Right. Well. Here we are.

World events over the last few months have left most of us feeling like a pancake that’s unceremoniously been flung across the room.

Since the coronavirus outbreak in November last year, our collective situation has not been well-situated (and by that, I mean that things have deteriorated fast). It’s been a cataclysmic chain reaction that has brought the globe to a grinding halt. Cities have gone into lockdown, thousands of people are dying or seriously ill, first-world health care systems are collapsing, a global recession is imminent, and small businesses – the tourism, hospitality, beauty, music and dental industries, in particular – are being hit hard.

On Thursday, Qantas announced that it is suspending all international flights until late May 2020. (You know things are bad when travel and sports are cancelled). And all this because some selfish little sod in Wuhan, China decided to lick a pangolin.

Overnight, the world has become a society of neurotic germaphobe shut-ins, where the mere thought of touching a door handle or elevator button now causes most of us to slip into a gentle seizure.

(See lead image)

So, if the end is nigh, what can, and should, we be doing to while away the countless hours of isolation stretching ahead of us?

1. Make a will

Ha, ha. Funny.

But seriously. Now is the time to stop procrastinating and to get it done. Making a will is the only way to ensure you decide what happens to your property and assets after you die. Otherwise, your money could end up being bequeathed to someone you never intended should get their hot little hands on it.

(Like that record player your irritating sister, Tracy, has been eyeballing for years … “Shut up, Tracy!”)

2. Make your brain werk for it

Netflix Party will only go so far.

Many Ivy League Universities and Australian educational institutions, such FutureLearn, have hundreds of free courses online. The ANU College of Law’s Juris Doctor degree is entirely online, as are many courses through Open Universities.

So … rather than spending your free time “panic googling” your symptoms, (or whether you can catch a virus through the walls of your house if your neighbour sneezes in their backyard) try to develop some skills that you can apply in your career or business once you’re free to gleek on other humans again.

3. Stay well-hydrated

When everything is uncertain, one this is certain.

Your long-time relationship with good friends gin, vodka, and whiskey. And if we’ve learned anything from China’s post-quarantine spate of divorces it’s that living in close quarters with family, especially young children, can be a traumatic experience.

Enter the humble quarantini and online cocktail making courses! Designated driving is a moot point when your bed is a mere 3 feet from the kitchen.

4. FaceTime your extroverted friends who are “social distancing”

If you are an extrovert, being isolated in the sensory deprivation tank of your house can feel like your psyche is slowly folding like a road map.

Most are looking to find a meaningful connection anywhere.

It’s a slippery slope from having long and involved powwows with pets over the morning news to justifying the need to stick googly eyes on appliances, milk bottles, and wall sockets, just so that the house seems more crowded and friendly.

Spare a moment and give them a call (not a text!). They need you right now.

5. Check your health insurance

While you may not need it, you shouldn’t risk it.

Is your policy up to date? Do you have ambulance and hospital cover? In the case that you do need to be hospitalised for an extended period of time, you don’t want your resulting medical bill to sting more than the harsh light of day once you leave confinement.

6. Continue to support small businesses

Right now, small businesses in Australia are arguably suffering most from the coronavirus crisis.

Many are now facing impossible decisions about laying off staff, innovating to ensure their survival, living without an income for up to 6 months or even making the decision to close entirely.

Support your friends who are running businesses. Contact them regularly. Offer any assistance you can. If you’re a lawyer, volunteer free legal advice on issues they are unexpectedly facing, like how to go about negotiating a reduction or suspension in lease repayments with landlords.

If you are feeling well, continue to see your local hairdresser and dentist. Most small businesses have developed coronavirus policies and procedures that include strengthened hygiene measures in an effort to ensure the safety of staff, clients, and patients.

Most importantly

(at least for the next few months)

More on BucketOrange Magazine

• How to think like a lawyer (even when you don’t have a law degree)
• How to argue like a lawyer
• How to argue like a lawyer vol 2

KISS frontman and lead singer, Gene Simmons, has reportedly filed an application with the US Trademark and Patent Office to trademark the infamous “devil horns” rock hand gesture.

The application, along with a handy diagram, was filed last Friday, 9 June 2017.

Simmons claims to be the first to use the gesture commercially on Nov. 14, 1974, during the KISS Hotter Than Hell tour.

The application lists the reason for filing for the purposes of:

Entertainment, namely, live performances by a musical artist; personal appearances by a musical artist.” 

However, critics argue that Simmons was not the first to use the hand gesture as John Lennon can be seen making the signal on the cover of The Beatles’ 1966 single, ‘Yellow Submarine/Eleanor Rigby’.

Others credit Black Sabbath frontman, Ronnie James Dio for making the gesture popular.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, for Simmons’ application to be successful:

an examiner would consider the likelihood of confusion and, possibly, whether it’s too generic to be associated with Simmons.”

Given that the signal is the American Sign Language equivalent for love; can be seen in slightly different form in Spider-Man; appears in Bram Stoker’s Dracula; is sometimes used in Italian culture as a superstitious sign to ward off the devil; and is also used to cheer on sporting teams at various events, it will be very interesting to see whether Simmons’ application is successful.

Stay tuned.

Update 26/6/17

After a firestorm of criticism from the music community and media outlets, it seems that Gene Simmons has come to his senses and withdrawn his application to trademark the “devil horns” hand gesture.

The decision is a sensible one. It is highly unlikely that Simmons’ application would have been successful since the “rock” hand gesture is a generic symbol commonly used by other artists and music lovers around the world.

The good news is that you and your friends can continue to make your “rock on” hands with reckless abandon this coming Splendour in the Grass and for all future gigs.

Slender Man is a horror monster. He stalks, he kills, he kidnaps children and drives people insane.

In 2014, two 12-year-old girls were arrested in connection with a violent premeditated attack on a classmate. The victim had been stabbed 19 times with the knife, missing a major artery in her heart by a millimetre. When interviewed by detectives, both girls claimed that they had been motivated to carry out the attempted murder by Slender Man. By killing their friend, they would gain Slender Man’s favour and go to live with him in the forest.

The origins of Slender Man are well documented. Since his first appearance online in 2009 in a SomethingAwful.com forum Photoshop contest, he has been evolving in a high-speed process of creative, open-source legend building.

Original Slender Man image which first emerged in 2009 for a SomethingAwful.com forum Photoshop contest. The picture has spawned endless interpretations and reimaginings in online forums by horror fanatics.

There are many theories about why he has become the most notorious exclusively online urban legend and taken such a firm root in the collective online consciousness. One theory is that his ambiguity drives his creepiness and his popularity; people see their own particular fears staring back at them from Slender’s featureless, pale face.

Following the stabbing by the 12-year-old girls, Slender Man has become a source of fear in a different way. He has become a symbol for the dark side of the internet. Authority figures have come out against Slender Man, using the stabbing as a call for parents to be careful of what their children consume online. One commentator has written that there are now two Slender Mans – one haunting the internet, another haunting the adults whose children use it.

So how does society manage the fear spawned by a horror character like Slender Man, especially where fictional online violence begins jumping off computer screens and moving individuals to harm others in the real world?

Criminal law is one of the mechanisms available for society to deal with the inevitable community destabilisation and fear caused by such shocking and violent incidents.

The relationship, here, between the law and fear, is complicated.

On one hand, the law is an instrument that communities have developed to strike back against the behaviour of individuals considered deserving of punishment. In the aftermath of scary and inexplicable incidents, the justice system is relied on to restore the feeling that the collective interests of society are protected.

Another of the first images created of Slender Man. The fictional online horror character has gone on to become one of the most enduring and influential online urban legends of all time.

Communal fear, in the case of the Slender Man-inspired stabbing, demands that the law responds in a number of ways. One is through retribution – these offenders must be punished for what society considers to be immoral behaviour that is harmful to others. Another is through deterrence – these offenders must be made an example of by being given an appropriate sentence so that such awful attacks won’t be replicated by others in the future. Another is through incapacitation – these offenders must not be allowed to re-offend, and so must be locked away in the interests of community welfare.

On the other hand, the law attempts to introduce an element of reason, logic and formulaic police and court procedures when such sickening and violent crimes take place. In this respect, legal process can be a means of preventing us from seeking to act on these fears by pushing for harsh retributive justice too rashly. Browsing the comments sections underneath articles on the Slender Man stabbing is a useful reminder of the need for formal legal processes to guard against a communal knee jerk reaction which can manifest as emotional demands for vengeance.

Either way, fear plays a part in explaining the existence of criminal law – fear, perhaps, of the terrible things people are capable of doing to each other either as individuals or as furious mobs.

The mixing of law and fear isn’t limited to the realm of criminal law. Legislation can become infused with fear, reflecting a reaction to dread rather than a process of careful consideration and the development of sound policy. This can happen in response to national tragedies – one example is arguably the USA PATRIOT Act. It can happen in response to unreflective national prejudice – in Australia, for example, we currently have in place a complex system of prison camps to keep us ‘safe’ from people fleeing war and terror overseas.

Fear is also built into deeper systems of structural law, particularly constitutional law, which can have a distinct flavour of fear. One of the central objectives of a constitution in liberal democratic states is to restrict the powers of government, for fear of allowing too much power to rest with any one decision-maker. The various arms of government, namely the courts, parliament and the executive, are set against one another in a system of checks and balances, each suspicious of the accumulation of power by the others.

This is not to argue that fear is always an irrational response to events, but it can be. If there is no real basis for a fear, people may be hurt by the creation of laws aimed at protecting society against non-existent phantoms. Political actors are easily tempted to use fear-mongering tactics to serve their own agendas, exploiting a community’s deepest, darkest prejudices to push for more extreme, heavy-handed laws. This makes fear a dangerous basis for responsible law-making.

There are arguments to be had about dealing with concerns over children’s access to disturbing content on the internet. About the appropriateness of subjecting children to adult criminal justice systems. About the resources available to cope with the prevalence of serious mental illness.

More scary, perhaps, is the extent to which fear itself, like the tentacles sprouting from Slender Man’s back, is already wrapped around all of us and our systems of law, poised to pull tighter if we refuse to acknowledge it and in so doing, fail to guard against it.

** The Wisconsin appeals court upheld a decision to try the girls as adults:

“The court found that this was a violent, premeditated and personal offence. There was a conscious decision made at the time of the offence to let the victim die. They told [the victim] that they would leave to get her help. They did leave, and they left to walk to the Nicolet National Forest to locate the Slenderman mansion. This is charged as attempted murder but you have to keep in mind for both defendants that this was, in fact, an effort to kill someone, not a mistake by hitting them too hard. Not a mistake by pushing them too hard. The issue of brain development is important for the court to consider. They were young when the offence occurred but they get older every day, frankly. But what happens at age 18 and, in this court’s view, that is a critical factor for the court to evaluate. There would be no oversight, no control, no ways to ensure public safety. They have committed an offence that is serious, it’s frankly vicious and there has to be assurance that that doesn’t happen again – that a serious offence is dealt with on a serious basis that offers protections to everyone. On that basis, I order that the defendants be retained in the adult jurisdiction.” –

Morgan Geyser and Anissa Weier will face trial in September-October 2017.

The rebel on the right passes a green post-it note mid-playback

Court can be a sombre affair.

But not today.

Video of some of New Zealand’s top legal minds getting on with business as Eminem’s ‘Lose Yourself’ blares around an increasingly awkward courtroom has clocked over 94,000 views on Youtube this week alone.

The magic moment was captured on film during initial proceedings in New Zealand’s high court in Wellington.

The 2002 track blasted through tinny court speakers as part of a copyright infringement case to demonstrate similarities between Eminem’s ‘Lose Yourself’ and a song used by the New Zealand National Party called ‘Eminem Esque’ as part of a 2014 political campaign.

Listen to the National Party advertising campaign here:

Eminem’s publishing company, Eight Mile Style, are seeking a cash settlement and an acknowledgement by the court that the National Party breached copyright law.

Watch the full courtroom saga unfold below:

One YouTube user commented: “At 00:50 the blonde started to feel it but then she snapped back to reality…”

Want to see more PopLaw stories in your inbox? Subscribe to the BucketOrange Magazine fortnightly newsletter here – it’s free!  

You can tell a lot about a person by their taste in music.

It’s why we always ask our monthly interviewees ‘what they listen to’.

Music preferences and listening habits reveal a lot more about you than just your favourite bands or artists. They are a window into your personality, ethnicity, religious views, politics, innermost thoughts and feelings – not to mention your current mood.

Bose understands the value of this information. It’s why the company allegedly purpose built an app to spy on and collect data on the listening habits of its customers and to onsell that private information to third parties.

If a court finds this to be true, it means you can no longer assume that you’re safe and alone in the space between your headphones. While you’ve been blissing out with the latest Father John Misty track, frighteningly, Bose has secretly been tracking you too.

You are what you listen to

A $5 million class-action lawsuit is being brought against Bose, the headphone and speaker giant, for breaching the United States Federal Wiretap Act and Privacy legislation by collecting and selling private information about its customers to third parties without their knowledge or consent.

Introduced in 2016, the company has been using an app named ‘Bose Connect’ – which enables listeners to remotely control particular Bose headphones and speakers from smartphones.

While it is possible to use the headphones without engaging the smartphone app (by using an audio cable or Bluetooth connection) the company actively encourages users to “get the most out of your headphones” and enjoy extra features by downloading the Bose Connect app. This is where the data collection allegedly happens.

The headphone products cited in the lawsuit include QuietComfort 35 headphones, SoundSport Wireless, Sound Sport Pulse Wireless, QuietControl 30, SoundLink Around-Ear Wireless Headphones II, and SoundLink Color II.

Why is this a big deal? 

The class action against Bose alleges that ‘Bose Connect’ was intentionally designed and programmed to secretly collect customers’ usage data, including:

• titles of music, audio tracks and podcasts
• artist and album information

A customer’s registration information (including product serial numbers, full names, email addresses and telephone numbers) along with personal music listening histories and habits are allegedly collected by Bose, allowing the company to put together detailed profiles about its customers.

According to the complaint, listeners are not given a notification or warning that their usage is being monitored and collected in real time and there is no disclosure that listener’s data, along with other personal identifiers, is automatically sent to third-party companies—including a data miner—without its customers’ knowledge or consent.

According to the complaint:

One’s personal audio selections – including music, radio broadcast, Podcast, and lecture choices – provide an incredible amount of insight into his or her personality, behavior, political views, and personal identity. In fact, numerous scientific studies show that musical preferences reflect explicit characteristics such as age, personality, and values, and can likely even be used to identify people with autism spectrum conditions.

And that’s just a small sampling of what can be learned from one’s music preferences. When it comes other types of audio tracks, the personality, values, likes, dislikes, and preferences of the listener are more self-evident. For example, a person that listens to Muslim prayer services through his headphones or speakers is very likely a Muslim, a person that listens to the Ashamed, Confused, And In the Closet Podcast is very likely a homosexual in need of a support system, and a person that listens to The Body’s HIV/AIDS Podcast is very likely an individual that has been diagnosed and is living with HIV or AIDS. None of [Bose’s] customers could have ever anticipated that these types of music and audio selections would be recorded and sent to, of all people, a third party data miner for analysis.”

If the allegations are accurate, this not only violates the privacy rights of consumers but also a number of Federal and State laws in the United States, including the Federal Wiretap Act. According to the complaint:

[Bose] never obtained consent from any of its customers before intercepting, monitoring, collecting, and transmitting their Media Information. To the contrary, [Bose] concealed its actual data collection policies from its customers knowing that (i) a speaker or headphone product that monitors, collects, and transmits users’ private music and audio tracks to any third party—let alone a data miner—is worth significantly less than a speaker or headphone product that does not, and (ii) few, if any, of its customers would have purchased a Bose Wireless Product in the first place had they known that it would monitor, collect, and transmit their Media Information.”

If Bose is found by the court to be in breach, in this case, and if similar data collection has occurred in Australia, it is likely that similar litigation will follow.

What do you think? Is music an inherently personal and private experience, or just another convenient way for companies to use our data for profit? Let us know in the comments!

I always look forward to a Friday night of live music especially when it involves listening to covers of my favourite songs, like The Kooks’ ‘Naïve’ or Bon Iver’s ‘Skinny Love’ at a local café.

What didn’t cross my mind, until recently, is how performing a cover of another musician’s song may actually be against the law.

Copyright Protection Of Songs

Copyright law exists to protect every song by virtue of its creation.

There is no need to register a composition to protect your creative genius – when you write a score or record a home demo, copyright automatically steps in and gives you exclusive rights and protections. It does not matter if your song is the next number one hit or if you struggle to get your mum to listen to it:

If you created the music, Australian copyright law protects it. 

This protection comes in many different forms, giving copyright owners a number of exclusive rights to use and perform creative works, including the right to perform your music in public. Copyright law protects both the score and lyrics of a song meaning that Justin Vernon the writer and composer of ‘Skinny Love’, for example, has the exclusive right to perform his song in public.

Notwithstanding that this is unambiguously the state of the law in Australia, I found myself listening to this song being performed live by another artist. How is this possible? Do you need permission to cover a song live?

What Musicians Need To Know

For all musicians, copyright law is something that you need to be aware of and to understand.

Being aware of your personal rights as a musician is not only important to defend against unauthorised use of your own songs, but also to make sure that you do not unwittingly infringe the creative rights of another artist.

To perform a song in public, you must be granted a licence. Performing a cover without a music licence is a breach of Australian copyright law. 

The same principle applies to businesses who wish to play background music within a restaurant or shop. Without a licence, playing a song to the public is an infringement of the rights of the musician and copyright owner.

Obtaining A Music Licence

In Australia, a number of copyright collecting societies provide music licences and distribute royalties to the copyright owners.

For musicians looking to play gigs, the Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA) is the best place to start. Even if you are performing a free show or participating in a charity event hosting free live concerts you must still obtain a licence.

For businesses who wish to play background music, the Phonographic Performance Company of Australia (PPCA) provides a blanket licence that ensures your business complies with the law, however, it is also necessary to obtain a licence from APRA. Alternatively, you can seek permission from individual artists and copyright owners but this method can be onerous.

When Your Song Is Performed By Another Artist 

What happens when someone performs your song, or a substantial part of it, without your permission?

1. Seek advice on whether you have a solid claim for copyright infringement. The Australian Copyright Council has a free online legal advice service which can help you work this out.
2. If your work is being administered by a collecting society, such as APRA, notify your relevant body as soon as possible after you become aware of the possible infringement.
3. Contact the infringer. Let them know that you are the owner of the music and that they infringing your copyright by using your music without your permission and without paying for a licence.

You can do this with an informal email or an initial letter of demand that asks the performer to stop infringing your copyright without a relevant licence.

Before sending a letter of demand, or making any claims that someone has infringed your copyright, however, it is critical that you seek legal advice. If you send a threatening letter and the other musician has not actually infringed your copyright, this can be considered a groundless threat, meaning that the person you have accused of infringing your copyright can sue you for making an unsubstantiated threat of legal action.

4. If the above avenues are not successful, as a last resort, you may decide to take the matter to court. If you are successful, the court may order an injunction to stop the infringement of your copyright or make an order that a sum of money (damages) be paid to you.

At The End Of The Day

Copyright is a form of intellectual property.

The musicians behind the songs we know and love – the songs that move us, that make us feel and make our lives infinitely better – need to be protected, supported and credited by other artists, individuals and businesses. The only way artists can continue to enrich our lives is through greater respect, awareness and compliance with the moral and economic rights to their music.

How often do you perform covers as part of your set list? Have you considered the copyright implications? Let us know in the comments!

Further Information

Arts Law Centre – for more information on your rights as a musician and access to legal professionals specialising in copyright law.

To learn more about your rights as a musician visit:

• Music Rights Australia

To find safe and licenced content online visit:

• Digital Content Guide

For a list of legal digital music content providers in Australia and internationally visit:

• Pro Music

To get in touch with a legal professional specialising in entertainment law visit:

• Marque Lawyers (NSW)
• Creative Legal (WA and Vic)
• Studio Legal (Vic)
• Media Arts Lawyers (NSW and Vic)
• Shaun Miller Lawyers (Vic)
• Simpsons Lawyers (NSW)
• Sanicki Lawyers (Vic and Qld)
• McCormicks (Qld)

In the latest music industry lawsuit to hit headlines, Bruno Mars and Mark Ronson are being sued for copyright infringement by 80s electro-funk band Collage, according to TMZ.

Collage claims that the hit track “Uptown Funk” released by Bruno Mars and Mark Ronson in 2014 is a thinly veiled replica of Collage’s 1983 hit “Young Girls” and that the duo reproduced the song’s rhythm, harmony, melody and structure.

It’s not the first time Ronson and Mars have faced legal action over “Uptown Funk”. Earlier this year, The Sequence argued that their 1979 song, “Funk You Up” had been copied, but did not pursue legal action. Last year, writers from The Gap Band successfully joined the list of songwriting credits on “Uptown Funk” for its similarities to their 1979 hit “Oops Upside Your Head.”

According to the complaint (via Pitchfork)

Upon information and belief, many of the main instrumental attributes and themes of “Uptown Funk” are deliberately and clearly copied from “Young Girls,” including, but not limited to, the distinct funky specifically noted and timed consistent guitar riffs present throughout the compositions, virtually if not identical bass notes and sequence, rhythm, structure, crescendo of horns and synthesizers rendering the compositions almost indistinguishable if played over each other and strikingly similar if played in consecutively.

Mars and Ronson have previously listed early 1980s Minneapolis electro-funk soul music as among key influences that inspired the song “Uptown Funk.”

Collage are seeking damages and profits.

Listen to side-by-side comparisons of the two songs below:

Too close to call? You be the judge.

h/t Pitchfork.

Further Information for Musicians

To find out more about your options in Australia where another musician infringes your copyright:

• Legal Rights Where Your Song Is Used Without Permission

I am going to lay it all on the table bluntly – there is nothing that truly prepares you for the stress of law school.

That reality is all too real right now as I sit writing in my onesie, holding my 3^rd cup of tea, and going over my exam revision notes. But like anything in life, it all depends on how you look at the situation. If you are a ‘glass half full’ kind of person, there are numerous positive learning outcomes that can be drawn from being regularly subjected to the often cruel and inhumane punishment of law exams. It’s a test not only of your knowledge, but also of your willpower and resolve.

For law students, it teaches us how to be disciplined, how to problem solve and manage our time effectively, how to cope mentally and physically during prolonged periods of extreme stress as well as how to perform well under pressure. These are life skills that lawyers use throughout their careers. As a final year law student I feel (or perhaps I hope!) that I have adopted some excellent strategies that enable me to cope in times of high stress.

So how can you benefit from law student life hacks, without going through the horror of law school yourself? Keep reading.

Be Collaborative, Not Competitive

It’s just as relevant in life as it is in law school.

Law students must grapple with a competitive drive deeply ingrained from day one. We are led to believe that competitiveness is necessary to get better marks and secure a top job after graduating. However, this is not necessarily true.

More often than not, a fuller understanding of complex legal principles can come from teamwork and collaboration. This is something that takes many law students a long time to fully appreciate.

Working together in study groups not only helps you identify your strengths and weaknesses but also helps you work through twice as much revision as you would if you were working alone. Collaborating with other students is also the fastest way to form strong and lasting friendships based on mutual trust and respect. Incidentally, it also means that you always have someone willing to go to Doughnut Time with you.

Collaboration over competition is a mindset that is easily transferable to any work environment. Teamwork, the capacity to network and develop good working relationships with a range of stakeholders as well as knowing when to ask for the input, advice and support from a more experienced colleague, show that you have high emotional intelligence.

These are some of the most attractive qualities employers look for in a job candidate – and they have nothing to do with your university grades.

Think like a lawyer: It takes a team to build a dream.

Prepare & Practice

If there is one thing law students know how to do, it is prepare.

This could be for a 100% exam, a mooting competition or big tutorial presentation. For most law students, planning ahead, working out a study schedule and breaking the semester’s content into digestible chunks are basic study survival skills.

One of the most difficult skills developed during law school, however, is the ability to apply relevant law to complex factual scenarios. Not unlike preparing for a job interview, this skill requires training, practice and perseverance.

Using the same planning, discipline and practical techniques used by law students can really help you to prepare for interviews and even everyday work meetings.

To succeed at interview, you need to show your employer that you understand what they want in a new recruit and that you are competent at carrying out those duties. This can only be demonstrated through practice and preparation. Know the company website inside out, research panel members who will be interviewing you and set up a mock interview session with someone you trust. Ask them to fire practice questions at you in an adversarial style, just as a law student would prepare for a mock trial.

You can also use the same technique to prepare for meetings. Know the content that you will deliver and prepare with palm cards. You may wish to put together a slideshow and try to anticipate follow up questions from colleagues.

Adopting these skills demonstrates initiative, leadership and conscientiousness which will pave the way for future success.

Think like a lawyer: Never be caught unprepared.

Be Organised & Remember You Are Human

Law students love to develop effective and unique systems to aid study.

When preparing for exams, law students need to wade through hundreds and hundreds of pages of materials. They must not only read, absorb and remember these principles, but also understand how to apply them in real life scenarios. When faced with a seemingly insurmountable stack of papers, the only way to avoid being buried like a hoarder is to suck it up, organise every subject into a dedicated chunk of study time and get into it – no procrastinating!

Law students know better than anyone that to be an effective studier and pass your exams, you have to be highly organised and prepared. This order provides a sense of clarity and control in a time of chaos and intense stress during exam period.

What law students understand is that study must work around life. Not the other way around.  Spending time with friends and family, having the occasional wine (or three) and exercising are critical to happiness and success.

Think like a lawyer: You cannot do your best work in chaos. Get organised, get your work done efficiently, and factor in time for yourself.

Think we’ve missed anything? Let us know in the comments section below!