Going into my 1L year, I struggled to find real, practical advice for exam prep and time management. Everyone had tips (read more carefully, outline early, don’t fall behind, etc.), but very few people had a plug-and-play system.

What I needed was something clear, procedural and adaptable from day one of law school. I never quite found that, so instead I synthesized everyone else’s productivity and study advice to build my own framework. I call it SOAP.

At its core, SOAP is designed to accomplish four things: (1) understand the law, (2) organize it into a usable structure, (3) remember it under pressure and (4) apply it on exams. Keep these goals in mind, as they are essential for success on law school exams.

SOAP stands for Study, Outline, Anki and Practice. It’s a loop you repeat for every topic you study, and if you keep the loop moving, you will feel much better going into your first finals season.

Now let’s go over the loop.

S – Study

Study means actively engaging with the material for comprehension.

This includes: 

1. Attending lecture and taking notes 
2. Doing the assigned reading 
3. Briefing cases 
4. Going to office hours

This stage is about understanding what your professor and the casebook author are trying to teach you. Remember that understanding always comes first.

O – Outline

Once you understand the material, you begin organizing it. 

The purpose of outlining is to synthesize, arrange and organize information to obtain a higher-level understanding of the material. This means that you only get the maximum benefit from the outline if you make it yourself. Do not skip this step. Outlining is where you will create a document in order to:

1. Figure out the rules
2. See how cases and issues relate to each other
3. Separate what matters from what doesn’t

This isn’t an outline guide, but I’ll give a couple of tips:

1. Outline weekly and start as early as possible
2. Format your outline in a way that works best for you and your learning style

A – Anki

Law school exams test knowledge, but they also test efficiency. This means that active recall is important regardless of whether your exam is open-book. If you can recall quickly, you’ll spend more time writing. If you have more time for writing, you can spot more issues. If you spot more issues, you will perform better on the exam. So how do you train that skill? 

Meet Anki.

In my opinion, Anki is extremely underrated and underutilized. It’s a flashcard system that is very commonly used by medical students. The software uses a spatial repetition algorithm, which makes it ideal for long-term memorization.

Here’s how I use it:

First, copy and paste a heading and subheading from your outline onto the front side of the card (example below).

Second, copy and paste the content under that heading from your outline on the back side of the card (example below).

Repeat for your entire outline and do your flashcards every day. Since Anki uses spatial repetition, it only shows you the card that you need to see today, not every card you’ve put in the system. Trust me, it is much more manageable than it sounds.

P – Practice

Do not skip this step.

Practice means:

• Writing practice essays
• Drilling multiple-choice questions
• Taking timed exams

Crucially, this step informs how you treat the other steps. Having a hard time recalling? Reset the related cards in Anki to see and remember them better. Disorganized answers? Change your outline. Missed issues? Re-study the doctrine.

Here’s How My Weeks Tend to Look:

• Monday-Friday: 
  • Study: Class and readings
  • Anki: Every day
• Friday-Saturday:
  • Outline and add more cards to Anki
  • Practice: Hypos, essays, timed sets and work through examples

Doing this week-by-week is not easy, but it’s well worth the effort. It prevents cramming and keeps the material fresh in your mind. Moreover, since each step builds on the last, you can settle into a comfortable routine quickly.

Final Thoughts

This workflow doesn’t eliminate stress, but it does channel stress to the right places. Law students are already capable of putting in serious effort; SOAP simply directs that effort in a way that is intentional, productive and systemic. It’s a framework that scales cleanly and applies to every doctrinal course from 1L through 3L.

Just as importantly, SOAP works for me because I tailored it to my learning style. Everyone learns differently, and this method is meant to be adapted rather than rigidly followed. Hate flashcards? Cover sections of your outline and recite the rules from memory. Prefer a Zettelkasten to traditional outlining? Go for it.

What matters isn’t strict adherence to the workflow’s mechanics,but understanding what each step of SOAP is trying to accomplish: comprehension, organization, retention and application. Once you understand those goals, you can shape the method to fit how you learn best.

TL;DR — The SOAP Method

• SOAP = Study, Outline, Anki, Practice
• It’s a repeatable loop that you aim to do about once a week
• Study for understanding → organize the law → reinforce with active recall → apply under exam conditions
• The system scales from 1L to 3L and works for any doctrinal course
• Adapt the tools to your learning style, but keep the four core goals: understand, organize, remember and apply

-Austin Perr is a 1L KU Law Student Ambassador from Lenexa, Kansas