Law School

For the benefit of my exam taking friends, check out this article from the WSJ Law Blog that asks top profs what makes a good exam.

Heather Gerken, Yale: A good law exam answer is . . . evaluative. Too often, students walk through each answer as if all arguments are created equal. They don’t tell me which arguments are strong and which are weak, which facts matter and which don’t, which cases provide strong support for their claims and which ones are distinguishable. And they throw everything into the answer rather than think hard about what belongs and what doesn’t. Good lawyers don’t just know the substantive law; they also have good legal judgment. The mistake students make is not to exercise their own legal judgment in answering a question.

Richard Friedman, Michigan: A good law exam answer . . . answers the question. Banal as that sounds, many students take the question as an excuse to write a canned answer on some area in which they’ve learned the black-letter law. I tell my students, “Imagine you’re riding down an elevator with a boss who knows the law and who has told you the facts but wants your help in advising the client. Don’t repeat the facts to him. Don’t tell him the law. Apply the law to the facts.”

Eric Chiappinelli, Creighton: A good law exam answer . . . is one that does more than tells me what the law is (more or less well) and applies the law to the facts (more or less well) and then stops. The other 90 anonymous answers will do that. You should do two additional things: Tell me up front what the question really turns on – a choice between two applicable rules? Deciding what a particular word or phrase should mean? Then, at the end, give me your opinion of whether the result is good or fair or just. Cutting to the heart of a question immediately and expressing a value judgment about the result are what separate the A’s from the C’s.

Paul Secunda: Marquette: A good law exam answer . . . gets to maybe. By that I mean that too many law students have an undergraduate mentality and seek to figure out the one “right” answer for the question. The point of the law school exam is not necessarily to test for right and wrong answers, but to see whether the student is utilizing critical reasoning skills to understand all the possible issues that the question presents. The more you arrive at a “maybe” in your law exam, the more likely you are seeing all the sides of the question in your answer and will then receive the most exam points.”

Adam Winkler, UCLA: A good law exam answer . . . is rigorous and deep. By rigorous, I mean it references every applicable standard, test, and burden; analyzes every appropriate “branch” in the decision tree; and follows a sound logical structure. By deep, I mean it argues — not just concludes — how the legal rules apply to the facts; analogizes and distinguishes the most relevant cases; and addresses the best counterarguments. There is no “right” answer. It’s all about the argument.

Tim Wu, Columbia: A good law exam answer . . . is honest and perceptive. Many law students, when answering exam questions, seem to lose their humanity. They become a sort of law robot, flooding you with pages of 4 factor tests, canned nonsense, and ridiculous results. (Unfortunately, some judicial opinions read that way too.) The good students are more honest in their responses: they hone in on what is actually hard about the problem, and let their instincts drive the answer, with doctrine as their instrument. The very best law students are able to turn the problem around in their mind, almost like a computer rotating a complex shape, and explain how slightly different angles of view create different doctrinal consequences.

Pamela Karlan, Stanford: A good law exam answer . . . is like a poem. Every word is there for a reason. It makes creative arguments within a conventional form. It avoids needless sentimentality but it reflects an author who thinks and cares. I learn something from reading it. And it ends with something other than the word “Time . . . . ”

Update: Professor Horwitz at PrawfsBlawg chimes in here.

Check out my previous two tips on how to tackle law school exams (here and here).

Tip #3: How to Write a Seminar Paper in 1 Week.

The Fall of my 3L year, I took 8 classes: 5 Seminar Papers and 3 exams. My strategy not only got me through that hellish period, but I also scored my best grades of law school that Semester.

Let me guess? You registered for a seminar class, thinking that you would write the paper during the Semester, and that would give you more time to study during the finals period, right? Face it. You didn’t do it. I fell victim to this pitfall every Semester, and invariably waited till the last minute.

So here is how I go about cramming an entire paper in 1 week. You need at least 4 or 5 days to write it, and 1 or 2 days to edit it. Anything less is selling yourself short.

Remember, this is not law review. Those of you on a journal may be tempted to approach this paper the same way you approach a Student note or comment. Those of you not on a journal may be intimidated, and fear that you are unable to write something of publishable quality. Remember, a seminar paper is not a law review paper. For my thoughts on academic writing, see this post. But these tips will not aid you during finals cram period.

Here’s what you have to do:

• Hopefully at this point the Professor has approved your topic. But, approval is very nebulous. Often a topic evolves/is evolving, and a Professor may approve of your paper as it moves towards a general direction, but you lack concrete approval of what you are writing. If you have less than 1 week, and you don’t have concrete approval, don’t count on it. Professors are notoriously picky about this, and feel that if you wait till the end, you have to deal with it. I fell victim to this several times, and an A paper was dropped to a B paper for lack of topic approval.
• Be smart on research. You do not have time to read entire cases and treatises. One of the quickest shortcuts is to read reputable law review articles. The article will summarize the topic, and in the footnotes you will find links to all relevant secondary sources. Also, if you are short on time, I would advise you not to waste your time with books. Combing through the library is so time-consuming. Stick to WestLaw/Lexis during the crunch. HeinOnline is also your friend, but try to focus on full-text search databases.
• Get a solid outline first. This is the key to writing under pressure. If you start writing paragraphs without an outline, you will need to go back and re-edit a lot of stuff. But, if your outline is complete at the beginning, stick with it. This will save you a lot of time.
• Hit home your thesis. Make sure you mention a coherent thesis throughout the paper. If you cannot fully justify it, acknowledge possible alternative arguments. But show that you are able to explain a cogent thought. If you are wishy-washy, the Professor can easily deduct points.
• Write a killer introduction/conclusion. Professors will of course read every word, but the first and last impression will help solidify the grade. I would sometimes spend half a day or maybe an entire day getting the intro down pat. Read some good law review articles and see how they condense an entire article into a few page intro. Emulate that.

Here’s what you do not have to do:

• You do not need to come up with some original, insightful topic that no one has ever thought of before. This is the province of law review, not seminars. Just write a good explanation of some area of the law, preferably something that related to your class discussion and something your professor will find interesting.
• Don’t try to impress the Professor in their area of expertise. You won’t. I once wrote a paper on the 2nd Amendment for a Professor who is one of the leading 2nd Amendment scholars on Earth. I did well on the paper, but I had to work that much harder because my grader could easily call BS if I messed up.
• Keep track of the marginal cost of moving from B+ to A- to A to A+. Every incremental increase will require an increasingly significant amount of work. Remember that you have other exams to study for at the same time. It may be worth it to produce a B+ paper if it gives you enough time to get a B+ on an exam, rather than exerting yourself significantly for an A- paper, and depriving you of time to study, forcing you to get a C+ on the exam. Of course, there are no hard and fast rules, but you should not overwork the paper.
• Bluebook well, but don’t waste your time bluebooking perfectly. This one troubles me, because footnote accuracy is so important. But when you are under the gun, if you need to sacrifice something, sacrifice the bluebook. Make sure everything is properly attributed, but if you forgot to italicize supra or are missing a parenthetical, don’t sweat it. This will generally lose you  a minimal number of points. Rather focus on the substance. You can win much more points here.

If you are anything like me, you will also have to study for exams while writing papers. I recommend you write in the morning, when you are fresh, and study in the evening when you are tired. As difficult as studying is, it is more mechanical. You go through an outline, or a textbook with less effort. With writing, you are putting words to paper, and it requires a lot of creative juices.

Thoughts? Comments?

Check in for Tip #4 Tomorrow.

Disclaimer: Caveat emptor. Take this advice at your own peril. If it doesn’t work, don’t complain. If it works, I appreciate Amazon.com gift cards.

It’s that time of the year. Exams! If you are a 1L, this is the time you should be freaking out. If you are a 2L, you should still be freaking out. And if you are 3L, graduating into this economy, well, you should be in a perpetual state of freaked-outedness.

A lot of my friends suffering through Exam Periods have asked me for advice, so I hope to shed some wisdom. This will be the first tip in a series of post leading up to Finals.

Tip #1: Know Thine Professor.

People always ask me, how do I prepare for an exam? The most efficient way to prepare for an exam, is to know what will be on the exam. Check if your professor leaves old exams in the library. Or, ask some previous students if they recall what was on the exam. If none of these options are possible, despair not. You would think that asking the Professor would be the easiest way to figure this out, but Professors are notoriously evasive when you ask them about the exams, rightfully so. But, you really should not need to rely on this last ditch prayer for relief.

When preparing for an exam, you need to remember one very important thing. The person writing that exam is the same person who lectured in front of you every week for the entire semester. Law school isn’t like baseball, where the Dean brings in a relief pitcher in the 9th inning to write and grade the exam (though that would be interesting).

At this point in the Semester, you should know how your professor operates. If you were paying attention (and if you were not, befriend a gunner ASAP), you should understand what he is interested in, and any peculiar quirks he may have. Use this knowledge to your advantage. Know thine professor.

For example, if your professor spent 80% of the class discussing the UCC or the Restatement, and barely focused on case law, that is a pretty good indication your exam will focus on the UCC or the Restatement. If your professor spent a lot of time on the moral obligations of tort law, rather than the black letter law of the Restatement, that is a pretty good indication you should be prepared to discuss these more holistic issues. If your Professor is an expert in eminent domain law, and publishes many articles on this topic, you can probably predict there will be some eminent domain questions on your exam.

This tip is not based simply on my experience as a student, but on human nature. If a Professor focuses class discussion on a certain topic and publishes on that topic in his professional career, it is safe to say that is the professor’s area of expertise. If he has expertise in an area, he will be able to more easily write, and grade, a question in that area. I am not saying Professors are lazy, but let’s just say they seek to maximize their comparative advantages. Thus, a Professor who is an expert in the MPC is more likely to test on MPC than on common law crimes. A Professor who previously worked for a certain regulatory agency is likely to test on cases involving that agency. It’s simple, yet predictable.

Now, you should not focus exclusively on the Professor’s area of expertise. This is foolish. In my experiences, new Professors, who haven’t quite figured out the ropes, are the biggest wildcards, and their exams are somewhat unpredictable. But, if you have a veteran professor, you can stack your time so you spend more time in that area.

Tip #2 Tomorrow. Creating your Cram Schedule.

Disclaimer: Caveat emptor. Take this advice at your own peril. If it doesn’t work, don’t complain. If it works, I appreciate Amazon.com gift cards. See also this advice from an anonymous law professor. And for some humorous exam tweets, see here.