@Harvey18 - I think you are saying you will not know how to bind the materials until after you have the indices. You have a few options: Read the materials electronically Print them, but wait until later to bind them, or just three hole punch them so you can re-arrange the contents later. I do not suggest waiting too much longer before reading them since you will run out of time. A page of the LSO materials is quite dense. I used to read 100-200 pages of a standard textbook in a day without problem. But the LSO materials take longer to get through because of the amount of text on a page in small font, and the tendency of the LSO materials to cover a lot of content with very few words, then switch to a different topic. I wanted to add that it is unlikely you will see the best indices for a few weeks still (I could be wrong).

I would also appreciate practice exams. If there is nothing free, even directing me to ones I can purchase would be helpful.

You have not gotten a reply in 5 days, so I'll attempt an answer. You are a law student. Many law students summer in one field, article in another, and end up working in yet another. To take myself as an example, I summered after 1L and 2L in criminal and I feel this would not have held me back from getting an articling spot in "labour law, administrative regulatory/professional hearings type stuff, and employment." The "setback" can become slightly larger if you then article in criminal. The "setback" could become slightly larger still if you do not take those courses which would have prepared you for the field you end up wanting. (I.e. you decide after articling you want to be a Labour Lawyer, but you did not take any courses in that field). Transitioning is pretty easy as long as you do not have too many years experience. If a senior criminal lawyer of 10 years want to switch to Labour Law, or whatever, it might be hard for him to get the equivalent "senior" position in the new field. I should also add that the larger firms tend to hire from their own articling students. In  other words, if you work in criminal a while (Let's say until you are done articling or until you are a 1-2 year call) you can still quite easily switch to civil (with a small or mid sized firm) but you may not be able to easily get your foot in the door with the biggest and most well known firms. DISCLAIMER: This answer would really vary depending on specifics including what city you are working in, what exactly the nature of your prior experience is, and the general reputation of your past firm in relation to the firm you wish to transfer to. TL;DR: it is easy for a law student to try out one area and then switch to another.

I have almost finished reading the LSO materials, and I found that it's good to identify the parts of the materials that seem new or difficult and study those areas more thoroughly. For me, these areas include tax implications of family law and the various bookkeeping required when managing trust accounts in a law office. My exam strategy is going to be to do about half the questions closed book (i.e. I will just write the answer without consulting any indices or written material). Then I can spend extra time on questions where I am unsure of the answer.

Thanks Turtles for your update as well!    1. I have heard about RA roles with professors but I don't know how you approach them and what’s the process to get accepted. Great if you can describe how it would work similar to my profile.   2. Can you also explain a bit by applying broadly (as also mentioned by GoatDuck)? The thing is that I applied to almost all firms in the 1L recruit for both places and also got to go on coffee/virtual chats with associates, articling students, and summer students but still didn’t get a response. But also the 1L recruit is different from 2L so what would this method of applying broadly entail now and what pointers I should keep in mind? Thanks once again!

Yes I am! And I’ve found the same. Civ lit was a lotttt of material. I’m making it through crim with much more ease (especially as I’ve worked in crim so it’s more familiar - civil stuff is frankly a mystery to me lol). 

It is typically more like you won't be eligible for partnership until X year rather than billing out at a lower rate or getting less comp. But there aren't a ton of super senior US laterals these days to begin with.