The Hardest Part of Law School

There is a large learning curve in the first year of law school as professors throw a lot of information at you.

Personally, I know that I'm missing some stuff and not understanding other concepts as well as I need to, but I still feel pretty confident about where I am at and what I am doing because so much information is sticking. I am learning quite a bit here at Florida State College of Law.

The largest and most frustrating learning curve (at least for me) is the online research databases- Westlaw and LexisNexis.

These two companies dominate the field of legal publishing. Almost everything in the law school library is published by them or one of their subsidiaries.

Westlaw.com or LexisNexis.com provide massive legal research engines. The things these two sites can do are incredible. At least once per month, the companies send out their representatives to talk to us about how to use the system.

Almost everything in these talks has been over my head. I think that I am behind my fellow classmates in this regard.

It is important for me to learn the systems. Right now, as students we are given an access code and can play around with searches for free. Once we become lawyers, however, the searches will cost money. If you don't know what you are doing, you can rack up quite a bill for your law firm and still not have the information you need.

Florida State is making a point to teach us the "old fashioned" method of research- print resources- as well as how to use the electronic databases. The instructors almost apologize for making us learn the print way, but say that we may work for an older attorney who prefers not to pay the money for an electronic database that he or she really doesn't understand.

They don't have to apologize to me. On Saturday, I did eight hours of research in the library for a memo assigned in my legal writing class. I didn't go online until the last 15 minutes, and this was just to shephardize the cases I found and print them (I was quite proud of myself for figuring out how to do this online) . Some of my classmates in the library were puzzled by the number of case reporters I had piled on my table, but I think I found everything I need.

The best chance for me to catch up will probably be over the Christmas break. Both Westlaw and LexisNexis offer online tutorials- hours worth of them- and I would be well advised to use them. After you take the tutorials, you receive certification based on what you have learned. This will go well on my resume.

I'm trying my best with these computer systems, but it is nice to hear that some people are beginning to agree with me that computers are not always the best way to operate. One lady in my class says she has joined me in not bringing a computer. She just gets too distracted with things like Facebook. Another classmate who rides the bus with me to school says that while he still brings his computer, he has switched to taking notes by hand because he learns better that way.

Reasonableness. It is good to see that in the legal profession.

Until next time,

Nathan Marshburn