Well, I don’t know if this was a question on many people’s minds in my set but for like an entire week and a half after classes had started and people were hitting the books, I would go to the library struggling with how to read, where do I start from, do I form notes first or read first? Well I was tired of the questions in my head and a friend advised me to seek counsel so I sought counsel from past students and a beautiful teacher called Google. You know how it is said ‘In the multitude of counselors, there is safety’(1)
So I researched online, watched YouTube videos of ‘How to Study effectively! How to Study Smartly! How to memorize 10x faster! How to make brilliant notes! Lol it was fun though, especially the cartoon videos. I remember some people commenting on how people are reading and I’m there watching cartoons and videos, well, It paid off at the end!
Fresh NLS enrollees have been asking this question so here’s an article to answer you. Really, I wish I knew many of these things even in my university days! But oh well, at least those in Uni can glean wisdom from this article. Also, you’ll find out as you go on in this article that you’ve already been applying many of these techniques in your study life – you didn’t just have a name to it.
This article will be based on the knowledge I acquired and my personal experience at the Nigerian Law School. So here goes:
1. Pomodoro Technique: Weird name right? I thought so too! This includes studying for a number of minutes and having a break in between and resuming your studies after the break. It’s a way of focusing effectively.
So, you can decide to read for 3 hours, however, you’ll need to break it down into minutes. First hour you can either read for 25 mins, have break for 5 mins where you ‘press your phone’, stretch your back or so, and use the next 25 mins for reading and 5 mins again for taking a break. But, if you can’t assimilate much information within a short span of 25 mins, you can read 50 mins and break for 10 mins( I did the 50 mins one, by the way)
E.g : Read Crim litigation : 1pm – 1.50pm
1.50- 2.00pm: Take a walk or chat or Instagram things.
It is better to study smart than study hard. Research has shown that if you stay for hours studying – without taking breaks, there’s a high chance that you use quarter of the hours set apart to “mind drift” rather than focus on studying , whereas you could have separated a break time for “mind drifting.” This way after the break, all your energy is zeroed-in on the task of studying.
Also this technique will help you not to hurt your back, sitting bent over, for hours without stretching and exercise.
Click on this link to watch the short cartoon clip I mentioned earlier: https://youtu.be/KEgDi2Xznq0
2. Find your own style: if you are a day person; meaning if you’re someone who assimilates more during the day than at night, please don’t feel bothered if your roommate is reading at night. Don’t struggle to stay awake and then have a totally unproductive day dozing off and an unproductive night reading and drooling over only one page of the textbook.
If you are a person that can’t jot and read at the same time then stick to what you can. If you can’t listen in class and copy notes at the same time, go with what you can( but try to jot a little or look for a person who writes beautiful notes from class and ask to see it after class because, WHATEVER IS TAUGHT IN CLASS IS VERY IMPORTANT!)
Stick to what you have noticed about your body and self. BUT, if what you noticed about your self didn’t help you assimilate and pass previous exams, then find an alternative, try it out, test yourself and see if it works.
3. Instant Self Test: After reading a topic, ask yourself questions like What did I just learn? What did I just understand from this topic?You can while reading, write out questions on each subtopic you’ll ask yourself at the end.
Nigerian LawSchool has made this technique easier by providing you with learning outcomes for each topic in your course plan/outline. If you haven’t been given the hard copy of this course outline yet, don’t worry, ask your colleagues for the soft copy, someone will have.
E.g: In Property Law Practice, under the Topic: Deed, the following learning outcomes are listed:
What is the use of a deed?
What are the types of a deed?
Draft a deed.
What is a deed of rectification? e.t.c.
Let’s say you are studying the topic ‘Deed’, at the end of your studying, take the learning outcomes and try to test yourself on each outcome by writing out the answers or teaching yourself the answer as you will teach a class.
P.S: Take your course plan/outline seriously, your exam questions are set around the learning outcomes. Don’t over-read jargon in the textbooks that your course plan doesn’t contain or the lecturers didn’t mention in class.
Also Make use of the past questions. After studying a topic, you can look at the past questions on that specific topic and try to answer them. It’ll help you know what to expect from your examiners and shape your mind with the important points to note in your future studying.
4. Feymans Technique:
Read a topic, close the book(s) where you read the topic from, get a blank sheet of paper, write all you’ve learnt on that topic on the piece of paper. Once you are done writing and there are blanks/gaps i.e points in the topic you don’t remember, go back to the topic and reread.
Get a fresh piece of paper, write in a simpler language as if teaching someone and if you still miss some points and you don’t understand some parts, reread until the blank spaces are filled and you have a complete grasp of the topic.
Here’s a cartoon clip : https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tkm0TNFzIeg
5. Note taking/forming: This technique I will say flesh and blood did not reveal it to me, Only The Spirit of God did.
So for those that form their notes,
Divide your note page into 3 columns. Let the first column be larger than the remaining two. Title the largest column ‘Principles’, the second column ‘Cases’ and the last column, Sections/Rules.
In the Principles column, as the name suggests, you write down the important principles of law taught in class and gotten from your textbooks.
In the Cases column, you research on cases in textbooks and handouts and put them in the column against each principle of law. Take note that you can have more than one principle to one case. Many times, cases will be given that you should note; read them and use it for as many principles as it can cover. Don’t go and learn too many cases for a topic. E.g Green v Green will cover many principles for the topic ‘Parties’
In the Sections/Rules Column, this is based on what is gotten from your statutes and legislation that refer to those principles of law.
Note for criminal litigation, because of the number of statutes to be learned according to each state i.e. CPL, CPCL, ACJA, ACJL, it will be wiser for you to pay more attention to the cases but this doesn’t mean that if you can learn the sections, you shouldn’t. It’s just in case you meet a question in the exam that refers to Lagos and you forget the section of the ACJL that applies to the principle, you’ll most likely remember the case because you gave it a bit more attention.
6. Instant Gratification v Delayed Gratification: So we all know that you’ll only know your result in lawschool after your exams in like a year’s time. Hence, there’s no immediate satisfaction or evidence of victory each day you study, as in you can’t see your First class or 2.1 or desired result and say ‘Ah! thank God for blessing my work! all the reading paid off’.
So what we do is that we give ourselves little satisfactions each time we complete a study task or so. I used to promise myself Pounded yam and fisherman soup(native soup- shout out to Akwa Best on Abuja Campus for this soup) once I’m able to assimilate all that I’ve set out to assimilate in a day;
or Minimie chin chin after every 50 mins I do without being distracted; or I’ll go for a worship concert or go out with friends during the weekend or you’ll watch two episodes of a series you love.
Basically the idea is to get that sense of victory and give yourself an award for that which you’ve accomplished before that award of the Call to Bar certificate is given in a year’s time. So have fun in thinking of your awards and I tell you, you’ll look forward to finishing your studying.
7. Good night/Good day sleep: if you read in the night, best sleep well during the day and vice versa. During Bar finals, please sleep and eat well. Research shows that your brain will remember more when you rest the morning before an exam. Thank God all your exams will be by 3pm so please SLEEP!
8. Don’t force it: If you’re feeling sleepy, take a 30 mins break and sleep, you’ll feel refreshed to continue. Don’t force studying at a sleepy time. The amount of time it’ll take you to read a page feeling sleepy, would be much more as you can spend 30 mins on one page because of in and out dozes and “mind drifting”. Instead, sleep for 30 mins and come back to the point where you left off.
9. Focus: STOP procrastinating. If you say you’ll read today and peradventure, you do something else at your reading time whether of your own will or not, you will have to be ready to revenge every disobedience with obedience (2). What this means is that you disobeyed the law of studying you set for yourself, so you must obey it by adding more hours to your reading time on Saturdays or Sundays(whichever day you’ve set apart for resting/break).
10. Spaced Reading: Take breaks in between courses. At least 10 mins break. This is different from the pomodoro technique in the sense that, here you’re moving from one course to another and not just taking a rest in studying a topic. Don’t just drop criminal litigation and immediately pick up civil litigation without even letting your brain rest. This will help you compartmentalize courses in your brain.
11. Hard Stuff First: if you are reading during the day or during the night, read the harder things first. Then your brain energy is on peak level. Don’t do drafts when your brain is still very alert. Instead study and gain understanding of the topic you set out to read and as you get tired, you can pick up drafts or form your notes. If you’re not one that can form notes and read at the same time, I’ll advice you read and understand first before you form notes. When your brain energy is lower, you can form notes as less brain energy is used from forming notes because all that is really required is copying and pasting from different sources.
12. Peak periods: Know your peak period. Know the hours you are very energized and strengthened to read and don’t use that period to do tutorials for other people. Lol, I got this tip from Our dearest lecturer, Dr Olowononi, you’ll meet him if you’re on Abuja campus for corporate law practice class! Too hilarious!.
13: Practice Your Drafts: Practice your drafts! PRACTICE! Don’t try to read! Don’t kid yourself and say you can “cram it all”. ‘Practice makes perfect’ applies perfectly in this area o! Repeat your draft on a piece of paper AT LEAST 3-4 times. When you are asked to draft in class, Biko draft! Don’t think the lecturers were not thinking when they set time apart specially in class for you to practice drafts.
14. Learning cases and sections/Rules: The best way to learn cases I’ve found is to read the actual story of the case from the law reports. It will just stick. You have a number of cases they’ll ask you to learn before class! Biko learn them! And listen when people are making presentations on them in class. On the day of exams, it may be the way the person presenting pronounced the case name that will jog your memory. At least a number of times in the exam hall, I could literally see Dr Olowononi explaining principles and cases.
As for the sections and rules, open the statute book where the section is contained, it will stick more! You’ll remember what page of the statute book it is on, you’ll even remember how you were flipping through the pages or scrolling through, if soft copy. Try to understand the content of the section and look at the number of the section while understanding.
15: HAVE A BREAK DAY: In other words, have a chilling day. Have a resting day! Have a sabbath where you rest from all your work!
HOWEVER, if you procrastinated all your work for the week, don’t take your break day o! When you see that your goal for the week wasn’t achieved, don’t go and chill! Sabbath is resting from all your work o. If your work wasn’t done, My friend! Stop chilling. (Pele ehn, just a few months, it will be over). But really, I used to take break days but when it was getting close to the exam and I realized I hadn’t achieved the goal of reading my notes the number of times I set for myself before the exams, Omo I woke up and adjusted o. ( I set a goal that I’ll read my notes over and over 7 times before exam! Did it happen? Nope! Lol. Should you make it happen for yourself? A BIG YES! Now that you know, adjust earlier than I did.)
Please Note that all these techniques are not cast in stone. You can test them and adopt the ones that work for you and discard the ones that don’t. You can add your own ‘style’ to it too.
Focus on accomplishing the task of studying first and take your mind off the Bar final examinations. Take one day at a time. Please! Worrying will do you no good. It will just make you exert all your energy and time on thinking when you could have used those minutes to practice a couple drafts. Biko don’t give it time, space or place!
Please share with your colleagues and also those that are still at the university level. It will be of great help to all. Don’t read it alone. I truly beg you to share this post. You may not really like sharing stuff on social media but please share this one! This may help a confused NLS brother or sister already thinking ‘Help! Where will I start from?’
Thank you for reading and letting us help you.
References
(1) Proverbs 11 v 14, The Holy Bible
(2) 2 Corinthians 10 v 6, The Holy Bible
Contributor: Olabisi Mariw Ibironke (Female)
Candidate of the Nigerian Law School 2016/2017 set.
For more information and questions, send an email to maria_ibironke@yahoo.com
FAQs N.L.S. 
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