There are several products marketed towards the law student, designed to make you more productive in note taking, outlining, briefing, etc. There are three products that I looked at for this exercise, all are “outliners” if we use that term liberally. For this review, I looked at StoreLaw Outliner, Juristudents, and NoteMap.

First, a note about outliners in general. Some people really don’t really like outliners, and to be honest, I used to be one of those people. That’s because I really didn’t have any projects that required it. Generally speaking, whenever I would outline something, I was fine using Word, just cutting and pasting points around. For small outlines, that might be just fine. But on the whole, when I started working on larger outlines, I found it began to be really inefficient. Here are some features I think are key to a decent outliner:

• The ability to easily, on the fly, create new outline nodes
• The ability to easily reformat the outline (I, II, III, A, B, C, etc.)
• The ability to easily reorder the outline (grab nodes, and just drag and drop them into new positions).

First up is StoreLaw Outliner, an outliner/note organizer from the legal powerhouse, Thompson West. The price is decent; you can pick it up for around $65. I think that’s the cheapest thing you will ever buy from West, so maybe you’d better take advantage of it. The first problem with the StoreLaw Outliner is, well, it’s not much of an outliner. You can create your own outlines, but it’s really cumbersome to do so. Want to create a new topic, you right click, select new topic and then you get a pop-up. Way to break concentration and flow. Oh yeah, and grab something and try to move it. You can, but it’s not nice. You get no indication of where you are in the outline, just a little hand, and the program is pretty slow and not very responsive. You can use up and down arrows on the toolbar, but forget power outlining. For creating your own outlines, StoreLaw scores a big fat zero.

However, StoreLaw is from West, so you should expect something, right? Well, they provide a number of “pre-fab” outlines, based on the common textbooks for any given subject. Use the Prosser text for Torts? No problem! Just load up the West outline and you’re good to go! Unless, um, your professor jumps out of order, or skips a section, and now you’re back to trying to drag things around.

Now, because StoreLaw is geared towards students, it does have a nice feature, which allows you to keep notes organized. When you are in an outline, you can have tabs for case brief, class notes, key points, and secondary source notes. Those extra notes sections are associated with the outline node, so if you do manage to drag it someplace useful, your notes follow.

You can also export your notes, and the outline to Word, which is nice for printing, or um, probably something else.

Overall, I find StoreLaw to be slow and annoying. However, if you really dig on pre-canned outlines, this might be the right product for you. I have a Criminal professor who uses his own course packet, and a Torts professor who has his own order to Prosser, so it’s not as useful to me. Coupled with the shortcomings of the outliner, I don’t think much of StoreLaw. Rating: One Gavel.

Next up, we have another “for law students” product called Juristudents. Like StoreLaw, Juristudents is reasonably priced at $49 and comes to us from an (obviously) smaller company called Stare Decisis. Juristudents scores some major bonus points for being cross-platform. Yes, 98% of all law firms use PCs, and the vast majority of law students are going to work for law firms. But hey, props to the Mac users, they deserve good software too.

As an outliner, Juristudents suffers from many of the same problems that StoreLaw Outliner has, but takes them one level further. Creating new topics in the outline with Juristudents also involves the popups (hmmm, someone’s using a bad tree control for their outlines), and I couldn’t find any way to rearrange topics in the outline.
Juristudents does allow you to insert case briefs and statutes into your outline, and view them in conjunction with your class notes, which is nice. It’s more limited than the pane viewing found in StoreLaw, but like StoreLaw, it will also allow you to export your outline to Word, if you’re into that sort of thing.

Overall, Juristudents shows promise, but it is still a little rough around the edges. The get big bonus points for being cross platform, but I think I’ll wait for the next version. Rating: One-and-a-half Gavels.

Finally, we have NoteMap from CaseSoft. CaseSoft is a maker of software for lawyers, not students, so this one carries a lawyer price tag at $149. Yipes! However, NoteMap is the only one of the three that is a real outliner. You can create outlines very quickly and easily, no popups to create new topics, subtopics, etc. Just type. In this respect, NoteMap is far superior from an organizational standpoint. You can reorder nodes just by dragging them, and NoteMap has some grey lines that indicate where you are in the overall outline, which is nice if you outline goes fairly deep. You can also mark nodes in your outline, and attach comment “sticky notes” to topics as well. The default style for outlines (fonts, etc.) are, well, ugly, but you can easily change those.

What NoteMap lacks is the multipane viewing for classnotes and case briefs. Personally, I take my class notes directly in NoteMap, because it allows for a natural flow and easy re-ordering. It also has a feature that allows you to link a file to a node in your outline, so you can still link case-briefs or other outlines to your notes. You just can’t view them all in one frame. To give you some insight into how I use it, I create my briefs with a template in Word (sigh) and then link them to my class notes outline. So when I need to look at the brief, I double click on the link, and there it is. It’s not as elegant as the multiple panes, but it’s functional.

NoteMap is a vastly superior outliner to the other products, which is why I tend to like it best. It’s flexible enough that I use it for other projects, it’s not just for note taking (I use it in Legal Writing/Legal Methods/Lawyering Skills/Whatever for outlining memos, etc.)
That said, it is a whole lot more money. If I were rating it against the others just as an outliner, I’d give it three stars) but here, it’s just above the other two, mainly because of a personal preference for more outlining freedom.

Rating: Two Gavels.

Clearly, the software geared towards aiding law students needs a lot of work. However, they all beat the hell out of Word, and if you need (or want) something beyond law school, NoteMap makes a good deal of sense.

There are some distinct disadvantages to being an evening law student. The first is obvious; I have to work a full-time job and then go to school at night, which pretty much ensures that I have no personal time whatsoever. I can live with that. If my circumstances were different, I would probably enjoy school full-time, it’s just not an option.

The second disadvantage didn’t really occur to me until recently, which is everything here is geared towards full-time students. There are some student groups I’m interested in, specifically the Intellectual Property Law Society. They are having an informational meeting. At noon. The Intellectual Property program here has round-table discussions. In the mid-afternoon. The Student Bar Association had a “technology feedback” session for students to provide their perspective on technology at the school. Yes, noon. So pretty much anything outside of my classes that I might want to participate in, which would make me feel more a part of the school, or more complete in my law school experience is geared towards everyone who is available during the day, which pretty much excludes the second-class citizens of the evening program.

I don’t blame the school, I do understand that the day program is where it’s at, and if I could, I would probably consider transferring. However, I’m not (as are some of my classmates!) in the evening program because I couldn’t get in the day program. I’m not here biding my time until I transfer to the day division. I’m here because I have family obligations and a job that provides security (and which I enjoy) and I am still serious about the study of the law. I do sometimes wish the school did a little more to acknowledge that.

Seriously, what are you so diligently recording in your notes? I swear, from the cacophony emanating from your keyboard, I think you must be recording every single word that comes out of the professor’s mouth. Oh, come on now. That student just pulled that out of their butt, and the professor is even hemming and hawing, with a “well… I’m not sure that is what the court was getting at…” and there you are tippity-typing away. Is that exchange really going to help you on the exam? Or are you just recording every word so you can digest it later? That doesn’t seem like a good way to take notes to me, because you seem to be lost in your keyboard and missing the discussion. I could be wrong about that, but when the professor called on you, he had to repeat his question. Not because you didn’t hear it… in one ear and out the fingertips. But you certainly weren’t listening. Oh well, you’ll probably smoke me on exams anyway.

During orientation last week my criminal and legal writing classes actually met, so we did get a “preview” of what’s to come in regular class sessions. Today, we met for regular class, Criminal Law, followed by Legal Writing. It was a complete and utter blast. I am super charged and ready for this semester. I wonder how long this will last?
I did have a personal revelation today, during criminal: I am a gunner. Yes, I’d read the dreaded warnings about gunners and the consternation they cause other law students. I certainly didn’t mean to cause any students anxiety and I sure don’t want to be “that asshole”. I just can’t help it.

When the professor poses a question, my hand just involuntarily creeps up. Not always, there are times when I don’t really get what he’s asking, or genuinely don’t know the answer. But more often than not, I found my hand was raised, and I did get called on. And when I got called on it felt great.

Why did I enjoy it so much? A couple of reasons: first, and most importantly, I wanted confirmation that I was on the right track. Not necessarily validation that I was “right”, but that I understood what was going on in the case as well as what was going on in class. Second, I like the Socratic Method. Yes, I’m a freak. But I think that dance is really great. Today the criminal professor “hammered” on one of my points, and it was fantastic. He actually made me re-examine my stance, analyze the issue a little more, and in the end, I drew a new conclusion that was more appropriate to the case. And I knew why it was, and how my initial impulse was flawed. I’d always feared that the Socratic Method was just a clever guise for torturing and humiliating students, but at least for today, I actually got the oft stated higher goal of learning through questioning.

So, I like speaking in class. And I like the Socratic Method. And I guess that makes me one of the “gunners”. Now, I just help I can avoid being one of the assholes.

Orientation Program: The Legal Assistance Program

Welcome to law school! I’m here to speak with you about the Legal Assistance Program, which provides help to members of the legal profession with substance abuse problems. Alcoholism (and substance abuse) is one of the largest problems facing our profession today. Between 25%-50% of all disciplinary actions taken against attorneys are the result of alcohol and substance abuse problems. Substance abuse is not a moral flaw or a question of character. It is a disease and we treat it as such. It is critical that if you know of a colleague who has an alcohol or substance abuse problem that you do not stand idle by and let it go unchecked. You can come to the Legal Assistance Program confidentially; we can work with you to plan an intervention to get your friend the help they need. Together we can work to help those members of our profession who are struggling with this disease of alcoholism. Thank you.

Now we’d like to make a few announcements: Do not forget the Dean’s cocktail party tomorrow evening featuring hors d’oeuvres and an open beer/wine bar. And the Student Bar Association would like to remind you of the upcoming “social” at [hip local club] two weeks from Friday. $5 cover for the open bar with student I.D.

Today was another day of orientation. Actually, we did have our first legal writing class today, but we didn’t have a first day assignment, so it was easy to ease into the class. I really enjoyed our professor, he seems like a knowledgeable guy and he?s not particularly intimidating. Since I’ve written, edited, been edited, and published before, I’m actually looking forward to legal writing. My “self-editing” can really be improved and I’m anxious to learn a style of writing that is specific to a profession. I can?t tell you how many times we were warned, “Don’t be shocked if you don’t do as well on the first assignments as you hoped. There will probably be some tears.” I say, bring it on, man, bring it on!

I remember when I first started writing technical books; I had such a negative reaction to being edited. I think all beginning writers have this idea that there prose is sacrosanct. When they face the red pen of the editor, they bristle at every cut or suggestion. Well, now I’ve written enough books to know that a good edit is what makes the difference between a decent writer and a great writer. An editor isn?t as married to the text. They can more easily cut extraneous information and often they can help reorganize the text to help it flow and be an easier read. If legal writing is going to help teach me the skill to be a better self editor, I?m all for it. Then my writing will be in even better shape when I pass it along to my editors and peers, and when I get their comments back then I’ll be able to take my writing even further!