MAXIMISING THE EXTERNSHIP PERIOD

The externship period is one of the most nerve-wracking and gruelling stretches of the Nigerian Law School (NLS) experience. For roughly eleven to twelve weeks, you must navigate your court and chambers placements while mastering everything you have been taught (and often feeling pressure to go beyond it), all with the knowledge that, once externship ends, the bar finals are only about two months away.

It is also the part of NLS that catches many students off guard. The work itself is rarely the problem; the challenge is that it happens away from the academic environment, away from your usual study rhythm, and right before the highest-stakes exams of your legal education: the bar finals.

Where you are posted can make all the difference. You might be one of the lucky few assigned to chambers and courts that expect only the barest minimum from you. You might instead land in chambers that treat you as an unpaid employee, or in a court that expects you to sit through every single proceeding. Or, like me, you might end up somewhere in the middle, envying friends whose principals rarely gave them tasks or whose courts rose by 12 noon, while thanking God that my court and chambers had not completely swallowed up my reading time.

Your living situation matters just as much. You might return to a home where everyone understands the pressure you are under and makes room for you to study. You might return to the same chores you handled during the holidays. Worse still, you might stay with a relative or a stranger who treats housework as the price of your stay. If you are fortunate enough to rent a place of your own, you will have the freedom to use your time however you wish.

Then there is travel. Your trip home could be a one-hour flight, or it could mean more than twelve hours on the road: a journey that consumes an entire day and often demands another day to recover.

The truth is that there is no level playing field during externship, yet everyone is expected to deliver the same results. And if your results disappoint, no one will accept the excuse that your externship was rough and you had no time to read. That is the harsh reality.

With this in mind, it’s quite astonishing how many NLS students venture into the externship period without a plan and come out without much to show for it. Knowing how delicate a period of time this is, it is essential that you have a clear plan and idea on how to navigate it, and I will be sharing my thoughts on this. I’m not here to talk about how to deal with your courtroom or your chambers, NLS organises a workshop for that just before externship begins. I am here to show you how to keep studying for the bar finals sustainably, even when you spend all day in court or chambers.

 

THE NLS EXTERNSHIP STRUCTURE

The Nigerian Law School’s academic calendar is built around three terms, and externship makes up the second. It typically begins with a pre-externship vacation, followed by about five weeks of court externship, a short break, another five weeks of chambers externship and a post-externship vacation. The third term then opens with portfolio assessment. By the time externship begins, you will usually have covered ten to twelve weeks’ worth of course content, with the remainder taught after externship and portfolio assessment.

That is the typical arrangement, but my set’s experience in 2025 was slightly different. The externship was split in two. We had about seven weeks of lectures, went on court externship, returned for the remaining eight weeks of lectures and then left for chambers externship. When we returned from chambers, we had only about a month for portfolio assessment, revision and the examinations. Still, despite the split, our experience mirrored that of most students in many ways.

 

WHY A PLAN IS IMPORTANT FOR THE EXTERNSHIP PERIOD

As you can tell from the academic calendar, the revision window between the end of the externship and the exams is very short, and much of it is consumed by portfolio assessment and the remaining lectures.

Therefore, if you don't use the externship weeks to keep your reading alive, you arrive at that final stretch with months of accumulated academic rust on top of new material. And that is a terrifying position to be in. Many students who find themselves there are gripped by fear and resort to drastic, even dangerous measures just to catch up.

That is why it is more than advisable to enter externship with a plan, knowing that this is a season for aggressive reading and ready to take it by storm.

 

STUDYING DURING THE EXTERNSHIP PERIOD

I spent the first few days of my court externship drawing up a dangerously ambitious timetable that, surprise, surprise, I could not stick to. It was a plan that only became feasible during chambers externship, by which point I had read certain topics several times and could cover two, three or even four in a day.

However, because I had spent the lecture period making notes, my first reading during the court externship felt like I was encountering those topics for the first time and hence, reading a single topic could take an entire day and for courses like Corporate Law Practice, a single topic could take a day and a half.

So I adjusted my timetable. Instead of measuring my first reading by how many topics I covered each day, I focused on giving every course equal attention, keeping pace across all of them, prioritising drafts and setting aside time for multiple-choice questions (MCQs) and past questions.

On weekdays, I read topics and completed the drafts for each topic as soon as I finished it. If I had read to my satisfaction by the end of the day, I would answer a few MCQs. The nightly Red Scroll meetings also gave me the chance to revise past questions almost every night. At weekends, especially on Sundays, I answered past questions and MCQs and filled my logbook for the week.

I also squeezed reading into every spare moment. My court usually sat until 5 p.m., so once I had noted enough cases for my logbook, I spent the rest of the time reading. I read everywhere: on the bus to court, in the court library, in the car to church. When I was bathing or doing anything else that kept me from reading, I listened to recordings or podcasts generated with NotebookLM. I kept a strict schedule, waking up by 4 a.m. or earlier most days so that I could read for at least five hours before court and at least four more after. Even though I could not read as fast as I wanted at first, and even though that was discouraging, I stayed consistent, stayed on schedule and kept pushing.

I kept up this pattern during chambers externship, even though my reading had become much faster. In essence, my plan was to read at every waking moment and leave no course behind. It was rigorous, stressful and difficult, but consistency kept me afloat and ensured I did not drown in work once externship ended.

 

BALANCING STUDIES WITH CERTIFICATIONS

NLS students have access to several certifications, most of them in arbitration or mediation. Often, as in my case, the lectures and examinations for these certifications take place during externship.

I had always been interested in arbitration (I even took it as an elective at university), so registering for the discounted certification offered by the Nigerian Institute of Chartered Arbitrators was a no-brainer.

I will not lie, though: at one point, I began to wish I had not registered. When I arrived at NLS, I had dropped every engagement that might eat into my time, determined to devote myself to studying. By the time the certification classes started, I had entered externship with a backlog of unfinished notes and a very aggressive reading plan, and I quickly realised that the certification would take far more of my time than I had bargained for.

For a start, there was a three-day series of intensive classes, running from about 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., during the break just before court externship. They took up most of that break, but having paid ₦150,000 for the certification, I had no choice but to be fully invested. After that came a one-hour award-writing examination, a practical simulation of arbitral proceedings, and a research assignment we had two weeks to complete.

In hindsight, having emerged as the overall best candidate in the examination and the winner of the Professor Fabian Ajogwu Prize for International Arbitration, I may have put in more effort than was strictly necessary. That is probably why balancing the certification with my studies during those two weeks was so hard. Very hard. Even after the classes ended, the assignment meant waking up earlier than usual and giving several of my already scarce hours each day to research and writing. I wish I had prepared myself mentally for how time-consuming it would be. Thankfully, by working on the assignment in the early hours of the morning and devoting the rest of the day to my actual reading, I completed every requirement without my academics suffering.

I would never discourage anyone from pursuing a certification. I would, however, advise you to understand exactly how much time it will demand and to put proper structures in place to accommodate it. I went in blindly and managed to wade through, but you will be far better off knowing in advance what a certification at NLS will take from you. With that knowledge, you can decide whether it is worth your time to take advantage of the discounted rate while at NLS or whether you would rather pursue it later. More importantly, you can build structures that protect your reading, which is the most important thing at NLS, while you work towards it.

 

BALANCING STUDIES WITH JOB APPLICATIONS

Another potentially overwhelming part of externship is applying for jobs while juggling everything else.

Job applications typically open around the middle of the externship period. For my set, however, they began during the two-month interval between court and chambers externship, and the tests followed during chambers externship.

One piece of advice I received at NLS was to remember that acing the exams is a means to an end, and that end is securing a good job at a top-tier law firm. So, tempting as it was to ignore job applications entirely and focus on my goal of a first class, doing so would not have been wise.

Realistically, you could wait until after NLS to apply, or even until your results are out, and if your results are strong enough, firms will want you. But waiting significantly narrows your options, especially among tier-one law firms. Most of them accept CVs and cover letters, begin their recruitment processes and, in some cases, even complete interviews before you sit your exams. For instance, Aluko & Oyebode, the firm I now work with, ran its entire process, from the Jobberman online test to the physical test and interview, while I was still in law school, and released offers shortly after the examinations. Had I waited until after NLS, my chances of joining the firm would have been significantly reduced, if not eliminated.

Other tier-one firms, such as Olaniwun Ajayi and Banwo & Ighodalo, also began their processes while I was in law school, although many concluded theirs after the examinations. Some top firms, however, such as Kenna Partners and G. Elias, waited until results were released before recruiting their trainee associates.

I will be honest: balancing job applications with your studies during externship is very difficult. I outsourced my CV and a template cover letter to a company, but I still had to write individual, firm-specific cover letters for about twelve law firms. That was exhausting, because each letter demanded research and an in-depth understanding of the firm. At one point, I remember breaking down under the stress of it all.

The testing period is even more stressful. Most law firms use computer-based assessments such as the CCAT, GMAT- or LSAT-style tests, or Jobberman tests. Preparing for them is completely different from preparing for your exams: you must consistently carve out time to study the English, mathematics and abstract reasoning sections. You also need plenty of practice to build speed, because these tests require you to answer many questions in very little time, sometimes 50 questions in 15 minutes.

To make things easier, download the CCAT app or turn to YouTube to learn how to approach these tests as early as possible. Leaving it until the testing period can be overwhelming and may force you to abandon your academics entirely to focus on the tests. I downloaded the app early, and although I was not consistent, I had built up significant practice before testing began. Even so, I often had to set aside my academics for a full day or more to prepare for an upcoming test.

In all, I wrote four tests during chambers externship: two for Olaniwun Ajayi and two for Aluko & Oyebode. Each time, I made the painful decision to prioritise the test, at some cost to my academics, until it was over. My approach was to spend the day before and the day of each test preparing for it, and then to work aggressively afterwards to make up the reading time I had lost.

So expect that you may need to send applications, write tests and possibly even attend interviews during externship. I would advise you to prioritise your job search, since a job is most likely your end goal, but keep a balance; as the last thing you want is for your academics to slip because you are job hunting.

 

BALANCING STUDIES WITH PREPARATIONS FOR PORTFOLIO ASSESSMENT

Portfolio assessment may seem like a formality, but many people forget that if you fail it, you will not be called to the Bar with your peers, even if you graduate with a first class.

Failing is rare. What is far more common is being caught out a few days before the assessment with empty or half-filled logbooks, unfinished essays and ethical dilemmas, and unprepared PowerPoint presentations. Students in this position end up flailing around, tossing their books aside as they scramble to finish work they should have dealt with during externship.

I will not pretend I was the perfect student during externship. I did not fill my logbook every day. Some days in court, I did not even capture enough cases to record, largely because my judge spoke softly and did not use a microphone. However, I had a strategy for tackling the logbook issue.

First, I kept a jotter for both placements, recording cases in court and the day’s tasks in chambers. That way, however long it took me to transfer everything into my logbook, I never had to worry about forgetting what had happened that day. Second, I set aside time on most Sunday mornings to record the entire week in my logbook.

For assignments, I made sure I had at least four signed off by my chambers. As for the other essays, although I wrote most of them after I returned, I had already gathered materials from others to guide me.

I also made a genuine effort to work in chambers and pay attention in court. As a result, during my portfolio assessment, I could speak confidently about my experience and show my supervisors that I had taken externship seriously. The assessment itself was smooth and brief, but I had prepared thoroughly for every question I could anticipate.

So do not neglect the externship itself simply because you want to use the time to read. Read diligently, but remember that externship is an essential requirement for qualifying as a legal practitioner in Nigeria. Give proper attention to everything you need to do to ensure your portfolio assessment goes smoothly.

 

YOUR MENTAL HEALTH DURING THE EXTERNSHIP PERIOD

When people offer advice about maximising externship, or NLS in general, they often overlook mental health. In my experience, many students struggle with it during externship, and I was one of them. Although I arrived with a beautiful plan, once I discovered it was too ambitious to sustain and my name began appearing less often on the Law School Paddi leaderboard, I experienced severe stress, anxiety and even despondency. I compared myself constantly with my peers and, despite spending hours reading every day, I spent just as much time judging myself and talking myself down for not being diligent enough, fast enough or simply good enough to earn the first class I was aiming for.

My reasoning was simple. Every first-class student I had listened to or watched on YouTube talked about reading three topics a day, yet during my court externship, as I mentioned earlier, there were days when I could not finish even one. Many times, I panicked and cried bitterly out of frustration, stress and sheer exhaustion from the constant, monotonous reading.

My mental health suffered most when I returned to a topic I had spent hours on, only to discover that I had forgotten a huge chunk of it. In those moments, I felt like the biggest fool alive. I battled imposter syndrome throughout law school, and at times like these, I questioned how on earth I had graduated with a first class as the best graduating student in my class. Then the panic would set in: with my forgetfulness, how could I possibly replicate that success at the Nigerian Law School?

I also was involved in a tricycle accident one day on my way to court so coupled with all the stress and every other thing that I went through at NLS, for two weeks, I experienced muscle pains and neck stiffness which made it even more difficult to read. In fact, for the first two days after the accident, I was mandated to lie down and rest to heal, but it was very difficult to do so because all that was in my mind was all the things that I had not yet covered and how my mates were reading while I was in bed recovering from being flung out of a tricycle as it basically somersaulted in the air from a failed brake. And that was not great for my mental and bodily health.

All in all, I cried a lot at NLS, probably more than I did during my entire five years at university, and the stress caused me to break down several times. Thankfully, God sustained me and gave me peace and comfort whenever the pressure to keep up and the fear of underperforming threatened to drown me.

Feelings like these are, dare I say, normal, but they should never be taken lightly. Some students at the Nigerian Law School have harmed themselves, and some have even taken their own lives, because of the intense academic stress and anxiety they experienced. If the pressure and frustration ever lead you to consider harming yourself, please seek help immediately. It is okay to cry and to feel everything you feel, but remember that the outcome of NLS does not determine your entire life. As long as you eventually pass, even if not on your first attempt, you will become a lawyer. Five years down the line, few people will care what grade you graduated with. It may be a nice conversation starter and look good on your LinkedIn profile, but that is about it.

So, however intense the pressure and however desperately you want to prove yourself, remember that this is just one season of your life. Speak up if you need help. Talk to God, a mentor, a friend or a pastor. Do not bottle up your feelings or sink into depression and despondency. At law school, you need someone to lean on, and you need God. I pray that God gives you a sound mind and the mental strength to persevere through law school without breaking down.

 

CONCLUSION

At your externship workshop, you will be told that externship is about learning how courts and law chambers function. That is true, but given the academic structure, the deeper truth is that externship is your only lecture-free window to lock in and master everything you need to conquer the bar finals with confidence. So go into it with a plan, fully aware that it will be grueling and stressful. Approach it strategically, and when the bar finals arrive, you will walk into the exam hall confident that you have put in the work to earn the best possible result.

Good luck!

 

 

STUDYING FOR THE BAR FINALS

We've looked at some of the basics for any student navigating or about to navigate the Nigerian Law School. Now, let's get into studying for the bar finals as a student hoping to emerge with the best possible result, a first class.

I'd like to begin with a disclaimer. I am going to try to be as neutral as possible, and will not point to any particular study method as some sort of fail-proof strategy to excel at the bar finals. However, I am going to focus on tips that I believe would enhance and optimise whatever reading strategy you decide to take, as well as lead you in the right direction if needed.

Furthermore, reading is just one part of the puzzle. It is possible to read harder than everyone else and still not perform as well as you might desire. This is because, no matter how many hours you spend reading, your conduct during the exam week and how careful you are to avoid mistakes, as well as the grace that you have to avoid any unfortunate circumstances, really are the deal breakers when it comes to making your desired grades.

Anyways, let's begin, shall we?

MAKING NOTES

The need to make notes at the Nigerian law school is a very controversial topic, even amongst first-class students. Several students are of the point of view that to excel in your bar finals, you have to make detailed notes. Others believe that making notes is a complete waste of time and that the time spent making notes could be spent actually reading.

On this, I am on the fence. I did make notes in law school; detailed typed notes that I have shared with some of the students currently in law school. I also, for about 10 out of the 17 topics across board, made written mind maps of my typed notes (until I ran out of time to continue with them). I made the notes because I am way too much of a scatter-brain to have to rely on multiple sources of information. I preferred having an organised material that contained all the information that I needed, so I made my organised materials.

However, as I mentioned in my previous blog post, making notes is not actually reading. In fact, once you pass the 100 days mark to bar finals, I believe that you have no business with making notes any longer. Making notes in and of itself does not amount to much in terms of retention. You forget about 80% of what you have written in your notes just a few days or even hours after making them. This is because making notes, especially the way most people go about it, is mostly passive reading. I believed it to be, in my case, a necessary evil because of the kind of person I was. If I could, I would not have made notes at the Nigerian Law School. But I did, and I do not regret doing so; I would be lying if I said that there weren't times at NLS when I felt that making notes had me a little behind my peers, especially because they were reading faster than I was at some point.

Nevertheless, note-making can be productive, especially when you are not just brainlessly rewriting chunks of text from a textbook, a statute or class slides. When you use note making as a means of breaking concepts down in a way that you can understand, processing the information and rephrasing it in a way that makes subsequent reading easier and more palatable, creating patterns that make things easier for you to remember (I did this a lot with sections of law), or creating summaries that would help subsequent reading become faster and easier, it is very productive. But as you can see, even in this productivity, it all tilts to helping you when you actually start reading and reviewing your notes.

For me, even while I felt that making notes originally had me a little behind my peers in my pace of reading, I am not going to lie, the benefits later on made it all worth it, especially after I converted my typed notes into flashcards. Those flashcards were so useful when it came to my active recall, and they made retrieving information so much easier. Again, when I started using NotebookLM, I fed my typed notes to the AI system, and they were the basis for the discussions, the practice tests and other things that I used the AI tool for.

However, I never fell into the trap of having a false sense of completeness and believing that because I had thorough notes, that meant that I had learned what I had written down. As I said, making notes was a necessary evil for me during the first part of law school because they made the latter part of law school a bit easier. Notes are only the starting material in terms of reading. You'll actually eventually have to read the notes. And you do not want to have spent so much time making notes that you are then choked for time when it comes to the real deal, i.e., reading what you have written.

The simple point I'm trying to drive is that when it comes to making notes, there is no hard and fast rule. Some people make notes and excel; some people don't and still excel. I usually recommend making notes but doing so as quickly as you can so that you can get to actually reading. But in the end, the key is finding what best suits you and following through with it.

PASSIVE VS ACTIVE STUDY

When it comes to reading methods, I generally hold no reservations on whichever one a person chooses to use. However, I do strongly oppose any reading method that involves more passive study than active study. Why? Because that's self-sabotage. You're setting yourself up for failure, and if you're not careful, you won't realise it until it is too late.

Let me begin by explaining what these two terms mean. Passive study is simply consuming information without retention. It is the study equivalent of comfort food. It's easy. It feels productive. It feels like you are doing something. Your hands are flying through your notes, filling the pages with words. You're listening to a class recording. Your highlighter is breezing through the textbook. You're mindlessly rereading notes. It's the kind of study that you do when you're lying on your bed, flipping through a textbook like it's a novel. You feel like you're understanding what you are reading, and you believe that it translates to retention. But it doesn't. Most times, it just results in familiarity with the concept, meaning that if you come across it again, you are able to recognise that you have come across the concept before. But that doesn't translate to actually being able to remember what you have read.

On the other hand, active study is actively trying to produce knowledge. It's actively pushing your memory to retrieve information or to apply the information to any situation (like exam questions). It involves explaining concepts aloud without using notes, using flashcards to quiz yourself, practice testing, teaching the material to someone else, writing about a concept from memory, etc.

Active study is generally a very uncomfortable method of reading, especially at the beginning. It can be frustrating. It requires real mental work and often produces the uncomfortable feeling of failure when you have difficulty with recollection. Because of this, people tend to procrastinate or run away from active reading.

When I was in my 100 level, I read a lot of books about studying and came across several research works regarding these methods of study. I also came across different psychological strategies for effective study, like the Feynman technique, but I'm not going to bore you with psychology. I'm just going to go straight into the facts. I've never experienced a complete blackout in any exam. I also have never had to reread several times before an exam. In fact, when I tell people that I read certain topics 5 times or so in NLS, they assume that I actually reread my notes (in the regular way) over and over again. Nope. Not at all. I just encountered the topics in different ways up to 5 times before exams. In fact, I abandoned my notes about three weeks before exams, relying only on my flash cards.

Now, I do not claim to be the best guru in reading. But I do know the research, which, I must admit, some others already figured out on their own without having to be a self-help bore like myself. Did I apply all of them in law school? Nope, unfortunately not. I never managed to find a way to go about conquering the forgetting curve, and it bugged me a lot while in NLS. I didn't use the Pomodoro technique, which, if you've read my university post, you would know that I used a lot in my 100 to 200 level in the university. I didn't track my reading hours because what was there to track? I was always either reading or recovering from reading, so it was pointless.

My point is, my reading method in law school wasn't really the best out there. In fact, if I were to go back to NLS, there are a few things that I would have amended, even though I would have maintained the same pattern. But when it came to active reading, I was not lazy about it at all and spent a lot of time honing down on what I knew worked best for me. Because of that, I do believe my reading strategy in NLS was pretty solid and decent.

What was my reading strategy, you may ask? Well, I made typed notes. That took a LOT of time. I proceeded to make written summaries in a unique way (I used mind maps to break down complex topics into small parts). The mind maps were originally an experiment, but I stuck to them because they were fun and colourful and they made reading easier and concepts easier to remember.

At this point, I had already started a bit of active reading because to make mind maps, you have to process the information and break down concepts into formats conducive for a mind map. Also, I made those mind maps using the 'read, try to understand, then proceed to replicate what you remember without looking at the source material' method.

After that, I proceeded to make my Anki cards, which involved asking myself questions out of each chunk of information on my typed notes during my second reading process. Once I made my cards out of my first set of topics, I began going through them immediately. I made the mind maps during court externship, and I couldn't actively make them in court (they needed quite a bit of material), so instead, during times in court where I felt that I had gotten enough cases to fill my logbook, I would lower my head and go through the questions on my cards, quizzing myself over and over again. I also looked through the cards on the bus, keke, and just generally any single time I had some time to spare. The good thing about looking at the cards was that it really just involved pressing my phone, so it was very convenient for all sorts of free time. Again, I was actively engaging my brain, so I couldn't zone off while using the cards.

Of course, if I were to change one thing, I would have begun the card-making process before the court externship, because I believe that I would have gained a deeper mastery of its contents. I would have also fully utilised its spaced repetition pattern of asking questions, as the same was optimised to conquer the forgetting curve. Also, if I had really understood how effective the cards would be, I would not have even bothered with the mind maps (which I stopped after about 10 weeks because I felt like I needed to pour more energy into a more active form of learning).

My reading was predominantly focused on looking through the mind maps at first, and just flipping through the cards during free hours during the day (like breaks, when I was eating, when I was too tired to sit up and read, when I was waiting in line for food or some bureaucratic process) but about one month to exams, when I had gone through all the mind maps and my printed notes, I switched predominantly to the cards, going through and attempting to answer all questions while flagging all that were difficult to answer.

I also began reading with a friend about a month before exams, and we went through a PDF that had extracted all the focus points of NLS past questions. I was a tutor as well, so I also learned by actively teaching people during tutorials. And that was my reading method up until exam week.

I should also mention that a few weeks to exams, someone sent me a drive link containing drafts that had been converted to songs, and although I had already learnt most of the drafts at that point, they helped with 2 drafts in particular, both of which came out in exams. I only answered one, and it was really fun humming the song as I wrote down the draft in the exam hall (I still remember the song, by the way).

For my MCQs, I went through MCQs for the topics we were taught that week on Saturdays, using a pen and paper. I maintained the pen and paper method of answering the MCQs up until during chambers externship, when I replaced them with OMR sheets that I had printed out. I also actively participated in Law School Paddi MCQ battles every Saturday. When it was close to exams, I switched back to pen and paper because I wanted to make some jottings as I practised MCQs. I proceeded to revise all the weekly MCQs from the two different materials that I had gotten in a long note exercise book. That book eventually formed the bulk of what I revised the night before MCQs.

Remember, I am just telling my story. I am sure many other first-class students used different and even less flowery strategies. This is not a template as to how you must read to get a first class. I am just highlighting the fact that I read mostly by quizzing myself, and my written note-making was not just a mindless verbatim copying of material. I had to process information to both make the mind maps and the cards, and reading them (especially the cards) involved the difficult and often frustrating process of active recall.

No matter what pattern of reading that you engage in, active recall should take the main frame once you are done with getting an understanding of the topic. Remember that if you understand a concept, but have not stored it in your long-term memory before exams, your understanding is not going to be of any assistance at all. Passive reading might be low-effort, but actually getting things to stick using passive reading is very ineffective and time-consuming as well.

If I were to draft a reading method for law school, however you might want to go about it, here is what I would recommend:

1. Make notes if needed and use that opportunity to gain understanding of the topic (try as much as possible to process the information as you read it and don't mindlessly copy verbatim from your textbooks, slides or materials).
2. For the first phase reading afterwards, read your notes actively, with full attention.
3. Close everything and retrieve what you've read from time to time during your first phase reading. Write, speak, or sketch everything you remember. This is the commencement of the desirable difficulty that comes with active reading. But don't shy away from it. Lean into the discomfort.
4. Compare what you have said or written against the source. Note exactly what you missed, as the act of making mistakes and getting corrected is the whole point of active recall.
5. Revisit the same material 1 day, 3 days, and 7–10 days later using the same active recall or retrieval method, not rereading. Doing this will prevent the common pitfall of forgetting topics that you've spent so much time reading before. This is one step I wish I had focused on more.
6. After some time, try to mix topics rather than looking at concepts of the same type together. (This is where the cards really stood out to me, because after the first flip, the concepts were scattered based on levels of difficulty for me. I found this particularly useful in learning my RPC because after some time, I began to be quizzed randomly — for example, I might be asked on Rule 15(4) in a question, and the next question brings up Rule 36. Being able to remember random sections at a go helped me to actually gain mastery of the rules.)
7. Explain the topics to someone (real or imagined). You can give pretend lectures and make them fun and interesting. Remember that the more unique, interesting and engaging your reading sessions are, the more likely you are to remember what you read.
8. Of course, do not forget to look at past questions and MCQs.

PAST QUESTIONS AND MCQS

One very common pattern of active recall that all Nigerian Law School students have to engage in is reading past questions and MCQs. You cannot enter the exam hall without any knowledge of how the questions you are about to encounter would possibly look like. Most NLS students, at some point or the other, realise this, but some unfortunately find out a bit too late.

I advise that you get into past questions and MCQs as quickly as you can. You can start from your very first week by finding materials that arrange the MCQs and past questions according to the topics. An app I used, Law School Paddi, had some of the MCQs arranged per topic, but I also used about two more comprehensive materials that did the same. If you do not find similar materials for past questions, you can do as I did and manually search for the said questions yourself.

Also, don't just read the questions, then read the answers passively. Use the past questions to train your active recall, speed and accuracy. Answer the questions blindly without looking at any material, and then later, you can search for the answers to ascertain your accuracy. However, I would advise that you be very careful about the answers provided in some of the past questions that you might encounter. Many of the easily and widely accessible ones do not contain the official marking schemes and, as a result, can contain several errors that you might take to be the correct answers if you are not careful. If you are confused about an answer provided in any past question material, do not just take it in hook, line and sinker, but check your source materials or ask seniors or lecturers or your mates about the answer to the question.

Additionally, as much as you can, practise the past questions under timed conditions. You are given one hour to answer a hundred questions on the MCQ paper and three hours to answer four theory questions. I would advise that you practice the MCQs and past questions so much that you can answer the questions well below the time that is given for same. For MCQs, I suggest that you train yourself to be able to answer the 100 questions within 30 to 40 minutes and for theory, you should train to be able to answer the four questions within two hours.

This is because at the point of practising, you are not under exam tension, so you tend to be less cautious about the answers you give. Therefore, when you practise, you are much freer, and that means that you would tend to answer the questions faster than how you would answer in the exam hall. For instance, I trained myself to answer MCQs within 30 minutes, but in the exam hall, I finished within 45 minutes. For theory, I trained to be able to answer a question in 30 minutes and in exams, I didn't have so much time to revise, but I never submitted an unfinished work.

I strongly advise going through as many past questions as you can. At this moment, you can access the ones from all the way back to 2009; that's almost 20 years of questions. I assure you that if you look through all of them, with the consistent pattern of repeating questions in NLS, you would encounter a lot of question formats that would not confuse you in the exam because you have already seen patterns of questions like them and tackled the questions. Answering as many past questions and MCQs as you can in NLS is a major hack to getting a first class.

MENTORSHIP

Alongside your reading strategy, mentorship makes a real difference. I honestly do not know how a person can go through the Nigerian Law School without some form of mentorship, whether direct or indirect. The NLS presents such a unique and difficult situation that it helps a lot to have people who have done it before give you guidance on how it can be done.

During my time, I had a lot of mentors. I called, chatted and discussed with a lot of people who had passed through the Nigerian Law School and gotten the grades that I desired. Also, I was a facilitator in the Red Scroll Group, which was a group where those of us at NLS reviewed past questions every night and had mentors correct and advise us.

For those who do not know any seniors to talk to, the good thing is that, just like this post, there are a lot of write-ups and videos out there on how to excel at the Nigerian Law School. Also, during your stay, there will be a lot of webinars where your seniors can address you and give you tips to excel at NLS. Find every possible means to look for them and get the necessary information that you need so that you don't make costly mistakes that could have been avoided had you just asked the right questions.

USE OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Beyond mentorship from people, it's worth talking about mentorship of a different kind: AI tools. I am a very big advocate of avoiding suffering as much as you can and always finding easier ways to get around things. There is really no reward at all for suffering, and the amount of time and difficulty it took you to understand concepts is not only irrelevant in terms of the grades that will be allocated to you, but also incredibly time-consuming.

Therefore, I recommend the WISE use of Artificial Intelligence in law school. AI can help break down concepts and sections that might be difficult to understand and help you understand them faster. However, I believe that for AI systems like ChatGPT, that is as much as its use should go. You cannot use ChatGPT to answer past questions or pre-class tasks. ChatGPT and most, if not all, other AI systems do not have sufficient knowledge of both Nigerian law and the NLS standard of answering questions. They will feed you rubbish if you attempt to use them that way.

In NLS, ChatGPT was particularly helpful in helping me understand complex sections of CAMA and other regulations. However, I found that the most versatile tool was NotebookLM. Using that AI system, I could upload my typed notes, create engaging podcast sessions, MCQs, summaries, digital mind maps, extract cases and sections, etc. NotebookLM was also less likely to hallucinate when I asked it questions because the answers were based on my notes.

Now, I do not know if that is the only possible use of NotebookLM. I am certain that you can use the system for many other things. But I found out about it a bit too late to really explore all its potential. However, I do advise that you use the tool and all other possible tools out there to make your reading faster and more efficient.

YOUR READING ENVIRONMENT

In NLS, I read everywhere: in cars, buses, kekes, walking down the road, at restaurants, etc. My reading was on a 'once I have time to' basis, and I did not necessarily have to create a perfect environment to read. There were times I read in a very noisy class. I read outside of my corridor, in the middle of my room, in the laundry room of my campus, in the reading rooms, in the common rooms, while court was in session, etc.

When it comes to a physical environment for reading, I do not advise being the sort of person who can only read in specific places. In my court externship, I encountered people who did not bother to open their books all through the court session (and my court used to close very late), because they were convinced they simply could not read in such an environment. I personally also do not prefer having to crouch down in the middle of court proceedings to read or read in the other inconvenient places that I have mentioned, but I was desperately fighting for time so my preferences really did not matter when it came to my reading environment.

However, when I could, I liked to make my reading corner comfortable. I preferred a big space to contain everything I needed, and as a result, I found pairing the sofas in the common room with my bed table was my preferred choice of reading space. However, there were times when I would feel the need to stay awake for long stretches of time and felt that the sofas were too comfortable for that. So I would head to the laundry room of the campus and sit in a very uncomfortable corner in the room (on top of a sink space), propping my bottom with a throw pillow to be able to sit for long stretches of time, and whenever I went there to read, sleep had no chance of finding me. I also would sit on the arms of the sofas in the reading rooms when I felt too comfortable on the sofa. 

Additionally, when we were about a month to bar finals, and I realised that I could no longer read in close proximity to my non-reading phone or any form of distraction, I ensured that I never read in my room or anywhere remotely close to the phone. So I would keep my phone in my room and head to the common room, which was a bit of distance from my room so that my phone and social media could be out of sight and out of mind.

Essentially, in NLS, I would recommend that you adapt to be able to read anywhere you can. However, if you have the chance to arrange your reading corner, ensure that it is comfortable (but not too comfortable; leave your bed as much as you can) and make sure that it is free from distractions.

SLEEP

On a related note, this is going to be a very small segment, but I feel the need to state that your success in NLS is not measured by how little you sleep during the process. Now, I would be lying if I said that the rigours of NLS would not require you to sacrifice sleep, but please, if you are burnt out from reading, take a break. Take naps. If your head is aching, if you are no longer comprehending what you are reading, if you are feeling sick while reading, it might be a sign that you need to shut your books and sleep for a while.

Also, know yourself and adapt your sleep schedule to what works best for you. I slept for about 5 hours daily because I liked reading very early in the morning, but I know someone who slept for 7 hours every night (because she could not function otherwise) and still got a first class. I slept at night and read in the mornings and afternoons, but I know first-class students who preferred to sleep in the afternoon after lectures to wake up at night and read till daybreak. Night reading is often viewed as the superior reading for some reason, but the fact that I almost never read from the hours of 10pm to 3am in the morning did not change the outcome I had at the end of NLS. In the end, it's what's in your head and what you put down in the exam hall that matters, not how little you slept or whether you never slept at night.

CONCLUSION

Now, this is just a guideline on the best and most effective patterns of studying for NLS. However, I feel the need to point out again that you should not get caught up in reading/studying patterns that do not work for you just because your friends, roommate, or whoever, are doing the same. Find what works for you and maintain that system.

This also goes into times and places that you choose to read. If you are a night reader, read at night; if you can read during the day, do so; if you do not like reading in the library, my friend, please don't go. You will not suddenly become more serious because you went to the library to read. Once your reading method involves more active recall, is effective and works well, there is no need to change it. If the times you prefer to read are the times when you feel alert, and your brain is the most optimised to remember, read during those times. There is no 'one size fits all' approach to getting a first class at NLS.

Next up, we'll be looking at tackling the externship phase of NLS. Good luck!

 

THE BASICS

Last year, I wrote a blog post (link here) about how I attained a first class at the university and emerged as the Best Graduating Student of my faculty with a CGPA of 4.84. By the time I made this post, I was already at the Nigerian Law School, even though we had not officially started lectures, and I was already feeling a lot of pressure because I felt like I needed to defend my result. I also knew that whatever I did in the university would have to be aggressively amped up for me to achieve a first class in law school. I was scared, but I posted it anyway. I did this despite knowing that publishing that post (which, by the way, has since become my most popular blog post with over 11,000 views) would lead people to see me as some sort of academic authority and raise whatever expectations they already had of me.

Anyways, I come with good news. I did ‘defend’ my grades at the Nigerian Law School (NLS). I not only graduated with a first class at NLS, I was also the 2^nd Best Graduating Student in Corporate Law Practice, as well as the Best Female Student in Corporate Law Practice.

Now, I am going to be very honest with you. I did aim for a first class right off the bat, but I would be lying if I said I always felt assured that I would get a first class. Oh, no no no. I battled doubts, inferiority complex, imposter syndrome and the general feeling of academic humbling (with a sprinkle of academic humiliation) when I was in the Nigerian Law School. It wasn’t an easy feat. I worked harder than I have ever worked, did things crazier than I ever did in the university (and if you have read my previous post, you will know that I did some pretty intense things to attain my first class in the university), and yet, all through, I never felt like I was doing enough. In fact, there were several times that I felt dumb. I felt like an idiot, an olodo. There were times that I felt like I didn’t even deserve the first class I got in the university and that by the time that results were released, the bubble would burst and everyone would know that I was an academic crook.

Luckily, on that, I am not alone. There are just so many things to read in the Nigerian Law School and so much information to retain. Even if you read through the syllabus seven times, it’s almost impossible to feel like you’ve truly, actually done enough. Especially if you are aiming for a first class at the Nigerian Law School.

Okay, enough ramblings, let’s get into the details. Now, I should warn you: this is part one of a series of very long and detailed posts on everything I can remember about how I excelled at the Nigerian Law School. But I assure you, if you are in the Nigerian Law School, or you are about to enter the Nigerian Law School and you desire to attain a first class, these write-ups are for you. There are a lot of things that I am going to share that I wish I knew off the bat, things that took a lot of trial and error to learn but here I am freely dispensing this information.

So, buckle up, sit tight, and let’s get into it, shall we?

 

PREPPING FOR THE BATTLE AHEAD

For those yet to resume NLS, I’m assuming that you would think that I would begin by advising you to begin reading months before law school. Well, I cannot dish out that advice, because I do not believe in it. You see, right from when I was in the university, I never read during holidays. I believe in doing things at the right time. So I didn’t seriously bother about reading before law school.

Now, before I entered law school, I was already hearing a lot about how intense and crazy it was, and at a point, fear drove me to attempt looking at Cundy Smith’s materials. But I could not understand what I was reading, and I didn’t even know what I was reading so I gave up shortly after.

But does that mean that I advise you go into law school blind? Absolutely not. Most students have no idea how law school works until they are already in it and I don’t think that it is advisable. The Nigerian Law School is a fast-paced environment that can get terribly overwhelming if you are unprepared. I believe it is imperative that you get a little bit of understanding as to what lies ahead. That means:

a.     Watching videos and reading blog posts (or books if available) about the law school experience: Now, this includes general information, like what you are to bring to commence the law school, what is prohibited, what you should expect, how your campus is, the room and other facilities, the law school structure, how to read in law school, how to take care of your health in law school, how to structure your time table and so on. Before I knew the campus I was going to, I watched videos of all different campuses, and when I figured out mine, I narrowed my videos to the Yenagoa experience. I also watched a lot of videos and read posts on how classes ran and on the reading structure of top-performing students. Before law school, I already had a fair idea of how the system ran, so it didn’t strike me by surprise.

 

b.     Setting Goals: I believe that everyone should go to law school knowing exactly what they want. Now, some people just want to pass, but if you are reading this, I believe that you want to get a first class. A beautiful goal. A very attainable goal, regardless of what you got in the university. I also wanted a first class, and I knew that it was what everyone expected of me. So, I spent the weeks before law school watching videos on VIP TV and other interviews with first-class students. Their stories not only prepared me for what I needed to do before venturing into law school, they also made me believe that it was possible. I mean, if a person who made a 2.1 and even 2.2 in the university could go on to make a first class at the Nigerian Law School, why couldn’t I?

 

c.      Prayers: The phrase, “law school is highly spiritual” is a truism that can never be overstated. So many things can go wrong within those nine months that may not even be academic, but could mess you up mentally in an already academically aggressive environment.

 

I prayed about a lot of things before resuming law school, down to the roommates that I would have. In fact, I do not believe that praying about roommates is a mundane prayer before law school, especially if you’re not planning to stay in an executive hostel or to stay outside the facilities. Law school is already way too stressful for you to be wasting your precious time and energy arguing and keeping malice and beef with roommates. I didn’t pray for close friends as roommates, but I did pray for peace. And I’m happy to say that I did have peace in my room in NLS.

 

Pray for everything, down to your family life during NLS, your health, your finances, your mind, your heart… you get what I mean; just pray all round and as much as you can.

 

VENTURING INTO LAW SCHOOL

The first week of resumption in NLS is strictly for registrations and no academic activities take place until the third week. Now, I know some people, even first-class students, who didn’t begin reading that week but waited till week 3, when lectures started, to start their reading. However, I came to NLS with a plan of some sort, which required immediate action from the very first day. My plan was to commence by reading some of the relevant authorities related to law school.

So from the very first week, I delved into studying the ACJA, ACJL Lagos and ACJL Kano as well as the RPC. Now, there was not much pressure, and I was still adjusting, so I wasn’t quick, but I did start on time. I also began reading a few of the drafts for the first week of lectures.

I don’t have much to say regarding this period really. You may make your first friends during that week, and I would advise you to be very careful regarding those that you associate with. Meet and make friends with the right people, positive people that will encourage you rather than dampen your spirits or inflict you with their spirit of nonchalance. You might think it is not important, but if you’re already coming with fear, run away from negative people that will fuel the fear and make it worse. You might also meet people that will make you wish you had started reading earlier, all those who had been reading weeks before law school resumption. But again, take this from me: don’t let them pressure you. If you work hard enough, you can meet up with and even surpass them. Besides, they could have been reading off point, you know.

 

THE NLS CLASSES

I definitely do not have the best attention span. In the university, I could barely tolerate boring lectures. However, coming into law school, I realised that I had to improve in some way or the other because, based on the research I had done, all the first-class students claimed to have attended at least 95% of classes and paid rapt attention in class (besides, you need at least 70% attendance to be qualified to take the exams).

And I did improve in my focus and attention, but not completely, especially because I slept for roughly five hours daily throughout law school. I took extensive notes in class, and the notes got more detailed once I switched from writing to typing my notes in class. I also recorded classes, especially when the lecturers were talking too quickly to meet up with them in my notes (and for the times when I would doze off in class). For a lot of classes, I would record, write as much as I could, then use the recordings to complete my notes.

As you can see, I believe that classes are very important and your class notes and slides should form the basis of your notes. Also, especially after externship, you should pay rapt attention to pick out some hints that lecturers will drop about possible questions that might come out in exams. If possible, and this is one thing that I regret not doing, when it is close to exams, around revision week, try to ask colleagues in as many campuses as you can about the exam hints that their lecturers dropped.

 

NLS PRE-CLASS TASKS AND OUTCOMES

In case you are not already aware, your study MUST be in line with the NLS curriculum and the outcomes provided before each class. Nothing more, nothing less. If the material that you are using or the textbook that you are using differs, switch to one that aligns with the curriculum. In the end, there are a plethora of materials and textbooks to use, and I would  not be the one to say which is better than the other (I used Badmus, Agbata and textbooks), but the important thing is the curriculum because that is what the lecturers will be using to set their exam questions.

Now, regarding pre-class tasks and group meetings, I was unfortunately in a group where some members took pride in wasting the time of the other members, quarrelling about topics that they had little to no information about and trying to prove themselves to be more intelligent than the others. As a result, group meetings that could efficiently last for just about 30 minutes to an hour at most were lasting for as long as two hours. That was completely unsustainable in my opinion, so I began distancing myself from physical meetings, attending only a few times a week (mostly on weekends). However, I did do my due diligence in assisting with tasks when required.

I must admit, right off the bat, I placed a higher priority on past questions than pre-class tasks because I noticed that there were several types of questions being asked in the tasks that just never featured in exam questions. On the other hand, the questions might be different and NLS lecturers do have their way of springing surprises in exams, but there are consistent, repetitive patterns of asking questions that the Nigerian Law School has maintained over the years. Hence, I never went through all of the questions asked in the pre-class tasks but went through several years of past questions, right from 2009 past questions. However, if you wish to rely on pre-class tasks for active recall, I would say that it is a good strategy, but it should not replace past questions.

 

DAILY AND WEEKLY TARGETS

As I mentioned earlier, you should come to law school with a vision, which I believe should be to make a first class and to become a red scroller. But to achieve this ultimate goal, you need to set out daily and weekly targets. I created these targets right from the first week of lectures because I spent the first two weeks of registration and orientation deciding which materials to use and how to read.

So my daily targets were to read what was taught for class, make typed notes and read a rule of RPC. I didn’t perfectly stick to completing my notes every evening, especially as topics became quite voluminous, but I did try my best. And then, every weekend, my goal was to solve MCQs of all topics taught that week with strict timing, drafts, learning of cases and sections for the week, and to participate in Law School Paddi weekly quizzes. Again, I did suffer a few lapses from time to time, but that was generally how I structured my days and weeks when we first resumed.

I believe so much in having weekly, daily, even hourly targets if that is what is going to get you to sit up and do the work. You see, these artificial deadlines are important because the goal of a first class becomes, especially when you’re in the middle of law school, like something far away and abstract. In fact, I can say that at a point, my motivation for reading and pushing myself as hard as I could, reading past exhaustion and waking up every day ready to spend the entire day buried in my books was no longer to attain a first class per se, but to meet up with the very ambitious targets I set for myself. 

 

A ROUTINE AND A CONDUCIVE ENVIRONMENT, NOT WILLPOWER

I don’t believe that you can excel in law school by relying only on willpower. Willpower is like a muscle and it weakens the more you rely on it throughout the day until it gets completely depleted and you begin to procrastinate, give in to temptations and make impulsive decisions that will harm your performance in law school.

In fact, I can tell you for free that I did not excel in law school because I had the strongest willpower of all. I know that I have spoken and written a lot about discipline and personal growth, but put me in the right environment, and you would see me transform into the laziest bum of all. For instance, imagine if I started an amazing fantasy book series with nine books of 800 pages each right in the middle of law school. You think I’d be able to stop or restrict myself to only 10 pages a day to maintain, you know, balance? Absolutely not. I don’t have that level of discipline. I would be a lost soul for the number of days or weeks it takes me to finish the book series before I finally came to my senses.

So yes, you can guess, I didn’t even let myself come within a hair’s breadth of a single book, or a single movie series (I did watch about two movies when I arrived home for my externship, though), or TikTok (and barely ever visited Instagram) all through law school. In fact, I had to convert a phone of mine into a study phone and made it contain only my materials and music, so that I could put my ‘distraction phone’ away in a different place while studying. This was simply because I knew who I was. I wanted to minimise anything that would make me waste away precious time, so I removed temptations before they became a problem. In that way, I conditioned my environment so that I needed less willpower to perform at the optimum level.

Additionally, I had a strict, somewhat regimented routine in law school. I conditioned myself in a way that I didn’t need to make the decision to read. I read on autopilot. I set several alarms to wake up by 3 or at most, 4 every morning, read till 7 or 8, prepared for lectures, then went for lectures. After lectures, I went straight to buy food, spent an hour eating and resting by either pressing my phone or gisting, depending on when lectures ended, and went to continue reading by 3 or 4pm. I then continued the reading till 9pm, had the Red Scrollers daily meeting from 9 to 10, prayed from 10 to 11 or more, then slept off, ready to start the day doing the exact same thing all over again. This was my daily routine except for Wednesdays and Fridays, because of mid-week church service, Clasfon meetings and academic tutorials.

As for the weekend, I would wake up by the same time (or 5 if I slept late on Friday), read till 7, and go for sanctuary cleaning of the church till 8. After sanctuary cleaning, I would buy food, eat, go to the reading room where I would spend the remaining day reading or head out to Pedros, where I could usually charge my laptop if there was no light all through the day. I would then go for group meeting by 4 or 5, come back by 6, participate in Battle of Wigs by Law School Paddi, then continue reading till we had the daily meetings. On Sundays, I did chores after church service before continuing my reading.

Of course, there were days when things came up that meant that I had to fluctuate my patterns, but generally I formed this habit and had dedicated times for things so that I did not necessarily need conscious self-control to decide to read. I built habits, routines, systems and conditioned my environment so that reading became my default mode in law school right off the bat before exam pressure set in. Also, with the targets that I set for myself, I was not just reading at a relaxed pace or taking my precious time. No. I had goals that kept me on my feet and ensured that I spent my reading time actively pushing myself to grasp things faster and be more efficient and effective in my reading.

 

TIME EFFICIENCY

When I was in 100 and 200 level, I used to mostly monitor my reading progress by how many hours I spent reading. This was because I was trying to develop my mental stamina, sustained attention and capacity for deep work. However, once I developed that to a satisfactory extent, I stopped measuring my reading by the hours spent but by the work accomplished in those hours.

You see, everyone knows that you have to spend long hours reading in law school if you want to do well, especially if you want to attain a first class. But what most people don’t talk about is how not all reading hours are the same. Let me give you an example. Person A spends eight hours reading a day straight from the textbook like it’s a novel, or perhaps taking notes along the way. Person B reads for the same eight hours, but instead, spends it in active reading, pausing from time to time to ensure that he or she has not only understood what he or she is reading, but can actually remember it. In the end, the two of them have spent many hours grinding. But I assure you that Person B is the person with results, the person that will actually remember a substantial part of what he or she read.

Now, I will discuss this more later on, but the point is, do not deceive yourself by tracking your reading by how many hours you spend sitting at the table with a book in front of you. Nobody cares. If you can’t remember what you read, you’re not going to get parallel A’s by telling the examiner that you read for 10 hours daily. Monitor by ensuring that the time you spend is being used effectively, and the only way that you can do this is to ensure that you are reading effectively. From time to time, review your reading method to ensure that whatever you’re doing is actually working and is time efficient. If it is not, ask the right questions to the people who seem to be getting ahead and change whatever you’re doing.

 

BATTLING ACADEMIC DIFFICULTIES

You are very likely going to encounter a lot of difficulties in law school. If you are fortunate, these difficulties will be only academic difficulties. But still, they can be quite demoralising.

As I said earlier, law school made me feel like a dullard at first, especially during the early days when I was still getting introduced to a horde of information on a daily basis and somehow delusionally expected my brain to retain substantial information once I had made my notes. And when it didn’t, it hit like a punch in the guts.

There were times, early on, when I would stay up all night making notes for a particular topic then the next day, someone would ask me a question on what I had just read and it would seem to me, like I had never even come across that topic. I mean, I knew right from the start that making notes was not real reading but still, I was a bit delusional about my abilities, so it would hurt a little. But that was not my greatest academic hurdle, because I did expect it.

My actual greatest academic hurdle was making the surprising discovery that my attention to detail was, for lack of a better word, trash, in the mud, almost non-existent. I knew that I used to be a careless scatterbrain as a child but it really was something that I assumed I had overcome until I came to law school.

And oh boy, you CANNOT make a good grade in law school without an almost perfect attention to detail. You can’t. In fact, not only are you expected to have excellent attention to detail, but you are expected to display the attention to detail under EXAM CIRCUMSTANCES, which, for me, was with anxiety, barely enough sleep to function and barely enough calories in my stomach for the human body to ordinarily function (but that was just me, please try to sleep and eat well during exams).

But I cracked it. I managed to develop enough attention to detail to end up as a prize-winning first-class student. And I’m going to tell you why.

The simple reason is that once I identified this problem, or any other problem while in law school, I… I was about to type that I refused to let it dampen my spirits, but that’s not true. It did dampen my spirits. I would get very demoralised when we started solving pre-class tasks, and I was missing important information because I was not careful enough. Also, when I started solving MCQs and kept getting floored by the trick questions because I was not reading the questions carefully, my spirits were dampened.

I remember times in class when I would fail a pre-class task I attempted, because I missed out on something, and everyone around me would get it. I remember that during times I would just get so silent in class, really doubting my brilliance and feeling very stupid because how could I have missed out on something that everyone else managed to see?

I also remember sitting on the floor in my room, very close to tears because I had attempted MCQs and failed a lot of the questions, not because I wouldn’t have known the answers if I had not read them carefully, but because I did not have the good judgment to actually read them carefully. I remember asking myself if this was how I was going to get this first class that I was looking for at the Nigerian Law School.

But I quickly made a comeback. For MCQs, the first thing I did was to actually take my time to study how to answer MCQs, how to anticipate the tricks laid out in them and how to evade the common pitfalls (I’ll discuss this further when talking on answering MCQs). I did the same thing for past questions and more than that, I answered more and more past questions until I became the one amongst my peers spotting tiny details that they were missing and until I started getting perfect scores in MCQs.

I also faced other challenges. The topics were just too many. Some of the topics were easy to read, but many were a challenge to fully grasp. There were so many cases, sections, principles and other things that I had to keep in my head, and I made notes, which made things a bit slower for me than for others. Also, at many points, I felt behind my peers and as though I was the dumbest amongst them. But whenever I identified a problem, I never let it demoralize me for too long. I always found a way to bounce back.

The moral of this? You may face challenges in your studies at the Nigerian Law School. You may forget a lot, you may have difficulty understanding some topics, you may, at a point, even be behind your peers. But if you are ever in that spot, I wouldn’t say that you should just keep pushing, even though you should. First, identify the exact challenge you are facing, then find a solution for it. Then you can keep pushing.

 

COMPARISON

When it comes to comparing yourself with your mates, I have a bit of a divided opinion on it. Some people will say that you should never compare yourself with your mates, but should you really never do that? I mean, if the people that you’re writing the same exam with and started at the exact same time as you are in Point N and you’re still in Point C, should you really close your mind to that and, you know, focus on yourself and your pace? Isn’t that a possible indicator that there’s something you might not be getting right just yet and that your pace needs to be adjusted?

I do think that comparison can be important when it’s done right and in a healthy manner. But comparison can also be a damper that can cause you to begin spiralling and get depressed, and that is all just really unnecessary.

I really think it’s all about your mind-set. How do you approach the information that there are people who are understanding things faster and reading more efficiently than you are? Do you take it as a cue to learn from them, adjust and grow? Or do you just decide that because you’re not meeting up to their pace, you must be stupid and that you just don’t have what it takes academically to get a first class? Personally, I think that the second mind-set is just stupid. How do you get the opportunity to see that you could do better and decide to use the information to make conclusive negative opinions about yourself?

If you’re in that state, and seeing that other people are doing better makes you even more pessimistic about the bar finals, I think you need to pray to God to change your mind-set. I do not think that the right approach is to decide to box yourself in and never interact with people so that the only level of progress you’re observing is your own, to, you know, maintain your peace.

When I was in the Nigerian Law School, I participated almost every week in different activities that gave me opportunities to gauge my performance in comparison with my mates. I participated in nightly past questions review with my peers and mentors. Whenever I gave a wrong answer and another person answered it right, or I gave a right answer but someone else gave a better answer that was commended by the mentors, I didn’t think…oh, that means I’m stupid. I just realised that I needed to improve my answers and, if needed, reach out to the person for help.

I also participated in the Saturday Battle of Wigs (BOW) sessions by Law School Paddi. At first, I didn’t ever appear on the leader board (top 10), but the more I saw my mates getting high scores, the more motivation I got to practice more of my MCQs so that I could also appear on the leader board. And after some time, I began to be featured there. I never quite got to first place, but I did get 3^rd several times. And one thing I can tell you is that I would not have practised my MCQs as hard as I did in law school if I wasn’t driven by the desire to appear on the leader board weekly.

What’s the healthy way of comparison? Well, I’d say joining groups with people that you’ve noticed are actually making good progress in law school, having friendly competitions with them and being able to identify whether you’re maintaining the same pace as your peers, or whether you need to do more.

Now, the primary gauge of your progress should be your goals and your ability to hit your artificial deadlines. But a little bit of comparison of how you’re faring academically as compared to your friends is also very useful from time to time. 

These are a few basic things that you should have in mind as you venture into the Nigerian Law School. Next up, we shall be looking into Studying for the Bar Finals.

 

Good luck!