Assessing your Resources

• Author: Barbara Glesner Fines
• Pages: 1-14

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Chapter One: Assessing

your Resources

To succeed in law school, you must use all of your resources:

physical, psychological, emotional, social, financial, and educational.

Planning for law school requires a careful assessment of your

available resources and plans to use those resources most efficiently.

This chapter is designed to assist you in that planning. This chapter

covers four basic topics: Resource Priorities, Survival Resources,

Time Management, and The Non-cognitive Resources: Self-

knowledge and Self-esteem.

Resource Priorities

Some resources are more critical than others to success in law school.

One way of assessing the importance of a resource is by reference to

psychological theory. Listed below are five categories of need

identified by Abraham Maslow.

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Often, students who are dismissed

for academic deficiency reveal that they were unable to study well

because they lacked sufficient resources for the necessities of life.

Consider this need hierarchy and look for potential problems you

may face in law school

Maslow's Need Hierarchy

I. Physiological Needs - Food, Water, Sex, Sleep, Rest, and

Exercise

II. Safety Needs - Shelter, Protection from immediate or future

physical harm, and Protection from immediate or future

threat to physical, psychological or economic well-being

III. Social needs - Love and affection, Friendship, Association

with others, Affiliation

IV. Self-esteem needs - Self-confidence, Independence,

Achievement, Competence, Knowledge, Status, Personal

recognition, Respect, Influence with others