Welcome to LearnLawBetter.
Have you ever left class wondering what your professor was talking about?
Are you having problems understanding some concept?
Stay to the end and learn how to use the Feynman Technique, which will help you learn material
faster, and at a level where you will remember the concept for years to come.
Hi, this is Beau Baez, and today I want to talk to you about a technique developed by
Professor Richard Feynman, a Nobel prize winning physicist who had the nickname “the Great
Explainer.”
By following four steps, you will learn a topic well enough to remember it on the final
exam, and for the bar exam.
Step one: write the name of the concept you want to learn at the top of a page.
As the semester progresses, come back to the document every time you need to add more knowledge
related to that that topic.
For example, if you're having problems understanding proximate cause, write that down.
You might start off with the unforeseeable manner of injury, and then later in the semester come back
to the unforeseeable intervening event.
Step two: pretend you are teaching the topic to someone else, preferably a high school
student.
This means that you have to make it simple enough for them to understand, including word
choice and sentence structure.
All too often, a law student will copy a rule verbatim from a case.
Now, while the rule may be accurate, are you really going to remember that language from yesteryear?
For example, when you take Business Associations you will likely read Benjamin Cardozo’s
classic case Meinhard v. Salmon.
Your professor will certainly focus on these words for establishing the standard of care:
“Joint adventurers, like copartners, owe to one another, while the enterprise continues,
the duty of the finest loyalty.
Many forms of conduct permissible in a workaday world for those acting at arm's length, are
forbidden to those bound by fiduciary ties.
A trustee is held to something stricter than the morals of the market place.
Not honesty alone, but the punctilio of an honor the most sensitive, is then the standard
of behavior.”
That is some of the best legal prose I know of, but do you really understand what Cardozo
is saying?
Let’s take that language and make it simpler. Teach it to that high school student.
Partners owe to each other the highest standard of behavior.
And there you have it folks, a long phrase converted into ten simple words.
When you are working on this step, make sure to make the explanation as simple and as brief
as possible.
Step three: When you get stuck or are shaky on one of the concepts, go back and study
some more.
This means looking at your books, doing more research, talking to your professor.
If you have multiple choice questions, work through those as well.
Remember, if you can’t teach the material to a high schooler, you don’t know it well
enough.
Step four: Go back to step 1 and repeat the process.
In other words, the Feynman Technique is about the process, not the end product.
This is because we all understand material better when we teach it.
I understood torts at a much deeper level when I taught it, and so will you.
If you see a technical term, try to simplify it.
Will that high school student really understand consideration by estoppel or negligence per
se?
As you simplify the concept, you will begin to understand the material in a much deeper
way, that will help you not only remember it on the exam, but will also help you with
issue spotting and multiple choice bar exam questions.
If you’d like to see more episodes that can help you succeed, hit the subscribe button.
Also, don’t forget to check out LearnLawBetter.com where you will find more resources to help
you get ahead, including my blog, newsletter, and exam bank.
Thank you for watching.