How to Create Your Law School Study Schedule

A few weeks before I started 1L, I got coffee with a second-year law student who gave me some of the best advice for law school: your need to make your law school schedule fit into your life. 

She showed me her schedule, and, ultimately, she made law school a 9-5 job. She scheduled every moment she needed to spend doing school work and was able to continue doing her hobbies, spend time with friends, and enjoy her life outside of school. 

I followed her advice and used it to create my own schedule. I was able to manage my time effectively and felt like I had a significant amount of free time during my first year. 

Here is how to create a schedule for your first year of law school. With this advice, you effectively manage your time and end up at the top of your class. 

1. Determine how much time you want to devote to your life outside of school.

You will not (and should not) spend every waking moment devoted to readings and studying. You need to figure out how much time you need to relax, enjoy your hobbies, and spend time with friends and family. 

Sit down and figure out how much time you would like to devote to these areas of your life. Do you need two hours a night to wind down? Do you need to exercise every day? How much time do you want to spend with family and friends?

Think about this generally. Decide how much time you want to devote to each activity on a daily and weekly basis. Only then can you determine what your study schedule looks like. 

2. Add your class schedule to your calendar. 

I’ll be honest - your first year class schedule is not going to be great. You don’t get to choose your schedule in any way. If you’re like I was in 1L, the morning classes are going to be painful. 

Adding your class schedule to your calendar allows you to figure out what times you are actually able to read and study. If you’re someone who works well in the morning, you can build your readings for the week in before class. If you’re like me, I could only do readings after 10am. 

3. Add your exams and other deadlines to your calendar. 

I started every semester by adding my exams and other deadlines to my calendar. If you do this early on, you’re going to be able to plan your other class assignments around any exam periods or class deadlines. You will become your own best friend if you calendar these deadlines early in the semester. 

My 2L schedule was hectic (they call it 2 hell for a reason). I participated in far too many journals and worked too much, so calendaring everything in advance gave me the chance to plan what I needed to do way before any deadlines became overwhelming. Here is how I calendared some of my more chaotic weeks in my second year: 

This week was absolute hell. However, if I did not see all of these deadlines approaching at the time time months before, I wouldn’t have been able to plan in advance to make sure I did not fall behind on all of my other classes. 

4. Build time blocks for your readings, outlining, and studying. 

You’re going to get your syllabus and reading assignments early into the semester. Use it as a tool to plan your life. I built my entire 1L schedule around my syllabus and used it to figure out how much time I needed to spend reading and outlining each week. 

At the beginning of your first year, build TOO much time into your schedule to read. You are going to take a while to learn how to effectively read cases, how to brief, and what you need to do to understand the materials for your classes. It is better to finish everything earlier than you planned than have your classes interfere with your life. 

Build at least two hours into your weekly schedule for each individual class dedicated to readings. Add your reading assignments into your calendar so you can easily refer to what you need to read without checking your syllabus again. You will eventually figure out how long it takes you to read for each class, but this is a good rule of thumb to follow early on. 

Dedicate four to five hours every week to outlining. You do not need to think about outlining for the first few weeks of the semester. A few weeks into the semester, you want to start outlining - this will keep you from being completely overwhelmed during finals season. I normally plan around four hours every week to outlining for each class, and because of this, I never had to stress about outlining at the last minute. 

If you have midterms or assignments due throughout the semester, build time into your schedule to study for it. I always overestimate how much I want to study for each class and it has been a lifesaver. When I know I have a big deadline approaching, I get ahead on all of my other readings and assignments so I can focus entirely on that class. 

Sample 1L Schedule - Studying, Outlining, and Reading

The TLDR: Law school is tough, but you can get through it if you manage your time effectively.  My second semester, I nailed down a system and was even able to train for a half-marathon. All you need is a good schedule.