Reminiscences from Law School -Class Room Lectures and Youtube

This will be an ongoing series based attempt where I will be sharing short-stories from my law school days, as and when I recollect, from time to time. It’ll be generally about things which a beginner in law can do differently to make a difference to his/her professional and personal life in the long run.   

Depending upon the response and reaction I receive from all of you, I would try, improve and share as many more experiences as possible. The idea is to benefit the legal fraternity at large in ways more than one, especially the ones who have just begun. 

Sharing my first story today which is on classroom-lectures and youtube.

We go ten years back, when India’s affair with smartphones, new technologies like youtube-live, fast paced internet and wifi (3G/4G) had just rumoured to have been started. Booking of an Ola/Uber used to happen through a phone-call or on their website and the term webinar had still not been coined.

For exam preparation, there used to be heavy and last minute reliance on the notes of students who took them down properly. In some exceptional situations, when even these note-makers of each class sometimes failed to make the cut, situation would become really chaotic and would directly reflect in form of end-semester results.

Today, I’ll give you a few ideas as to how you on your own can simplify the situation. Assuming for a moment, you are in 2nd year (4th semester) and law the subjects being taught are, Administrative Law, Criminal Law, Constitutional Law etc.

For example, in Administrative Law, a usual student like me would juggle with innumerable case-laws just before a test or an exam.

How exactly can we then break the pattern?

1.   The collective notes of Administrative Law lectures per week would not be more than 7-8 pages.

2.   I am sure, you agree that these would be rather fresh in your memory just after the class and if someone would ask you to verbally summarise them, it could be done with maximum 1 hour of preparatory reading followed by 15-20 minutes of summarising. 

3.   Now, this is where the catch lies. Sit in your room or in some empty space in the library at the end of the week. Quickly brush-up the last four lectures, just four not too much.

4.   You are now set for making your own verbal summary of the notes/lectures.

5.   Open youtube live or the camera in your laptop for video-recording.

6.   Just start talking about what you’ve understood. Feel free to refer to the notes.

7.   Do this for the entire semester, for next 10 weeks, for your one or more favourite subjects.

8.   No need to stress a lot, it is just 10-12 sittings, not more than 15 minutes per sitting.

9.   Do it in the language you are comfortable with.

10. Or do it in the one you are not comfortable with, so that you get comfortable with it.

What do you get in return?

1.   A self-created permanent life-long summary record of your Administrative Law lectures from law school.

2.   Use them before tests and exams. Find companionship in them when you are not in a mood to read but can revise through watching/listening.

3.   Let all of this be real-time publicly and freely accessible on the internet. Alongwith you, your batchmates benefit from it, then your juniors, then their juniors and then junior batches who would join even after you graduate. Because the basics of Administrative Law would not change.

4.   Use this as an opportunity to build-up confidence of impromptu and public speaking. That’s the least we need wherever we go in the legal sphere.

5.   5 years after graduation, you have drowned too much into practice and feel the need to brush-up your basics again, you have your own short video notes categorised by subject as well as topic, to fall back on.

6.   Top quality legal education finds it ways to any and everyone who cannot access it.

7.   Last but not the least, you can always look back and realise, how much you have changed and grown, from a law-student to a law-professional. Enjoy the happiness which comes from self-evolution and creation.       

I do not know a single person in my network who has done this or has been doing this actively. I have only seen snippets of video lectures like this being put up by lecturers or teaching professionals. Back then, technology had not evolved as it has today and I hadn’t too. Being in practice now, I think this could have been a wonderful and constructive exercise to be busy with. Go for it if it makes sense to you and unleash yourself!