Which one for law school?

[kellemonster]

Thanks for all the advice, but I'll be a 2L this year.

When were you at law school? Not one of my professors got mad when we were typing. My first semester I was the only one taking handwritten notes until I decided to bring in my laptop everyday like everyone else and take notes on my computer.

And no you don't need to be able to highlight to be able to study effectively. But then I've got amazing reading retention.

Originally Posted by RickyMaveety

No. Not at all. Also, I think a tablet is better than either a netbook or a regular notebook. My reasons being, the text is too small to read with the full page view on most netbooks, and most students, while in class need to see the full page while in class, without zooming in and out to read.

In fact, a two page view that you can actually read is very helpful. Also, with either a notebook or a netbook, the tendency is to try and type your notes. There isn't all that much space on the typical law school classroom desk, and some profs get really pissed off if they see a bunch of students typing. (I know this first hand. Many profs will assume that, if you are typing on a notebook PC in class, you must be writing emails to your friends, or twittering ... certainly NOT paying attention to them).

A tablet PC will usually allow you to take handwritten notes in class). Very easy to have your PDF text in one window, and another window open in which you can hand write class notes. This part is true of both medical school and law school. And, profs in both types of school may have a small hissy fit about typing in class. They are perhaps a bit behind the times, but they have a point about what students may or may not be doing on their PCs when typing in class (another reason that if the student is surfing the web or something .... it can be a major distraction to the students sitting next to them). You might still be doing it on a tablet, but it will be much less obvious to the teacher.

Just my two cents, but I've been through the mill at both schools, and a lot of my friends are now profs at both types of schools, so I do have a little more insight on this than most proponents of ebook readers.

Oh, and I just checked, there are a few on ebay right now for about $200. You could probably upgrade the drive and memory for not too much money as well, although, most students only need to have 3 or 4 textbooks on the device at any one time, and just the notes for the 3 or 4 classes you take each year, so masses of HD space are generally not an issue (although, for $100 you can get a great 500 GB portable USB HD). RAM is easy to upgrade.

So, for less than $400 ($800 or so if you get Adobe Acrobat Pro 9.0) you can have something that should get your student through his or her entire law school career and which would still be useful as they start being an attorney. I still use my TC1000 to this day as a backup in my law practice.

[davidspitzer]

Originally Posted by kellemonster

Okay, I haven't done much research, I'd rather let you all tell me what to do.

Law student who wants to scan in his textbooks and make his own PDF so I don't have to lug them around.

These are large books. So need a large screen.

Since these will be my own PDFs, I won't have a TOC. But I also need to be able to skip ahead to page 300 if necessary and not have to go through each page.

Thanks.

I am a law student also - I left you a private message - I have done extensive research/work on this subject

[richman]

Originally Posted by kellemonster

Thanks for all the advice, but I'll be a 2L this year.

When were you at law school? Not one of my professors got mad when we were typing. My first semester I was the only one taking handwritten notes until I decided to bring in my laptop everyday like everyone else and take notes on my computer.

And no you don't need to be able to highlight to be able to study effectively. But then I've got amazing reading retention.

Yeah, that was my experience too, I guess Ricky's experience is different than mine, especially when he says some of his teachers get mad at laptops/netbooks ,must be in different part of country. Seemed more like high school where teachers would be upset with little kids trying to do other stuff on computers while in class. I mean , gee if you are not there to study and do everything you can to get good grades you shouldn't be there. I have never met a teacher that got mad at laptops or mp3 records, they know you are serious and not there to play.
I would pick up netbook (acer 8.9 200 dollars with 160 gig hard drive) myself cheaper and better battery life (a couple of 6 cells 5 hours a piece) and smaller, but to each his own.

[cmhsieh54]

I've read this thread with much interest, mainly because it is making me rethink my recent DR1000S purchase.

I'm mainly wondering whether the tablets can be configured to have a more 'active' pen response? In other words, if I have the side of my palm resting on a tablet while writing with the pen, will the tablet PC sense my palm? From what I understand, the DR1000S doesn't sense fingers or hands at all, just the pen. And that's what I'd be looking for...

[richman]

http://www.wacom.com/bambootablet/bamboo.php

I think something like this and a netbook could work if you need to make notes that would show up on your screen, you could type on netbook and put diagrams and other stuff using pen. I chose the 99 dollar one but they have more expensive ones too.

[hermance]

I'd like to state at the outset that I realize that this post is a thread hijack, not at all addressing the question of e-readers for law school. However, I just couldn't not contribute to the discussion about professors who don't like laptop typing in class, since I am one of the accused!.

I'm a professor, and I frequently get frustrated with students typing during lectures. The *vast* majority of the time these students think that they can "multi-task" their way through class. And, then, toward the end of the semester, when they aren't doing well in the course, they can really make life difficult, complaining about how unclear you are, unfair your tests are, how they showed up for every lecture and can't understand why they aren't earning a better grade, etc. If you think the professors are treating the students like high schoolers, well, you are not likely in their office hours when the students are acting like high schoolers. There's also reams of evidence out there from cognitive psychologists showing that people cannot in fact multi-task, particularly on the computer, even though every one thinks that s/he can.

In addition, there's something very disconnected about a classroom in which everyone would rather stare at screens than talk to one another. It's a bit like videotaping a conversation while you're supposed to be participating in it. It just takes away a lot of organic interactive possibilities. I don't teach at law school, and I'm aware that the environment there is different than in your typical seminar, but still, if you've spent any time on the other side of the desk, you would likely be more sympathetic to professors' unease with laptop proliferation. It's kind of like that perennial comic character in film scenes in classroom situations--there's always that brainy person in the front of the room asking, "Is this going to be on the exam?" We laugh at that character, fervently taking notes who all the while is missing the *real* point of the class. Sometimes, you want to tell the students "Stop trying to write down everything and just engage and be in the moment." I guess it boils down to the fact that students behind laptops tend to be passive receivers of information, and many teachers would prefer students be active participants in learning.

(All this said, I don't ban laptops, but instead, I frequently tell students when I'd rather them not take notes and would prefer they look up from their computers and talk!)

[richman]

I guess we did go off point and we don't have to have discussion about laptops/pc tablets. I guess the original poster was interested in maybe getting ereader for his law school textbooks and was willing to copy them and use them on either ereader or other device that could work.

I suggested netbook/laptop and maybe ereader for reading notes and other simple stuff. Then it turned into classroom note taking and we got into all the rest of the stuff.

So, back on point. Which Ereader /laptop/netbook/PC tablet for Law school textbooks?!

[davidspitzer]

I am a second year law student and I also work full time and have a family - The prospect of lugging around 65 pounds of book to and from work so I can read at lunch was an instant "no-go".

I buy the cheapest versions of the paper book (come on law book publishers get with the program already and produce ebook versions) - falling apart is fine and I cut the spine off so I have individual pages (Kinkos will do it for a nominal charge) I then run the pages through a Fujitsu scan snap scanner to PDF - I crop the pages to within millimeters of the text and delete all the pages before the actual page 1 so that the actual eBook pages match the physical pages that way I can also crop off the page numbers in some books

I have tried a dr1000, a kindle (no good at all since pdf support is minimal - and don’t even get me started on the page numbering weirdness - although the DX may be better I fear that the device will fail when trying to open a 1400 page pdf) and a Sony 505 - I have sold the DR1000 and stuck with the Sony 505 and here is why - the pdf support for large books was just too flakey on the DR1000 plus I feel they have priced themselves out of the market - The Sony 505 with a pdf converted to LRF has never had an issue with any scanned book even my 1400 page ones

For the 505 I ran the pdf's through pdrread 1.8.2 - and rotated the pages sideways and in thirds this gives you the maximum readability and takes up the maximum width of the screen - also it is very portable and convenient and I can pull it out unobtrusively when I have breaks in meetings etc - Since I alighned the page numbers - can simply type in 255 and go right to page 255 (note the picture below the page numbers don’t match because another trick I learned is I extract all my reading for a module (our classes are yearlong broken into 30 modules) and concatenate it so i can just read through all my topics without having to hunt and peck through 12 eBooks’)

With regards to copyright - since I purchased all the books I believe this falls under the "fair Use exception" much like ripping your cd to Itunes or at least I believe I have a strong case for such use - I attached a picture

The key though is getting them into electronic format - I don't just read them on my sony 505 but also on my pc and mac. Regardless, the first step is to get them into a PDf and OCR them - A previous poster was right you really need to get Adobe Acrobat pro or you wont get far. In Adobe Pro you can crop, delete, reorder and OCR the pages. Because of the extensive footnoting used in most law texts, I have found extracting the text alone to be less than useful. In my experience the book has to maintained as an image, but the ocr will allow you to search it on your PC.

Kinko's will cut the binding off, but at least near me, would not do the scanning for fear of copyright issues; so i scanned them myself. Afterwards I had them rebound at Kinkos with comb or spiral binding (depending on thickness) - not as asthetically pleasing but in some odd way more functional as the books now lie perfectly flat when open.

Bottom Line once in PDF format you can pretty much freely transform it to just about any ebook reader in the format of your choice

[richman]

David!
Great info! I am going to try out that pdrread program you recommend.
you got good karma from me!

[kellemonster]

Look, I understand where you are coming from, if it isn't law school or science, then laptops are pretty useless.

For law, you do need to be writing almost everything down because the question "will this be on the exam" is a silly question. Everything ever mentioned in class could be on the exam.

Take Civil Procedure, there are almost 100 rules, if you take into account the subparts, at least a 1000 distinct pieces of information. And then those rules have been interpreted, and interrelate and have ambiguities. Everyone is typing almost the whole time, and it is necessary.

But in the social sciences, humanities, or languages, no, it's not necessary.

Originally Posted by hermance

I'd like to state at the outset that I realize that this post is a thread hijack, not at all addressing the question of e-readers for law school. However, I just couldn't not contribute to the discussion about professors who don't like laptop typing in class, since I am one of the accused!.

I'm a professor, and I frequently get frustrated with students typing during lectures. The *vast* majority of the time these students think that they can "multi-task" their way through class. And, then, toward the end of the semester, when they aren't doing well in the course, they can really make life difficult, complaining about how unclear you are, unfair your tests are, how they showed up for every lecture and can't understand why they aren't earning a better grade, etc. If you think the professors are treating the students like high schoolers, well, you are not likely in their office hours when the students are acting like high schoolers. There's also reams of evidence out there from cognitive psychologists showing that people cannot in fact multi-task, particularly on the computer, even though every one thinks that s/he can.

In addition, there's something very disconnected about a classroom in which everyone would rather stare at screens than talk to one another. It's a bit like videotaping a conversation while you're supposed to be participating in it. It just takes away a lot of organic interactive possibilities. I don't teach at law school, and I'm aware that the environment there is different than in your typical seminar, but still, if you've spent any time on the other side of the desk, you would likely be more sympathetic to professors' unease with laptop proliferation. It's kind of like that perennial comic character in film scenes in classroom situations--there's always that brainy person in the front of the room asking, "Is this going to be on the exam?" We laugh at that character, fervently taking notes who all the while is missing the *real* point of the class. Sometimes, you want to tell the students "Stop trying to write down everything and just engage and be in the moment." I guess it boils down to the fact that students behind laptops tend to be passive receivers of information, and many teachers would prefer students be active participants in learning.

(All this said, I don't ban laptops, but instead, I frequently tell students when I'd rather them not take notes and would prefer they look up from their computers and talk!)

[davidspitzer]

Originally Posted by richman

David!
Great info! I am going to try out that pdrread program you recommend.
you got good karma from me!

sorry its PDFREAD 1.8.2

[RickyMaveety]

Originally Posted by richman

Yeah, that was my experience too, I guess Ricky's experience is different than mine, especially when he says some of his teachers get mad at laptops/netbooks ,must be in different part of country. Seemed more like high school where teachers would be upset with little kids trying to do other stuff on computers while in class. I mean , gee if you are not there to study and do everything you can to get good grades you shouldn't be there. I have never met a teacher that got mad at laptops or mp3 records, they know you are serious and not there to play.
I would pick up netbook (acer 8.9 200 dollars with 160 gig hard drive) myself cheaper and better battery life (a couple of 6 cells 5 hours a piece) and smaller, but to each his own.

Well, first, I'm a "she." Second, I teach a course in how to get to the top 5% of your law school class without over-studying. I also worked full time while going to law school. Work was 6am-2:30pm every weekday, law school was 3pm-10pm every weekday. I had weekends only to read and study.

I think it's lovely that your profs are nice about allowing you to type (or do whatever) on your notebook pcs. I wish you a lot of luck getting to the top of your respective classes. I did it, and have taught others how to do it ... and I would not recommend taking down every word the prof says, or trying to remember each and every bit of code or case citation. But again, I happen to believe that a good law student, and a good attorney, is someone who has learned to do the analysis rather than someone who simply can memorize everything.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm out of this thread. I've got an article to write and a lot of client work to do.

[richman]

Originally Posted by RickyMaveety

Well, first, I'm a "she." Second, I teach a course in how to get to the top 5% of your law school class without over-studying. I also worked full time while going to law school. Work was 6am-2:30pm every weekday, law school was 3pm-10pm every weekday. I had weekends only to read and study.

I think it's lovely that your profs are nice about allowing you to type (or do whatever) on your notebook pcs. I wish you a lot of luck getting to the top of your respective classes. I did it, and have taught others how to do it ... and I would not recommend taking down every word the prof says, or trying to remember each and every bit of code or case citation. But again, I happen to believe that a good law student, and a good attorney, is someone who has learned to do the analysis rather than someone who simply can memorize everything.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm out of this thread. I've got an article to write and a lot of client work to do.

LOL!
Touchy , touchy!
Sorry I guess I just should have assumed you were a woman from your elephant picture or by your "name" ? I am a Rich, richard, and some of my "richard" friends like the word "rick, rickie, ricky,dick,". How can you be so thin-skinned being a lawyer? You stated your case, and others of us stated our case, we disagree, so what, do you want to be lawyer and judge too. I myself love hearing how others do stuff, I learn baby, I learn. I share my experience and only put it out as "my experience and what works for me". I guess you have the "god complex" as we say in the medical field of some doctors who FEEL above it all and feel smarter!
The guy starting the thread just wants a way to take his text and put it on ereader, you were helpful and I "repped" you or karma'ed you and you get offended that another person stated good stuff too and come back at us with "attitude".
Glad you won't be coming back to thread, now we can talk behind your back, just joking. Rickie, lighten up , let's be friends that respect and agree to dis-agree on a ereader forum, we both are trying to be helpful to others , right? You have your way and I have mine, and others have their way. Peace

[kellemonster]

Just out of curiosity, what law school did you go to?

Originally Posted by RickyMaveety

Well, first, I'm a "she." Second, I teach a course in how to get to the top 5% of your law school class without over-studying. I also worked full time while going to law school. Work was 6am-2:30pm every weekday, law school was 3pm-10pm every weekday. I had weekends only to read and study.

I think it's lovely that your profs are nice about allowing you to type (or do whatever) on your notebook pcs. I wish you a lot of luck getting to the top of your respective classes. I did it, and have taught others how to do it ... and I would not recommend taking down every word the prof says, or trying to remember each and every bit of code or case citation. But again, I happen to believe that a good law student, and a good attorney, is someone who has learned to do the analysis rather than someone who simply can memorize everything.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm out of this thread. I've got an article to write and a lot of client work to do.

[hermance]

Originally Posted by kellemonster

Look, I understand where you are coming from, if it isn't law school or science, then laptops are pretty useless.

For law, you do need to be writing almost everything down because the question "will this be on the exam" is a silly question. Everything ever mentioned in class could be on the exam.

Take Civil Procedure, there are almost 100 rules, if you take into account the subparts, at least a 1000 distinct pieces of information. And then those rules have been interpreted, and interrelate and have ambiguities. Everyone is typing almost the whole time, and it is necessary.

But in the social sciences, humanities, or languages, no, it's not necessary.

Sorry, I couldn't resist. But this is a really silly argument. One can make similar claims about almost any discipline--say, history or psychology or on and on. And of course, law school and intensely complicated legal codes existed long before laptops.

Look, I'm not saying that law students don't need to take lots of notes; virtually all post-graduate programs require intensive notetaking in class. I'm just saying that different professors have different pedagogical perspectives. Some want students taking lots of notes, but others would rather have students be active participants at times. It's generally the professors in the latter category who get frustrated by incessant laptop use, and those professors can be in any discipline. Since there was so much eyerolling about professors' exasperation about laptops, I just wanted to give a different perspective on the issue.