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8 Best Websites for Law Students


intro_courtLaw school is hard. That’s pretty much undisputed common knowledge these days. After all, it is expensive—very expensive—so maybe it should be difficult. What makes it so hard is the copious amount of information you have to absorb: forms, case studies, briefings, legal jargon, etc.
When it’s all said and done, however, the time and effort you’ve put in will pay off. I doubt you’ll complain once you’re making six figures.
So who wants to go to law school? Not me, that’s for sure. But for those of you brave students who are actively pursuing this endeavor, I’m sure you could use a little help along the way. Now I can’t take your bar exam for you (not that you’d want me to) but I can give you a list of helpful websites and resources. Here at MakeUseOf we like to make things easy for you, so I have compiled this list of the best websites for law students for your reference. I hope you find them useful.

Law.com Dictionary

best websites for law students
What better place to start than by brushing up on your legal definitions? Law.com’s dictionary is a comprehensive list of (probably) every legal term known to man. Each term is accompanied with its definition, respectively. This invaluable resource has everything from ‘a fortiori’ to ‘zoning’ covered. It is a page that I’m sure you will refer to again and again. Also, Law.com itself is a great place to get daily news and information regarding your field.

Advanced Advocates

best websites for law students
“Advanced Advocates is the world’s first collaborative platform for law students. [It] is the only network in the world full of relevant content and features designed exclusively for law students.”
AA, as it is so aptly named, allows you to review case briefs in a user-friendly format, create/edit briefs with wiki functionality, and search for briefs by party names, subject, and authors. You can leave/review clerk ratings, share outlines, and hold case discussions. It also has group creation ability.
When signing up, AA does require a law school email address. This is so they can keep the site exclusive to law school students.

Justia

best websites for law students
Justia provides legal resources for lawyers. Coincidentally, a lot of this information could be useful to law students (such as you) as well. Justia has a wealth of information, including legal practice, research, and the latest cases in the news. It also has an inclusive ‘blawg’ search that covers over a thousand law blogs.

Social Media Law Student

websites for law students
Speaking of blogs, Social Media Law Student is a pretty popular one. Their goal is “to connect lawyers with new technologies in hopes of making the practice of law easier”, and as far as I can tell they are the only ones doing this.
SMLS boasts a group of the most tech savvy law students, lawyers, and legal professionals as its contributors and appeals to anyone interested in law and technology. Articles cover the latest legal trends, technologies, apps, and social networking tools. They have received various awards and accolades for their efforts (this being one of them).

LawLink

websites for law students
Speaking of social networks (you see the pattern yet?), LawLink is “the first and largest social network for law professionals”. LawLink’s services include networking, public profile creation, a Twitter law forum, more than 100 law groups, the sharing of legal documents, a Q&A section, top news, forum creation, and a classified ads section.
Needless to say, it’s not hard to keep busy on LawLink. When you join you are automatically a member of your law school group. You must be a law student, attorney, expert witness, or law professional to join.

Additional Resources

If you’ve made it this far then you’re well on your way to becoming a successful law school graduate. Because you like to work hard—and are probably used to it—I have provided some extra reading for you. After all, good law student resources are hard to find. Trust me, I know. Here they are:

ESQChat Blogs

websites for law students
ESQChat is a forum in which you must be a practicing attorney to be a member of. Never mind that, because they have a pretty good collection of blogs for you to read on their Blog Categories page. You don’t have to be a member to view this page and it is host to 244 blogs in 42 categories as of this writing. You are sure to find some interesting content there.

In Propria Persona

In Propria Persona is a law and technology blog that has some pretty good information written from a personal perspective. The post ’10 Alternative Legal Research Sites’ caught my eye and is a prime example of some of the content you can find there.

100 Best Lifehacks for Law Students

I tried to think of a way to break down this list into a set of key articles for you to read, but I think that doing that yourself is half the learning experience. Some of the links are a bit dated, but there is some interesting tips, ideas, and help located there, all geared towards law students.
That’s it! I wish you the best of luck in law school and I hope you find these resources useful in your quest to become an attorney. If you have any useful sites or interesting comments, ideas, or concerns, please leave a comment below.
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