Coming from the directors of an online law school book store that sells study aids, what we are about to say may surprise you: you don’t need to buy study aids to succeed in law school. As former law students and now teachers of how to succeed in law school, we know the most important factors in succeeding are reading and briefing the cases in your casebooks, attending every class and learning how to write great exam answers. Most students, however, do rely on commercial study aids to help them along the way – and we’re here to give them to you. Yet we also want to give you something for free to go along with your purchase: advice on how best to use your law school books and study aids. Here are some things to consider:

First, not all study aids do the same thing. Indeed, as you look through our website, you’ll notice that we have categorized study aids into Case Briefs, Commercial Outlines, Hornbooks & Treatises, Overview References, Exam Practice Aids and Audio Study Materials.  Click through for a brief description of each category and how the study aids in each category can help you.

Second, for many study aids, there is a right (and a not-so-right) time to buy them. For example, Exam Practice Aids (as their name implies) are most helpful right before you take an exam but are less helpful at the beginning of the semester. This is when you will want to focus on your law school books and/or other study aids. On the other hand, Overview References are better suited to introducing a course when a semester begins.

To help you decide what kind of study aid to buy and when, we have created Fall and Spring semester calendars for typical law school semesters and the times when each book and study aid is generally the most helpful. You can view the timeline immediately below. We have also created a full-scale, full academic year calendar for you to download as a PDF. Print this calendar and put in a folder to carry with you.