NEW EDITION NOW AVAILABLE!
A proven resource for achieving your personal best in law school and passing the bar on your first attempt.
Now with a new FAQ section!
Provides concrete instructions to develop skills such as:
- Reading and briefing court opinions
- Transforming class notes into course outlines and flow charts
- Committing essential elements of the law to memory
- Engaging in high-scoring legal analysis on law school exams
- Managing scarce time and creating a personal Flexible Time Allocation Chart
A novel approach to the study of law, helping students learn to:
- Lay a solid foundation for the professional practice of law
- Achieve fluency in the “language of the law”
- Treat law school like the practice of law, as opposed to “school”
- Earn grades that reflect their best efforts
- Pass the bar exam the first time around
- Prepare for a successful career in law!
About This Title
This book has but one objective: empowerment. Most law students have been anticipating the start of law school for weeks, months or years—some for a lifetime. They approach the start of school with a mix of excitement and apprehension, often with a sense of awe at the majesty of the enterprise they are about to begin. Why, then, do so many first-year law students express high levels of anxiety, depression, isolation, “drowning,” a sense of imminent and inevitable failure, intense frustration, lack of control, and ominous foreboding within 90 days of beginning school?
There are reasons. Most have recently exited successful positions of academic, social, or executive leadership. They believe the institution they are entering—a “school”—is merely an advanced version of what they were so good at before—“school.” Law school is not like college. Law school is your opportunity to begin the practice of law. And that’s where this book comes in. 1000 Days provides hundreds of practical tips to help law students make every day in law school serve as a small, but essential step in the direction of the successful practice of law. From class preparation, to notetaking, to studying for exams, this book offers valuable material in a crisp, readable style, all in an effort to help law students perform at their personal best—both in school and beyond.
New to the Third Edition
The third edition of 1000 Days to the Bar contains more than 12 years of updates within every chapter. In addition, it features a brand-new FAQ section that contains more than 90 entries! The updated book is designed to help current and future law students make the most of their law program—and their careers.
About the Author
Dennis Tonsing’s two decades as a California litigator provide the essential platform for his message to law students across the country—when you begin law school, you are beginning the “practice of law.” School’s over. Those who consider their days from law school orientation until the bar exam as “school” may be good students. Those who approach those 1000 days as “practice” for the real thing will be good lawyers.
That is the message he has delivered to thousands of law students, starting with his developing and directing the first Academic Support Program at Vermont Law School. Following his years at Vermont, he initiated and directed the Academic Support Program at Roger Williams University in Rhode Island, where he also served as Dean of Students. During the years 1999 to 2007, he was a sought after speaker at law schools, workshops, and seminars around the country.
In 2007, he moved to South America, where he continued teaching U.S. law students online, helping them sharpen their skills, excel on law school exams, and pass the California State Bar Examination. After living for eleven years in Uruguay and Ecuador, Dennis Tonsing currently resides in Arizona, where he serves as an adjunct faculty member at St. Francis School of Law, and a Distinguished Core Part-Time Professor at JFK School of Law at National University.
Check Out More from Dennis Tonsing!
Visit Dennis Tonsing’s website for even more helpful study tips, exam advice, outlining guidance, study aids, and so much more!
Real Success from Real Readers
- Connector.
Result-Oriented Approach to Legal Education
“I was able to apply [Professor Tonsing’s] ideas to my own law school experience and found it to be a common-sense approach to the study of law. I felt that the use of his system was a major factor in my passing the bar exam on the first try without the use of expensive ‘cram’ classes. I also found that the skills I had developed in law school in this way had prepared me for work in a law firm.”
– Amazon Customer - Connector.
Starting law school? Get this book. You’ll thank me later!
“The text is approachable and filled with real-world examples that are entertaining and instructive… I highly recommend this book to anyone entering law school as it allayed some of my anxiety and made the start of classes much less stressful.”
– Amazon Customer - Connector.
Changed My Perspective
“Tonsing lays out for the reader the idea that law school in fact is not ‘school’ at all. Instead, the first day of law school, he contends, is the first day of the rest of your career. I haven’t thought of this perspective before and since starting this book, I now believe I will be approaching the next three years of my life as practice as opposed to study.”
– Amazon Customer
1000 Days to the Bar,
But the Practice of Law Begins Now!
Third Edition
Author: Dennis Tonsing
Item #: 1007068
ISBN: 978-0-8377-4262-5
Pages: xv, 292p.
Paper: $34.95
Published: Getzville; William S. Hein & Co., Inc.; 2022
