Free gyaan to law students on my timeline. Pl take it seriously - most lawyers will tell you the exact opposite. So take a call.

Most lawyers, specially when they come recruiting to campus talk about how inadequately prepared law students are for ‘real life’ as a lawyer. They will also say this ad naseam. They will also lecture academicians incessantly about how it’s a pain to teach students the ‘real law’
That the curriculum should be overhauled, as it’s not preparing students with real skills. IGNORE THEM.
What you will learn as students, the focus, the depth and width of your learning will never ever be replicated in your professional life. What you learn today will be your foundation - focus on the wrong thing i.e. ‘real law’ and your foundation will remain weak for a lifetime.
What lawyers call ‘real law’ varies from practice to practice and you literally have a lifetime to learn. Research will often be hurried, be on a very narrow point (sometimes literally a comma), and often that narrow research, though adding to your knowledge, be never used again.
By contrast, no matter what you practice, the foundations of Consti, Contract, Property and a dozen other areas will be useful for you for life. Try telling a client that you will look up what a contingent contract is and then advice.
No matter how hard you work, how many ‘real’ skills you have picked up, how good your research has become, the client will run away from you at the speed of light.
Also, if your foundation is good, like in maths - connecting and formulating becomes much easier. You will spot things inside your head (literally from 25 years before from your classroom) and make a point your real lawyer friend will never be able to make.
In short, focus on your studies. A LOT. Yes, internships are useful wine tasting journeys of the ‘real world’ - but recognise them as such and not as an important part of your eduction. They are not.
Finally, avoid shortcuts in law school. I know reading Seervai or Mulla cover to cover is mind numbingly painful. But you will never be able to do it again (never say never though). Don’t just stick to what is assigned as courseware.
At least for the fundamental subjects go for the solid texts.
And have fun outside of academia on the football ground - the real world can wait.

More from Education

Time for some thoughts on schools given the revised SickKids document and the fact that ON decided to leave most schools closed. ON is not the only jurisdiction to do so, but important to note that many jurisdictions would not have done so -even with higher incidence rates.


As outlined in the tweet by @NishaOttawa yesterday, the situation is complex, and not a simple right or wrong https://t.co/DO0v3j9wzr. And no one needs to list all the potential risks and downsides of prolonged school closures.


On the other hand: while school closures do not directly protect our most vulnerable in long-term care at all, one cannot deny that any factor potentially increasing community transmission may have an indirect effect on the risk to these institutions, and on healthcare.

The question is: to what extend do schools contribute to transmission, and how to balance this against the risk of prolonged school closures. The leaked data from yesterday shows a mixed picture -schools are neither unicorns (ie COVID free) nor infernos.

Assuming this data is largely correct -while waiting for an official publication of the data, it shows first and foremost the known high case numbers at Thorncliff, while other schools had been doing very well -are safe- reiterating the impact of socioeconomics on the COVID risk.
Working on a newsletter edition about deliberate practice.

Deliberate practice is crucial if you want to reach expert level in any skill, but what is it, and how can it help you learn more precisely?

A thread based on @augustbradley's conversation with the late Anders Ericsson.

You can find my complete notes from the conversation in my public Roam graph:
https://t.co/Z5bXHsg3oc

The entire conversation is on

The 10,000-hour 'rule' was based on Ericsson's research, but simple practice is not enough for mastery.

We need teachers and coaches to give us feedback on how we're doing to adjust our actions effectively. Technology can help us by providing short feedback loops.

There's purposeful and deliberate practice.

In purposeful practice, you gain breakthroughs by trying out different techniques you find on your own.

In deliberate practice, an expert tells you what to improve on and how to do it, and then you do that (while getting feedback).

It's possible to come to powerful techniques through purposeful practice, but it's always a gamble.

Deliberate practice is possible with a map of the domain and a recommended way to move through it. This makes success more likely.

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