Interesting book.

Posted by dan7000
Mar 25, 2008 at 12:28 AM

>Alexander Deliyannis wrote:
>>A couple of years ago I was talking to a friend who’s a
>reader of law at a UK university. She
>>had no idea of information management software
>and told me that neither did most of her
>>colleagues. I imagine that people in her line
>of work that are good at using such
>>software should be at a significant advantage
>(unless they spend more time CRIMPING
>>than actually using the software do get the
>work done).
>

I graduated from law school last May. I used ADM all through law school and it was a huge advantage. I agree that it was always curious to me that most of my classmates didn’t use information management software. It’s especially curious because the accepted method of studying in law school is to create an “outline” of everything you know about a topic and then to refine that outline into a tool to take into your exams (or to memorize for closed-book exams).

When I learned that I was expected to make an outline, it seemed natural to me to then try to find some good outlining software. But that’s probably because, prior to law school, I was a software developer and so I naturally gravitate towards technical solutions to problems. I think most of my english major / philosophy major / poli-sci major classmates aren’t as drawn towards software solutions as I am.

Most of my classmates made Word outlines (ugh!). NoteMap was sold, and prominently displayed, at the law school bookstore - and yet only a couple of my classmates used it. (We all took notes on notebooks during class, so you could easily see how everyone in front of you organized their notes.) Some people asked me about ADM when they saw me using it, and I enthusiastically praised its advantages, but I’m sure no one ever adopted it—it just looked too geeky and complicated. I actually like Notemap, but I feel burned by the ADM dead end so I’m going with the big boys now (OneNote). I’m slowly exporting all my law school notes into OneNote outlines as I need a particular topic. I’m not totally happy with my new solution, but it’s still a heck of a lot better than MS Word :)