Continuing Orientation Workshop - Writing a Law School Final

For students wishing to review Professor Darrow-Kleinhaus' lecture on Writing Law School Finals, the video is available on TLCWEB (password protected). Below is the handout from the lecture.

Study Tips to Reduce Anxiety

The reality of being half way through the semester is beginning to set in; and for some, that comes with a great deal of anxiety - maybe the anxiety set in is because a midterm didn't go as well as anticipated, or maybe it is time to get serious with studies after weeks of coasting. Regardless of the reason, there are ways to reduce anxiety. Below is an excerpt from a blog post written by Dean Amy Jarmon with tips for minimizing stress and anxiety:

Plan your study schedule carefully. Decide what hours you can free to focus on review each week. Designate review time by course so that you can determine whether you have prioritized time properly for each course. Not all courses are equal - think about your level of preparedness and understanding for each separate course.

Study for understanding rather than mere memorization. If you truly understand a concept, you will retain the information better and recall the information more quickly. Also, understanding a concept will allow you to reason through a difficult question on an exam. Instead of guessing, you will be able to consider the question logically and thoroughly.

Go to your professor early and often to get questions answered. The sooner you "plug up" holes in your understanding, the more quickly you will lower your anxiety. The same is true if you are a first-year student who has access to help from upper-division tutors or teaching assistants.

Think about the information at all four levels of processing when you study: global, intuitive, sequential, and sensing. Two of these styles will be your preferences. The other two styles are your "shadows" - you can process at those levels, but it takes a bit more effort. You will understand the material with both breadth and depth if you consider all four levels.

• Global: What is the big picture of the material? What are the essentials that you need to understand? How do the topics in the course fit together to make the whole?
• Intuitive: What are the relationships among the topics, sub-topics, concepts, and cases? What policies or theories have been discussed in class? Do you know how to argue those policies or theories appropriately for the parties?
• Sequential: What are the individual units that you need to understand in the course? What steps of analysis or methodologies do you need to use for each topic or sub-topic? How can you think through the information methodically when you answer a question?
• Sensing: What facts, details, and practicalities do you need to know to flesh out the material? Are there nuances that you need to note in how the law is applied? Can you state the rules and definitions precisely? Do you need to know case names or code sections for your professor?

Apply the concepts and rules to as many practice questions as possible. Practice questions help you to understand the nuances in the law through different scenarios. The more variations you see on the facts ahead of time, the less likely that an exam question will seem "alien" to you. You will have thought about something similar previously during your practice sessions. By doing some practice questions "under test conditions" prior to the exam, you will be less anxious about formatting essay answers, choosing the "best" multiple-choice answer, or managing your time during the exam.

See Amy Jarmon, Study techniques that reduce anxiety, Law School Academic Support Blog, March 19, 2010, available at http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/academic_support/.

Building the Rule and Analysis Sections of an IRAC

Professors have started to give midterms, and it is time to really focus on the details of what should be included when writing a law school exam -- by this point in your law school career, you have heard one way to approach writing an exam is by using the IRAC format, and you probably know what that means. But, within the IRAC format, being able to properly articulate the rule of law and sufficiently analyze the facts from the hypothetical takes a lot of work and practice. You have probably practiced a few hypotheticals and know exactly what what should go into your IRAC, or do you? Below are some tips for making sure that you are including the relevant law and properly analyzing the facts your answers.

Your rule paragraph should include enough of a statement of law to resolve the general issue. Start with a general rule, and make sure to include a sufficient discussion of the law to provide an adequate context for your analysis of the question or controversy (i.e. have you provided the relevant exception or exclusion, are there any legal terms that need to be defined, etc.). You must identify enough of the relevant rule to provide an adequate context for your analysis of the facts in controversy -- your analysis will not make sense unless you have identified the rule which determines the legal meaning of those facts.

Once you have identified and explained the applicable rule, then you must examine the inferences and implications of the relevant facts in relation to the rule. Your analysis is a vital part of the discussion -- as you write your analysis, let the articulation of the rule guide your application of the facts.

Within your analysis, the best approach is to match up each element (or sub-element) in the rule to the relevant fact; and use the word "because" to make the connection between the rule and fact. Make use of every fact of consequence and make sure that each conclusion you make is supported by an explanation (ask yourself "why").

Use this approach to demonstrate your ability to engage in a thoughtful analysis -- this does not mean simply repeat the relevant facts from the fact pattern, but instead, you should explain to the reader the legal significance and consequence of each fact.

As the semester continues, build on these skills by continuing to practice hypothetical questions, and continue to reference Mastering the Law School Exam for tips on improving your writing skills. This extra effort will help you build upon the requisite skills, so that when it is time for finals, you will know exactly what should be included in your final exam.

Intro to Multiple Choice Questions

Multiple choice questions are great tools to study the law, and will inevitably show up on your final exams and on the Bar Exam - the difference between the "legal version" of a multiple choice question and what you have experienced in the past is that the multiple choice questions you face in law school will test your knowledge of the substantive law, your reading comprehension, and your legal reasoning skills.


So, starting with the basics: how should you attack a multiple choice question?

• Start by reading the call of the question (what is the question asking); then read the fact pattern and find the issue;
• once you identify the issue, articulate your own answer; and
• find your "answer" in the available answer choices.

There are a few more things to remember when faced with a multiple choice question:

• You must read the question and the fact pattern actively. Make sure to pay attention to the legal relations of the parties; pay attention to significant words [i.e. "reasonably", "intended", "mistakenly thought", "deliberately", etc.]; and identify amounts, dates, quantities, ages.
• Never assume facts. You may need to draw a reasonable inference from the facts, but do not create your own facts and do not go off on a tangent based on what you think might be asked. Remember, your professor has crafted the question to contain all of the facts you need to answer the question.
• You should frame the issue to answer the questions. If you fail to identify the issue, then it makes it difficult to identify the relevant facts, and accordingly, you have no means by which to identify the correct answer choice.

Remember, after you have articulated the issue, apply the rule of law to the facts and reach your conclusion. Generally, by determining the appropriate outcome, you remain in control of the question and are not as likely to be distracted by the distractors in the question designed to throw you off course.

Continuing Orientation Workshop - Outlining

For students wishing to review Professor Darrow-Kleinhaus' lecture on Outlining for Law School Finals, the video is available on TLCWEB (password protected). Below is the handout from the lecture.

Active Reading

When working thought hypothetical problems, multiple choice questions and during exams, you should read the questions "actively" -- but, what does it mean to read actively? “Active reading” means that you search for and identify the following:

• The sub-area of law: when you study for a specific class or walk into your exam, you know the subject matter, but there are still wide open categories and you must narrow it down specific sub-topics. A critical component of reading actively is reading in context -- on exams, it’s your job to provide the context.
• The legal relationship between the parties: it is important to pay attention to the legal significance of parties’ relationships. The nature of the relationship is often of major significance to a resolution of the problem. Often, professors will use such relationships to test your ability to note distinctions in how the law treats such relationships (you may be dealing with fiduciary duties, different standards of care, and additional obligations imposed by law).
• Amounts of money, dates, locations, quantities, and ages: be sure to pay attention to dollar amounts, dates and times, quantities of items, jurisdictional information, and any ages if they appear in the fact pattern. These details can be important for so many reasons: imagine skipping over a time sequence of events in a contractual relationship, then your analysis of the offer, acceptance, and requirements for performance may be way off. Dates also signal statute of limitations problems. Ages are generally tied to a statutory issue (consider statutory rape) or a standard of care (fiduciary duty) while money and location information tend to indicate jurisdictional thresholds. Reading carefully assures that you won’t miss critical signals.
• The words “oral” and “written”: these words figure prominently in contract, property, and evidence questions. They signal potential issues with the Statute of Frauds, enforceability of promises, transactions with respect to land, and even admissibility of certain kinds of evidence. Also, note language that signals a writing or oral conversation i.e, a letter, a fax, or a telephone call.

“Active reading” does not include:

• Adding facts to the problem: unless you are told to do so specifically by the call of the question, you are never to add your own facts. In most cases, you are given all the facts you need and should use only those facts.
• Making assumptions: never make assumptions -- this will lead you astray and into dangerous exam territory. Remember, an assumption is not the same as a logical inference, which often must be made from the facts you’re given. (When working with a set of facts, you may need to draw factual inferences and connect these inferences to the dictates of the rule.)
• Never confuse your parties: as you read and before you write, make absolutely certain that you are clear about who is doing what to whom. You don’t want to confuse the actors.

As always, you can refer to Mastering the Law School Exam for further tips on practicing your active reading skills.

Studying with Hypotheticals and Multiple Choice Questions

We have said that is it important to do practice problems -- regardless of whether you are doing hypothetical questions or multiple choice questions, do you know what it means to study from the questions? Are you actually learning from the process?

Merely going through the process isn't enough and "doing questions" may be a waste of your time. Instead, you need to learn how to analyze the question and be able to reason through the problem to arrive at the correct answer.

What does this mean? If you can only partially answer the question, or if you are only getting multiple choice questions incorrect, ask yourself:

• What does it mean to only know a portion of the material?
• Are the correct answers "right" for the right reason or did you answer for the wrong reason or just get lucky, and do you know why the incorrect answers are wrong?
• Did you know the law; were you able to identify the controlling law?
• Did you correctly read the facts; did you add facts that threw you off course; did you correctly read the question; and did you apply the correct rule to the facts?

Make sure that you are not just going through the motions, but instead really learning the law as you go along by actively learning from the question. It is not cheating to look up a rule, consult your outline, or read a sample answer to help you build an analysis -- you will learn through the repetition and reinforcement of actively doing the work.

Reading Cases

Several students have stopped by our offices with questions about reading cases, and several have asked how all of these cases relate to their law school experience as a whole. These students have wanted to know how much they need to know about every case for their finals, and how much of each case they need to include in their outline. Below is an excerpt of a blog post written by Dean Amy Jarmon, which includes a summary of how you should attack your case reading and briefing for the semester:

All cases are not equal in importance. Some cases are read for historical background only - the law will change by the last case on a sub-topic. Some cases are packed full of important essentials such as rules, policies, jurisdictional differences, important points of reasoning. Some cases are included for just one smaller essential: a definition or an exception.

Cases need to be read at two levels. What are the important aspects to understand about the individual case itself? This level of reading focuses on the parts within a case and the specifics one needs to understand the case. How does the case fit into a series of cases, into the sub-topic, and into the topic? This level of reading focuses on the synthesis of the case into the larger body of law that one is learning.

Cases are a starting point in the study of law rather than an ending point. Cases show us how judges think about the law. Cases teach us how to extrapolate the most important aspects from the full opinion. Cases provide us with "tools" for our toolkit so we can solve new legal problems. Cases become illustrations in outlines rather than the basis of outlines. Professors will not ask one to "recite everything you know about Case X" on their exams.

Cases are essential to the practice of law. Lawyers read and analyze cases every day. They are constantly searching for precedents that relate to their clients' cases. Thus, the time spent in law school on reading and briefing is not merely an "ivory tower" exercise. Students who become skilled at these tasks are making an investment in their future expertise. Students who use canned briefs or headnotes as substitutes for these tasks ultimately shortchange their professional growth.

Case reading and case briefing are important legal skills that take time to learn. The process becomes faster as the law student becomes more expert at analysis. It also becomes faster once the law student understands why we read cases.

See Amy Jarmon, Reading cases for more oomph, Law School Academic Support Blog, September 20, 2010, available at http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/academic_support/.

Outlining - Organizing by Rule

Now that we have discussed the big picture of what an outline is and how to go about starting your outline, let's talk about the details of organizing your outline by the rules and how much of the rule you need to know.

Your outline should be organized by rule of law, not by the case - yes, you learn the rules by reading cases, but when it comes to outlining, everything gets stripped away, and the remaining rules (that is: definitions, elements, factors, exceptions, and defenses) are left.

Things to think about when putting together the rule of law in your outline include:

• How is the rule defined?


• Are there any words within the rule that need to be defined?


• Under what facts or circumstances would the rule likely apply?


• Are there any tests or factors that must be met?


• Are there limitations, exceptions or exemptions?


• Are there any consequences for applying the rule?


• What would be the result of applying the rule to the applicable parties?

These points are just to get you started; your outline has to have enough detail to allow you to learn the law with specificity, thus you should include enough detail so that you can use it as a study tool, but not so much detail that you get bogged down and lose sight of the big picture. So in determining whether you have enough detail; ask yourself:

1. Have you been able to define the rule fully and completely (including knowing how it might arise in context), and


2. Do you appreciate how the rule operates (including knowing what happens if the court finds the rule applicable; and what are the likely results, outcomes effects, etc.).

So what about all those cases you read in class? They have a place, but the weight depends on the class and your professor. Listen for clues in class, such as when you professor tells you that you the applicable case is a "seminal" case; when a rule of law or legal doctrine is derived from a specific case (i.e. the Erie Doctrine, a Brady violation, Miranda rights, etc.); or when a professor tells you that you need to know the specific case - these are pretty good signs that you should include the case name and holding in your outline, as well as understand the case as you would any other rule of law.

Further, your class notes are an important tool for compiling your outline as they should capture what you learned in class, as well as give insight into your professor's tone and points of law your professor highlighted in class.

Introduction to Outlining

Your outlines are where you can adequately make sense of the concepts from your respective classes and figure out the relationships between these concepts. It is important to know how to outline, as well as understand what your outline should include because you will have to generate your own outlines - you are best suited to do so!

[A note about commercial outlines: while they may provide the rules of law, they provide the material in such a generic manner that it will not necessarily follow how your professor teaches the class, so you should not depend solely on these sources because they may fail to capture of the nuances and emphases that are pointed out in class.]

The purpose of your outline is two-fold:

1. Your outline is a vehicle for you to learn the law because it requires you to organize and record the information for your understanding and retrieval. In doing this, you must take apart the individual rules and connect them in a way that reflects how the rules interact as a whole - it is not enough to know the individual rule, but you must also know how the rules work together.

2. It helps you prepare for exams because while writing your outline you have worked through the analysis of issues you are likely to find on your exam. Your outline will contain all you need to know when studying for exams, and in the way you need to know it.

When should you begin outlining?

You should start early in the semester, but not so early that you do not have the full picture of one topic. We suggest beginning outlines when you have completed one topic, and gradually adding to your outline - topic by topic as you proceed throughout the semester.

Where do you start?

There are many places to begin - your syllabus will provide a sequence and structure for your outline; likewise, the table of contents in your casebook will help you by dividing topics. These can both be places to start in determining how to sequence your outlines, and what topics need to be covered.

How do you format an outline?

We suggest a regular outline format with a bullet or numerical scheme - it doesn't matter which format you decide; the point is that you will want to rank concepts, and identify main topics and subtopics. Usually, there is a logical sequence to follow in analysing a problem based on the construction of the rule, and this hierarchy should be worked out in your outline (again, your syllabus or the table of contents from your textbook are great places to see the hierarchy; hornbooks may help with subheadings, too).

The real work of outlining comes from synthesizing the material so that you can differentiate between the main topics and the subtopics; and do not be afraid to go outside your casebook and notes for help - hornbooks are a great resource for explaining material.

Once you have your main topics and subtopics, then you can begin to fill in the pieces to provide substance and meaning by filling in the outline with definitions, cases and examples.

Intro to IRAC

The vast majority of your exams in law school test your ability to "think like a lawyer" - in achieving this goal, you should master the IRAC structure of legal analysis; that is a structure that lays out the "Issue, Rule, Application, Conclusion." IRAC can be an important guide for you because all professors want your exams to include well-reasoned arguments based on the analysis of the relevant issues and an application of the relevant facts. Generally, your answer will depend upon how you have articulated your understanding of the facts, recognized the issues, and explained the applicable rules - it is by this reasoning that you will reach the conclusion.

In essay exams, the fact pattern may be as short as one paragraph or as long as several pages; the question may include one, two, or multiple parties - at this point, these details don’t matter. Your job is always the same: address the question that is asked by giving an explanation of the law and the facts. Regardless of the form, each issue and sub-issue will be organized and analyzed individually; and you will be able to analyze each issue based on the relevant facts and law.

Below are a few points you should think about when writing an exam or practicing your exam writing skills with hypotheticals:

• Begin by identifying your issue: a construction of whether [rule of law] when [relevant facts] is often useful (i.e. The issue is whether Steve committed the tort of trespass to land when he entered the neighboring plot of land to retrieve his hat.).
• Introduce and articulate the rule: do not forget to identify the controlling body of law (i.e. Under the U.C.C. . . .), and follow a hierarchy of concepts (it is often effective to move from general to specific; make sure to include relevant legal definitions and any exceptions or exclusions, if applicable).
• As for your application (or analysis): begin by a transitional word (here, in this case, etc.) and use the word because to link your rule to the relevant fact (i.e. liability for trespass to land occurred when Steve stepped onto his neighbor's land because he fully intended to do so.).
• Offer a conclusion for each issue, and repeat your IRAC for each issue and sub-issue of the hypothetical or exam.

Professor Darrow-Kleinhaus fully walks you through a successful IRAC in her book, Mastering the Law School Exam (Thomson West 2006), which can be your guide to IRAC as it further expands on the points illustrated here.

Case Briefing

Several first year students have stopped by for advice on case briefing. There are many ways to brief a case stylistically, but regardless of your style, your case brief is a summary of the case that you have read for class - your brief should break down the elements of the case and allow you to identify the facts, procedural history, legal issue, and law at hand.

A great resource to use as a guide for case briefing is Dean Charlotte Taylor's book, Bridging the Gap Between College and Law School: Strategies for Success (Carolina Academic Press 2001, 2009) (http://www.cap-press.com/authors/209/Charlotte+D.+Taylor).

Hypotheticals

Making use of hypotheticals throughout the semester is one of the best ways to prepare for exams - this does not mean waiting until the last minute, but working hypos throughout the course of the semester and whenever you finish a topic in class. Working though problems along the way is an effective tool for mastering a subject and determining whether or not you really understand the subject - if you are working on hypos as the semester progresses, you will have time to find answers to the questions that inevitably will arise when you learn new material, instead of cramming at the last minute. Many subsequent posts will reiterate the importance of hypos, and ways to successfully work through hypos, but it is important to mention from the outset that there is a database of hypos available to you (see www.tourolaw.edu/adp [password required]).

Law School Shorthand

When taking notes in class, do you use shorthand? Much like everything else, there is no one right or wrong way to do things, but making use of abbreviations can be a time saver.

Below are some helpful abbreviations:

∏ or P- plaintiff
∆ or D- defendant

Aff’d- affirmed
Rev’d- reversed

TC- Trial Court
AC- Appellate Court
DC - District Court
SC or SCt - Supreme Court

Ame – Amendment
ans – answer
arg. - argument
AE – assignee
AR – assignor
a/r - assumption of risk
atty - attorney

bc or b/c – because
B – beneficiary
BFP – bona fide purchaser
BoP or b/p – burden of proof

CL – common law
CP – condition precedent
CS – condition subsequent
cx - consideration
Con. – constitutional(ity)
K- contract(s)
Corp. – corporation
Ct. - court

dem – demurrer
diff – different
disc or discrim - discrimination

EE – employee
ER – employer
Emp - employment
Ev – evidence

Fed – Federal
FRCP - Federal Rules of Civil Procedure
FRE - Federal Rules of Evidence

g/r or GRULE – general rule
gov or gov’t - government

HDC – holder in due course
H – husband

JNOV - judgment notwithstanding the verdict
j/t – joint tenant
J - judgment
Jdx or jurisd - jurisdiction

L - landlord

Maj. – majority
Min. - minority
MTD - motion to dismiss

Neg. – negligence

OE – offeree
OR – offeror

p’ship - partnership
PJ - personal jurisdiction
p/f – prima facie
PE – promisee
PR promisor
Prop – property

Rxn – reaction
Req’d - required
R, R2 - Restatement of Law, Restatement Second
Rev - review
RAP – Rule Against Perpetuities

§- section
St – state
Std – standard
SoL – statute of limitations
SoF – statute of frauds
SL – strict liability
SMJ - subject matter jurisdiction
SJ - summary judgment

TRO - temporary restraining order
T - tenant
TP or 3rd P – third party
TPB or 3rd PB – third party beneficiary

UCC – Uniform Commercial Code

v - versus

W - wife
w/ - with
w/in - within
w/o - without

Update: additional abbreviations have been added here.

Class Notes

Going to class and actually listening to your professor is one of the most important steps in the learning process. Make sure to listen to what is being said, and to how it is said. Also, pay attention to vocabulary and write down every legal term of art. Your goal in class is to learn to speak the language of the law.

While in class, your notes are to capture what occurred on a particular day, allowing you to relive what was covered (cases discussed, questions asked, comments made, etc.). Taking notes in law school will be different than notes you have previously taken; you’re not expected to make a transcript of each class, which begs the question, what should you write? Below are a few pointers of what should be in your notes:

• Points, questions, and observations your professor makes about the cases. Pay attention to how your professor “thinks” about a case, which is quite different from the basic information you already have in your case briefs.

• All the questions the professor asks in class. Remember, with some professors, all you get are questions and it is a huge mistake to overlook the questions while waiting for “answers” (because "answers" are not likely to come). The answers may even be the questions because the answers you’re looking for are in the questions that the professor asks of you and the material. In these cases, your job will be to learn to ask the same types of questions - soon you’ll be the one asking the questions, finding the problems in the case, and the inconsistencies in the court’s reasoning.

• Write down every hypothetical and example. These hypotheticals are often reincarnated on final exams -consider every hypo as a potential exam question and write it down, and don't forget to write down the variations, too - professors are known to present one problem and then change the facts.

• Comments relating to policy, legal theory, and doctrine. These are tips to how your professor thinks about the law, and how you should be learnig to think about it.

• Everything written on the blackboard, dry erase board, presented in a PowerPoint presentation, etc. Law professors are traditionally so “low-tech” that even writing on the board is a major event - when it happens, you can be sure it’s important.

• Legal terms: As discussed previously, since your job is to learn the language of the law, make sure you write down the words, phrases, and legal terms of art associated with the topics as they are discussed.

• Steps of analysis; tests; standards: This is not the same as the “black letter rule.” That’s in your casebook, the hornbook, and every commercial outline. What we are talking about is the way your professor presents the rule to you and the way she works through the sequence of analysis. Listen for such signal language as “there are two questions to be asked” or “the
patterns to look for are. . .” When you hear these clues, you’ll be able to detect that your professor is about to give you the guides for your analysis. Write it down.

Here is also a great time to mention Professor Darrow-Kleinhaus' book, Mastering the Law School Exam - these pointers are derived from there. Mastering the Law School Exam is going to be a great resource for you throughout your academic career, not just for exam prep, but all aspects of your legal education.