Reading time: four minutes

Studying law can be exciting, challenging and, at times, completely overwhelming. There's a lot to learn, plenty of reading to get through and an endless supply of cases, statutes and legal terminology to remember. Whether you're a first-year student or approaching your final exams, it's easy to fall into habits that make studying law harder than it needs to be.

The good news? Most of these mistakes are completely avoidable. Here are some of the most common mistakes law students make and, more importantly, how you can avoid them.

Trying to memorise everything

One of the biggest mistakes law students make is believing they need to memorise absolutely everything.

When you first start studying law, it can feel as though every case, principle, statute and academic opinion is equally important. It's tempting to create enormous revision notes and try to commit every detail to memory.

However, successful law students usually focus more on understanding than simply memorising. You need to understand how a legal principle works, when it applies and how you can use it to answer a problem.

Instead of asking yourself, "How can I remember all of this?", try asking, "What's the key legal principle here and how would I apply it?".

Once you understand the law, remembering the important details becomes much easier.

Leaving reading until the last minute

We've all been there. You look at your reading list, decide you have plenty of time and promise yourself you'll catch up later.

Then suddenly it's the night before the seminar and you have dozens of pages to get through.

Law involves a lot of reading, and leaving everything until the last minute can quickly become stressful. Trying to read several cases and journal articles in one evening isn't exactly the ideal way to absorb complicated legal concepts.

You don't necessarily need to read for hours every day, but staying reasonably consistent can make a huge difference. Breaking your workload into smaller sections makes it much easier to keep up and gives you more time to properly understand what you're studying.

Not reading cases properly

Cases are a huge part of studying law, but many students make the mistake of either reading every case from beginning to end or, at the other extreme, relying entirely on summaries.

Neither approach is always ideal.

When reading a case, focus on identifying the important information. What happened? What was the legal issue? What did the court decide? What was the reasoning behind the decision? And why does the case matter?

Learning to identify these points will make case reading much more manageable.

You should also remember that you're not expected to remember every detail of every case you encounter. Understanding the principle and knowing how the case supports it is usually much more useful than memorising pages of facts.

Ignoring essay and problem question technique

Knowing the law is only part of doing well in a law degree.

You also need to know how to use that knowledge in an answer.

A common mistake is spending most of the time learning legal principles while giving very little thought to how those principles should actually be applied in an exam or assignment.

If you're answering a problem question, make sure you're applying the relevant law to the facts rather than simply describing the law. For essays, make sure you're developing an argument rather than just listing everything you know about the topic.

It can be helpful to look at past questions and practise structuring answers before exam season arrives.

Being afraid to ask questions

Law can sometimes feel intimidating, particularly when everyone around you appears to understand something that you're struggling with.

This can make students reluctant to ask questions in seminars or lectures.

But asking questions is part of learning. If you don't understand a particular concept, there's a good chance someone else is confused about it too.

Your lecturers and tutors are there to help you. You can also discuss difficult topics with classmates, attend office hours or use reputable legal resources to fill in gaps in your understanding.

There's no prize for pretending you understand something when you don't.

Comparing yourself to everyone else

This is one of the easiest traps to fall into.

You hear that someone has already secured legal work experience. Someone else seems to get top marks in every assignment. Another student appears to know exactly what career they want.

Meanwhile, you're wondering whether you've chosen the right degree.

Try not to compare your journey too closely with somebody else's. Everyone's route into the legal profession is different. Some students secure experience early, while others take longer to find their direction.

Focus on improving your own skills and knowledge rather than constantly measuring yourself against the people around you.