Research Study

Professor Darrow-Kleinhaus is seeking participants for her research study. Below is the flyer containing all of the pertinent information.

Specificity of Language

In reviewing your exams with your professors, you might have noticed that your exams lacked specificity or included vague and meaningless phrases. This is a relatively common error, and something that can easily be fixed. When working with hypotheticals, and when writing your exams, it is important to remember that the language of the law is precise, and your use of it must be equally precise. You must use the language of the court or the words of the statute. You should not substitute your own words.

Suppose your exam question requires that you evaluate a state’s basis for jurisdiction over a nonresident defendant and your discussion centers on an evaluation of the defendant’s “minimum contacts” with the forum state. In the course of your discussion, you’ll use such specific language as “continuous and systematic,” and “fair play and substantial justice.” This language comes from Supreme Court cases and it’s “the law.” You’re expected and required to use it – just as it is. Paraphrasing is not acceptable, so you just have to learn it.

You can avoid vague and meaningless phrases by learning legal vocabulary and using it correctly. If you do this, you won’t end up with an exam full of colorful, yet incorrect, language. But more essential to curing this problem is to truly understand the rules: if you know what the rule means, you won’t write legally meaningless sentences.

The Gap between Questions in your Classes and on Exams

By now, you have probably discovered the difference between what is discussed in class, and what will appear on your final. It’s easy enough to get lost in the theoretical and philosophical aspects of class discussions and hard to know what to expect on the exam when you spend most of your class time being questioned on cases. As you have probably discovered, you’re asked to judge the cases that you read – sometimes in your very first law school class. You’re asked whether you think the court was correct in reaching its decision or whether you would have found differently. Then you get to the exam and there’s nothing about cases. Or at least nothing that’s obvious. Many of you have stopped by our offices this semester, and asked: why does the exam seem so different from what went on in class?

The gap, if indeed there is one, comes from the style of the process more than its substance. Most law professors don’t lecture and present the law in neat little packages for you to digest. Instead, they rely on the Socratic Method and ask questions. They ask lots of questions and only sometimes give answers. Supplying the answers is your job. Professors assume that you’ll do the reading, learn the material, and put it all together in a way that’s meaningful to you. They did it when they were in law school and they expect you to do the same. Some students make the mistake of waiting all semester for the professor to tie it together and this just doesn’t happen. At least not usually. It’s pretty much up to you to make the connections.

Making these connections is the first step in learning to think critically. Law school asks you to think about things you’ve never thought about before and in ways that are new to you. This is the stuff of a legal education. It’s about figuring out how the rules work, what they mean, why we have them, and questioning everything about them. So if you think about it - what goes on in class is related to what’s on the exam. In class, you talk about the cases. You dissect them. The professor hurls questions at you to test your understanding of what you’ve read and your ability to use what you’ve learned. Then she changes the facts and asks another question. And yet another. The professor’s goal is for you to learn to ask the same kinds of questions for yourself. On the exam, the hypos are longer and more complex but they’re pretty much like the ones you discussed in class. They’re just new problems for you to solve.