Planet Law School : What You Need to Know (Before You Go)...but Didn't Know to Ask
by Atticus Falcon
Average Customer Review: 
Paperback
(May, 1998)
list price: $19.95
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Reviews (111)
Too long and frustrating, but perhaps worthwhile
This book could have been about 1/3 the length and still have accomplished what I presume it was intented to do -- namely, offer insight to people preparing to enter their first year of law.Instead, a huge portion of this book is dedicated to Falcon's rantings about the professoriat, the ABA, the Socratic method, and even "feminists and reverse racists."
A chapter on these complaints, many of which may well be valid, would have been sufficient.Or he could have written two books, one of which would be specifically dedicated to the shortcomings of law school and legal practices in general.Instead, I've had to search through his extended suggestions for institutional reform, his condemnation of what he perceives as class warfare perpetuated by professors, etc. in order to find the tips on 1st year success.Those tips were the reasons I bought this book to begin with!
It wasn't a total waste.He offers information on a lot of resources that students can purchase to prepare for law school.Indeed, if you bought every book he recommended, you'd end up spending (literally) thousands of dollars!On the one hand, his reviews are appreciated, as they give me some direction.On the other hand, rather than telling me to purchase more material that will help me to do well on exams, I wish he would have just explained the techniques in this book!There are entire chapters of his rantings that could have been cut out and replaced with concrete information.
Anyway, I feel like I'm going into law school with the worst expectations possible after reading this book.If my professors end up being anything more than the incompetent greedy jerks that Falcon describes, I will be pleasantly surprised.I don't know if that's a good thing or not.
You Need This Book
If you're planning to attend law school, I'd say the one thing you really need to do once you've sent a deposit in to your school is get this book, the SECOND edition. You also need to set more money aside, because he recommends a lot of prep materials to get you ready to actually understand what's going on come the end of August or September. But you can get those materials used, and even if you just get some of them, you will be ahead of everyone else (unless they used these materials over the summer, too).
I worried about the criticisms of the book, as well as had some more valid questions of my own. I can address some of those off the top of my head:
1) The tone
I think most people who read this book have a problem with the author seeming to have "an axe to grind," and it makes some people suspicious. Honestly, to me, if you've ever heard about "The Paper Chase" or "One L," or if you even know people in law school, I'd wonder why you'd have a hard time believing some of the criticisms he gives of professors. If you know lawyers or have even met or observed some of the people who claim to want to be lawyers, I don't know why you would doubt his criticisms of lawyers and professors. I find the majority of pre-law students jerks and/or people who want to attend law school for the wrong reasons, to be frank...so why wouldn't lawyers or professors be jerks and not REALLY be there to do their jobs? Law school (or, rather, some law schools) might not be as bad as some books and movies suggest, including PLS, but his criticisms (or generalizations) of professors or, even, lawyers (in terms of not knowing as much as they should), even if they turn out to be wrong, really don't HAVE to have anything to do with his base advice...which is you would benefit greatly from summer prep. Regardless of what kind of professor you get, the material you are presented with and expected to learn (and, in many cases, already know) is great, and getting, at least, some familiarity with it doesn't hurt. What I have actually been able to do is not be bothered by his tone and stick to the basic idea of summer prep--in fact, I would say much of the second edition is not necessary for you to even read. You can if you want to, but the first and third parts of his book, some of the info about lawyers and professors, comments from students and the prep recommendations are probably the only things really worth much time and thought. Everything else is like long-winded commentary (or, as others think, excessive negativity).
2) The length, which I addressed above.
Skip some of that stuff, if it bothers you, and pull out only the most helpful info. Use the table of contents and the index to find what you need to know.
3) Are his recommendations actually any good?
From what I can gather, yes. The law school to which I have sent my deposit, as best as I can tell, is a PLS kind of school. Not only is my school mentioned in one of the comments sent to him by a law student who was letting Atticus know how right he was, but the current students with whom I've spoken have let me know in subtle ways that PLS methods will work there. This is a top 10 school, by the way, and that was also a question I had (see point #4 below). Basically, current students at this school swear by Examples & Explanation guides and LEEWS (only most of them discovered them AFTER entering school), have seen exam questions that have resembled material from E&E and have successfully used LEEWS on their exams...which I seriously considered not purchasing LEEWS because I have seen people say on message boards that they used LEEWS and their particular style of professor didn't want LEEWS-style answers on exams. There are also other books/guides mentioned by the author that either have extremely high ratings on this site, are recommended by way too many people with whom I've spoken to be a coincidence or were mentioned by current students at my law school as books that saved their butts in certain classes. I recommend that if you're not sure LEEWS or some of these books are necessary at YOUR kind of law school, you ask current students what they used or would recommend (but ask them as if you're speaking of materials for the fall, because they are almost sure to try to talk you out of summer prep). I can almost guarantee people will recommend E&E guides, at the very least. I would also recommend that in order to know whether or not LEEWS will work at your school, ask current students whether or not anyone there has used LEEWS and how it turned out...and/or get LEEWS over the summer and go through it just in case (or wait until you're in school, but it will be WAY harder to do LEEWS), get copies of old/example exams your professors give if you can and compare it to LEEWS methods. This is getting into points #5, but you have to be flexible in law school and adjust PLS according to what observable differences you actually see in action.
4) Does PLS apply more to some schools than others?
I still suspect that it might, but this is another thing you just have to question. However, I was supecting that PLS applied more to lower-ranked schools before I talked to current students at my top 10 (because I had witnessed more people from lower-ranked schools successfully using PLS, and I had the idea that top law schools worked more like elite clubs where you were treated 100% great and given EVERYTHING in order to succeed just because you were good enough to be accepted). In addition, PLS has testimonials from students who attend schools such as HLS and NYU. There's something different about YOU going and getting the evidence, though, so, again, I urge you to ask current students at certain schools key questions in order to gauge whether or not PLS might be effective there. I still say that, at least, E&E guides will be helpful ANYWHERE, as long as you use them correctly, though.
5) Burnout and learning things that you won't need to know for law school/you don't know what the professor will focus on.
Well, the second part of that is, once again, not the point, as Atticus points out. If you do what he says, you will have Black Letter Law down, so that all it will take once you get to the Bar Exam is relatively minimal reinforcing in order to do well. It's also about knowing all the essential Black Letter Law needed in order to ultimately be a great attorney. Don't think in terms of what you need to know for first year ONLY. Have the common sense to be flexible once you're in school. If you don't need to know something, great--put it aside for a second and focus on what you do need to know. As long as you can put it aside, it won't hurt you to have learned it--on the contrary, it will ultimately help. And having become familiar with those concepts prior to school will make it so that you won't need as much time to study and absorb the material once classes are underway. You won't be as overwhelmed once you get to school and in the thick of the fast pace, because you will have that familiarity and some knowledge. You want to become familiar with the way things work--you don't want to get bogged down. And you don't have to. And, to me, if you're going to law school, you should be interested in this material. So you shouldn't be getting burned out over the summer. Don't work hard on the summer prepping--you're not being graded just yet. But do try to pull as much info as you can in the name of making things easier for you later. And, later on, you can adjust somewhat in order to fit the professor's ways. Atticus actually advocates this (such as by learning the professor's favored jargon and using it on the exam).
Best book I've seen so far...
I want to say at the outset that I am only someone who is planning to go to law school at this point.I have not been to law school yet, so I am not speaking from any personal experience with the program Planet Law School II recommends.
Having said this, I am someone who is very interested in law and seriously set on studying law.It is not a secret that law schools are extremely competitive now days; while students that get admitted to law schools are smart A, B+ students, once they are in law school only a very small fraction of them end up receiving an A in a course.Students graduating with 4.0 in hard undergraduate majors and with 170+ LSAT scores come to law school, study hard, but end up getting Cs, Ds, and Fs in classes.I think that many people have heard some of these stories, some maybe even heard personal accounts of this happening, and (yes!) this does raise fear, anxiety and search for solutions among the aspiring lawyers and law students, like me.
While wanting to prepare and trying to learn more about pre-law programs available, I have been left very much disoriented and confused.I decided to start by looking at various law school prep books (books claiming to tell you what to do to succeed in law school).From all the books that I've read so far (and I've looked at four different ones) Planet Law School is the only one thatreally addresses the many fears and concerns that law school students are having and offers actually concrete advice on what a 1L should do to get into that top 10% of his/her class at the end of first year.
One of the main criticisms of people who gave a low score to this book is that it talks negatively of law and law school experience.Potential students will read this book and not want to be lawyers after reading it.This is not true!If someone is really set on studying law, like me, they will not be deterred by the prospects of mean professors or competitive classmates, no matter how negatively they are portrayed.In fact, most pre-law students, like me, who've investigated the subject to some extent already, expect law school to be extremely difficult, very competitive, unfair, and hard to succeed in.When pre-law books like the "Law School Confidential" give advice like "you just need to go to class and study hard," "see the forest for the trees" they don't address these deep concerns that pre-law students are having.They try to calm you down and say that everything will be okay, which for me is hard to believe given what I already know about law school experience.The picture that PLS paints is more believable.And, okay, let's say that my law school experience will not as bad as Atticus' book says.Wouldn't it still be smarter of me to prepare myself for the worst?!I can't be sure what my professors and classmates will be like.Better err on the side of being overly prepared - isn't this how someone who graduates in the top 10% of a top school should think?
The book "Law School Confidential" and some similar ones have left me very disappointed.I cannot believe that LSC got a higher rating on Amazon.com than PLS!It promises to offer you a guide to a successful law school experience, but never tells you of what is that allows some of the smart students to get the best grades and not others.For example, the book tells you buy a comfortable bed, get a pet, talk to your loved ones about the stress that going to law school will put on your relationship, take time to rest from studying, do outlines, listen to professor, go to class.Sure, these are good advice, but most of them are painfully obvious.Most of these we, incoming students with 3.7+ GPAs, know already.We already study hard, have good time management skills.What we want to know is how do I get ahead of another classmate with a 3.7+ from an Ive League school?Law School Confidential and many other pre-law books don't address this at all, while Planet Law School does.
Planet Law School lays out a very concrete and detailed plan of preparing for law school, with list of materials, assignments, advice.Of course it's long, and it may be subjective and not perfect - I cannot comment on the content of its advice.But in the least, PLS gives concrete advice to 1L on how they can work to achieve success in law school.It would be helpful, if other books with alternative study plans were out there to compare, but all the other pre-law books just say that you should rest before 1L, party, and not study.This just doesn't make sense to a serious student!
Another thing that I extremely liked about Planet Law School II, something that other books didn't do, is the book's evaluation and comparison of the various programs out there that promise to give future 1L that all desired "edge" in law school.We, undergraduates, are constantly bombarded by adds for various "miracle" several day courses that promise to place us at the top, when we're in law school.I was completely convinced that I need to spend $1,000 on a 4-day BarBri pre-law prep class, and I was ready to go and sign up, until I read PLS.Of course, PLS might have its own biases when evaluating such programs and its assessment may not be perfect.But at this point it's the only book that at least purports to offer an independent authoritative evaluation of the various programs of this nature that are out there.It is vary complete and up to date.It also seems that the author really did his research before writing.Other books don't even mention these various programs and courses, leaving the reader confused as to whether he/she should sign up for one of these or not.
So, from the perspective of one pre-law student, PLS is the most helpful and comprehensive book out there.Other commentators here with more law school experience strongly support its methods.I know that I will be following PLS advice.
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