

First, get started EARLY! It is never too soon. I finished mine the Friday before it was due, leaving me with the weekend to edit, revise, proof, and edit some more. Do not be that person who waits until the day before it is due; trust me there are people who do this.

Second, meet with your professor. He or she knows what they are expecting from your memo, so why not go directly to them for help? Pinpoint your weaknesses from previous submissions and take the professors comments seriously. They made comments on your paper for a reason. 

Finally, and this is the hardest for me to follow, forget it once you have submitted it. It is no longer in your control. It is inevitable that you will want to change something once you have turned it in, but you can’t, so why put yourself through that? I think I am mainly preaching to myself on this last point. It is clear to me now - I am a perfectionist. Either that or I want to torture myself and edit a piece of work that has already been submitted. Regardless, it is out of your control once you turn it in.

This is not meant to scare you or make you dread memo writing, but simply to give you some tips, or tips that helped me anyway.


10/7/09 – I will save the stress of “THE MEMO” talk until next week, once it is behind me. I think enough about the memo during the day that it is nice to have this short break from it. I want to talk about the non-school related events that have taken place on campus this week.

This week is Criminal Law Week, and each day there has been a panel discussion during lunch. On Monday, I attended the criminal prosecutor and defense panel. Why would a person with interests in family law even consider going to something like that? Well, I am broadening my horizons and have actually found the conversations very interesting, and a little intriguing.

On Tuesday, there was a panel for solo practitioners, which I did not attend because I had my academic support class at that time. On Wednesday, Judge Nancy Berger came and gave a speech on her experiences in law school (she is an alum), and also spoke about her upcoming election.

Also on Wednesday, Phi Delta Theta sponsored a teddy bear drive for a local charity. If you brought in a teddy bear, you got immunity from being called on in class, which was helpful because all of my time is being devoted to, you guessed it, writing the memo! The third panel that took place for Criminal Law Week was the exoneree panel. I was not able to attend that because I went to hear Judge Berger. My point is that the school offers wonderful opportunities to educate yourself about other areas of law that may not have originally caught your interest. Stay tuned for more talk of writing a law school memo…


10/1/09 – Exams! I am starting to get anxious about them already. The other section had a midterm in Torts today, but my section does not have any midterms. Thus, more pressure on me to perform on the exam. The professors all talk about exams, the students are discussing exams, and the TAs are preparing us for exams (hmm…wonder why I am getting anxious about them). The hypos (fact patterns where we pull out the issues and relate them to rules of law) that we work in class are getting more intricate and our answers are supposed to get more detailed. Many of the professors are posting practice essays online, and this is a very helpful resource.

My goal for this week is to actually start studying for exams, you are probably thinking, “Why, you have two months?” I hear that and think, “Two months! That’s it?!” I have all of my outlines up to date, which was not an easy task (but a huge relief). Now I set out to start memorizing those handy rules of law and other important facts that I have put into those outlines. Like I said last week, you think you have a pretty steady routine going and something comes along and changes that. Now I have to incorporate time into each day for strictly studying, and I haven’t even mentioned “the memo.” The dreaded memo, that is yet another task to attend to in my already overbooked busy day!

9/23/09 - This week’s entry is a complete contradiction to last week’s, I realize that. Last week I wrote about how important it is to find a consistent routine. Leave it to life to throw you a curveball.
This past weekend was my birthday, and I got ahead in my reading so I could take Friday night and all day Saturday off from studying. I had a great birthday, except that I had to get glasses. I guess turning 24 is officially on the path to getting old…

Then Sunday rolls around and I was all set to head to the library, except when I woke up I was so sick! This lasted until Monday, which really put a kink in my plan. Not only was I out of commission Sunday, but Monday was not that productive. You know what I realized after being away from reading cases and outlining? I missed it. Weird, I know - I can’t even believe I am saying this. This thing that consumes me day in and day out and seems to be the source of all of my headaches, I actually missed?! However, it was nice to know that my preparation and being ahead allowed for me to take those days off without much guilt. So, the moral of this little story is that life doesn’t stop just because you are in law school. You will get sick, you will have emergencies that arise, you will have days that you simply cannot study, but being on top of your game will give you some “wiggle” room when that happens.

9/16/09 - I think I finally have developed a consistent daily schedule. I realize as I write this that I no longer have a social life or any life outside of school for that matter.  I think that finding a routine that works for you is very important for success in the first year. Every morning I wake up at 6 AM (it really isn’t that early!) and go running/work out. I find that on days I don’t do this I am more stressed and on edge, so I really suggest finding that outlet.

My goal is to be at school by 9 AM at the absolute latest (I have about a 25-30 minute commute). I like to have that time in the morning to review my case briefs and notes before classes start at 10:30 AM. I also like to utilize the hour and a half break we have for lunch to review my notes from my first class and get prepped for the following class.

After class I head to my new home away from home, the library. I think they are going to start charging me rent because of the amount of time I spend there. In the afternoons I briefly review what we discussed in class that day. Then I make sure I am completely ready for the next two days of class. Like I mentioned before, I like to be overly prepared. My fear of being called on in class has not left me! This leaves my weekends open to do fun things like outlining and even more reviewing!


9/9/09 - As promised this week’s blog will be devoted to outlining. Hmm…where do I begin? I tried to take advantage of the nice long weekend and get myself organized to start this task, only to realize that I had no clue what I was doing. I found that I was trying to include everything from my notes, and so that resulted in having two copies of the same notes just arranged differently. I made the executive decision to postpone outlining until after my Academic Support class on Tuesday. My TA devoted this week’s class strictly to outlining. She gave me a feel for where I should begin and what I should be including.

We took a learning style test in the first week of school. My TA really emphasized the importance of incorporating our learning style into how we study and create our outlines. This was a huge relief! Now that I know I am a multimodal learner (with a strong emphasis on visual learning), I realize that I need more detail in order to fully recall information. My outline will be longer and more in depth than people with other learning styles. My TA also stressed that for the first month or so our outlines should be the “meat and bones,” not just a skeleton of the information we have learned. I find the one hour per week we have devoted to these Academic Support sessions to be incredibly helpful, especially for people like me who feel lost when it comes to the ins and outs of law school life.


9/2/09 – It seems that I have neglected to introduce myself to all of you…my name is Lyndsay and I am from Knoxville, Tennessee (Go Vols!). I graduated from The University of Tennessee in 2008 with my B.S. in Child and Family Studies and went on to get my Master’s degree from Tennessee in Child and Family Studies with a concentration in Early Childhood Education in 2009. I interned and taught in a first grade classroom in the inner city of Knoxville. This helped me realize my true calling was in the legal profession, and not as a teacher! I want to work with children and families and get into the messy world of practicing family law.

This week I would like to talk about note taking in class. It seems everyone has their own way of taking notes and thinks their method is superior. I have been experimenting with different ways of taking notes and have found that typing them really is the most efficient method for me. I started out handwriting my notes, because quite frankly, that’s how I have always done it, but this proved to be very tedious. First, I realized that my skill of nice “teacher writing” has left me and I now write in chicken scratch! Second, I ended up spending more time trying to decipher what I wrote and less time actually transcribing the material onto the computer, that it was a waste of time. I now type my notes before class and then type what the professor says in red during class. This makes it easier to go back and review the material after class and make my notes more cohesive. I hope I have found a method that I can stick with and which will continue to work for me.

I am looking forward to having a nice three day weekend, not only is it the start of college football (yay!), but I am going to start outlining (scary) stay tuned for how that goes…

8/26/09 – I can’t believe it! One week down and life was anything but uneventful. In our first Torts class I was the first student called on, and managed to not stumble all over my words. I think being extremely nervous for class will help me to be overly prepared, so I’m pretty glad about that. 

I also experienced what the Texas heat will do to a car battery. Friday morning, I went to start my car, and lo and behold the battery had died! Fortunately I have made some good friends this first week and was able to get a ride to school. I also ran into a professor who works with 2 and 3 Ls, and she remembered me from an Admitted Student Reception. She told me she had been asking the Office of Admissions about me and expressed how glad she was I chose Texas Wesleyan. This professor remembered not only my name, but she asked about my family and how I was settling into the area. I have felt nothing but welcome at this school, and can’t wait to see what the next few months have in store for me.

Friday night I attended the scholarship dinner at the City Club of Forth Worth, and the alumni of this law school continue to impress me! I met a judge in family law who gave me her card and extended an invitation to lunch to discuss what being her intern might entail. I have practically been glowing from this experience all weekend. I just hope this next week goes as well as my first.