Oct 31

Can Law Students Use MySpace Effectively?

4 Graduates, Web & Technology, 3L Students, 2L Students, 1L Students, All Articles 5 Comments »

Anicia M. Ogonosky, Esq.Should young professionals have a MySpace page?

Not long ago, I recommended that law students delete their MySpace page. But I recently read on MyShingle and LexBlog about Anicia M. Ogonosky (pictured left), a young lawyer who uses her myspace page to market herself.

My strongest criticism with law student MySpace pages was with the fact that law students often ignored the fact that potential employers, potential clients, and other attorneys may view their page. I was surprised how many law students posted drunk, sexual, or other questionable photos, which did not market themselves in a professional light.

Ms. Ogonosky’s MySpace page is different from most students’ MySpace pages. Read the rest of this article »

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Oct 28

How Busy Students Can Easily Schedule Study Groups

Web & Technology, 3L Students, 2L Students, 1L Students, All Articles 3 Comments »

I recently read on 43 Folders about a simple web service called Doodle that allows you to e-mail students about times they can meet and then displays a simple schedule with times everyone can attend. This would be great for study groups, socials, student group committee meetings, and more.

This is part of a series of articles highlighting Web 2.0 websites for law students.

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Oct 25

How to Use Law Student Business Cards

4 Graduates, 3L Students, 2L Students, Law Job Hunt, All Articles No Comments »

Law students who are looking for a job or networking to build their professional network may wonder how law students can use business cards effectively. The Legal Andrew blog had a good article on Business Cards for Law Students, which linked to another good article with advice for all students.

You can order free business cards at VistaPrint for the price of shipping, if you don’t mind the VistaPrint logo/message on the back.

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Oct 22

This Law Student has Great Tips

3L Students, 4 Graduates, 2L Students, 1L Students, Law Job Hunt, All Articles 2 Comments »

LegalAndrew.comI’m always on the lookout for blogs with tips and advice for law students. Today I noticed the Legal Andrew blog linking to a TopLawStudent article. The Legal Andrew blog has a number of great articles for other law students:

For the job hunt, Legal Andrew has these good career advice articles:

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Oct 18

How to Backup Your Documents Online for Free

0L Pre-Law, 4 Graduates, Web & Technology, 3L Students, 2L Students, Law School Exams, 1L Students, All Articles 4 Comments »

Most law students know that losing their notes from a computer crash in the middle of a semester can be devastating. Fortunately, backing up your notes and documents is now easier than ever.

I recently tried two free online backup services. They were great:

Xdrive.com is currently was my favorite. It offers 5 gigabytes of free online storage. It also provides a little utility to schedule automatic backups (this might not be available for Mac owners). This allows you to automatically back up your computer daily or weekly from anywhere connected to the internet. APRIL 2007 UPDATE: Unfortunately, I have had trouble logging in, Xdrive consistently fails to complete the backup process, and I have read a number of reports that when people try to restore their backed-up data from Xdrive, the data is corrupted.  What good is a backup if you can’t rely on it to restore your files when you need them.  For these reasons, I no longer use or recommend Xdrive.com. Xdrive was recently purchased by AOL, so maybe these problems will get fixed.

MediaMax.com (aka streamload.com) offers 25 gigabytes of storage for free! But it doesn’t have the utility to schedule backups that Xdrive has, so it’s not as convenient for busy law students. However, for students who need a huge amount of backup space, this would be perfect.

The one catch with MediaMax.com is they restrict restoring from your backup. That is, you can only download 1 gigabyte per month unless you pay for a small subscription. This means that if your hard drive crashes, you may need to buy a subscription to restore the entire 25 gigabytes at once.

How Much Storage Do I Need for My Backup?
Most law students keep their notes and class documents on Microsoft Word files. So they need less than 10% of a gigabyte. In other words, Xdrive’s 5 gigabytes is far more than they will ever need to backup their class notes. Videos, music, and powerpoint presentations may use more space. But still, 5 gigabytes is the equivalent to about six CDs.

Are Online Backups Needed if I Already Backup to CD or DVD?
Online backups have some benefits over traditional backup methods. First, if there is a fire and your CD backups burn, your notes are toast. Second, Xdrive some services can run automatically while you sleep, so you never forget nor need to take time to do the backup.

Are There Other Restrictions?
Most online backup services require compliance with copyright laws, which mean students with unauthorized mp3 files cannot back those up.

Final Advice
These backup services allow you to save your files in a private folder or public folder. Be sure to select a private folder if you don’t want the world to have access to your personal documents.

A Simple Online Backup Method
If you want to backup a very important document you are working on — for example, a take-home exam essay — another simple backup method is e-mailing the document to yourself using Gmail. Gmail will not delete the e-mail message unless you choose to delete it. When I am working on a very important document, I e-mail it to myself every few hours to ensure my work is not lost should a crash occur.

Update for April, 2007:

Currently, law students have a number of online backup service options:

See more free online backup services compared here: Online Storage Services with Free Account Option

For law students interested in a traditional backup solution (backup to a hard drive, CD, FTP, etc.), law student Legal Andrew recomends the free SyncBack Freeware software.

This is part of a series of articles highlighting Web 2.0 websites for law students.

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Oct 05

Print on Your Home Printer From School

4 Graduates, Web & Technology, 0L Pre-Law, 3L Students, 1L Students, 2L Students, All Articles 3 Comments »

Printer Anywhere . comThis free little program allows you to print to your printer at home while you are at school: PrinterAnywhere.com. To find out how it works, read How it Works.
This is great if you want to print something while as school because

    1. you can print something at the moment you think of it so you don’t forget, and
    2. you don’t have to go to the computer lab to get the printout, which is nice because
    • printing at home may be cheaper
    • no other students will see what you printed, and
    • it might be more convenient to just pick it up when you get home.

    I haven’t tried this yet, but it seems like it could be very useful for some students.

    This is part of a series of articles highlighting Web 2.0 websites for law students.

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    Oct 02

    What to Do if You Get Behind in Your Reading

    3L Students, 2L Students, 1L Students, All Articles 1 Comment »

    Law students have to read a lot of cases for each class. Sometimes we get behind. When I was a 1L in my first semester, I got behind in my reading. I spent a few weeks trying to catch up. The problem was, I was always reading a week behind what we were covering in class, so I wasn’t ready for class. This resulted in me not fully understanding the class discussion, so I felt even further behind.

    Here’s the tip: For now, skip the reading that you missed and read what you need for class this week. Then on a weekend or sometime when you have time, go back and read what you skipped. This way you will be ready for class and can at least not get further behind.

    Although there are times when this may not work — such as when you must read last week’s reading to understand the fundamentals of the topic covered in this week’s reading — most of the time this works very well. And even if you don’t fully understand the topic, at least you will know the cases your professor is talking about. If you don’t even know the facts of the cases your professor is talking about, you will probably be getting very little out of class.

    So if you are behind in your reading try this. Place a bookmark where you stopped reading. Skip ahead to read what you need this week for class. And come back to the section you skipped sometime when you have more time.

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