Hey everyone!
Welcome back to my channel.
Thanks so much for coming back to watch this video about how to prepare for law school
exams.
If you haven't subscribed yet, please click the button below and follow along for more
videos about law school, and travel, and beauty, and whatever else you guys would like to see!
So today, I'm going to be talking about law school exams.
Now, keep in mind I've only been through two quarters of law school and they've both been
at Stanford, so it's going to be a little bit, you know, obviously specific to my experience.
I can't say that every law school exam will be the way that I describe it, but this is
just sort of to give you a baseline idea of what to expect...because when I went into
law school I really had no idea what it was going to be like, and if you don't know, basically
your class grade will be almost entirely based on your exam, if not 100% based on your exam.
So as I mentioned in one of my previous videos, when you're taking classes you're actually
dealing with two different skill sets: your class preparation skill set and your exam
skill set.
The way that you participate in class may actually have very little bearing on your
final grade, and vice versa.
To start, I'll give a little bit of a sense of what an exam is actually like.
So, exams are not multiple choice for the first year.
What they're testing is really your ability to analyze a legal issue that's been covered
in class from many different angles.
Typically, your first-year exams will be something like an issue-spotter, which is where the
professor will write a scenario---generally a pretty complicated scenario---that sort
of draws in different themes, threads, doctrines, specific cases...from class.
You'll just have to read the scenario and recognize what your professor is sort of alluding
to.
So for example, in a contracts exam, your professor might write a scenario in which,
say, a young woman works for one company and then switches to another company, she signs
this sort of employment contract and then wants to renege on it, or something like that,
and your job is to look at that scenario and answer the questions that follow it, and the
questions will generally be pretty open-ended, like: "what sort of legal claims can x person
bring in this scenario?"
and you'll say, "well, based on this given fact, you know, she has a pretty strong claim
for x doctrine and that doctrine comes from this case, and, you know, the scenario laid
out in that case is different from this exam because...x, y, z."
You're basically going through a sort of stream-of-consciousness analysis during the exam.
Our exams are, for the first-year classes, the doctrinal classes, are usually, let's
say....3 to 4 to 4.5 hours long.
We type them.
And you basically bring your laptop and your printed outline of your notes from the class
into the exam room, you sit down, and you just sort of....type away for 3 to 4 hours,
as fast as you can, without stopping.
That's basically the only way that you'll be able to get to every issue.
It's kind of interesting because there IS a right answer, in a sense...the scenario
that's being written is pointing you in a pretty specific direction a lot of the time.
If you go off on a tangent, you're not going to get points for that tangent, so you know,
that's sort of "incorrect."
But it isn't as rigidly defined as, like, a multiple choice exam, so even if you miss
one part or you don't "spot an issue," there's still a way to do really well if you have
a strong and clear analysis in other areas.
So one preparation tip that I actually think you should do before you come to law school,
weirdly enough, is to just get fast at typing.
Your typing speed, strangely, comes to matter a lot.
Because in that 3 to 4 hours, you're basically competing with other people in your class,
although the level of competition may vary depending on who's in your class and, you
know, the sort of...atmosphere of your school, but in a general sense you are competing against
the other people in your class for that grade, and every little bit helps.
If you're a faster typer, that means you can get more onto the page, and you can get more
points down the line.
I kind of didn't realize this: even though law school is a pretty, sort of...analog discipline
still, like we read casebooks, you know...some people take notes by hand...at the end of
the day when it comes to exams, it's going to be all typing.
I mean, when I study for exams, I end up typing more than anything else...more than reading.
I type for maybe like...8 hours a day in the days leading up to the exam.
And I'll get to why in a moment, but the very first thing to remember is: typing speed.
I mean, for most millennials and like, people my age and younger, it's not really an issue,
but you'd be kind of surprised how much that ends up mattering.
Ok, so moving on to more concrete steps of exam preparation: your exam preparation actually
begins the very first day of class.
Sad to say.
There's not really a way to sort of...phone it in during the quarter and then come in
at the end and really try to make it up during the exam prep time, especially...or at least
for 1Ls.
I'm not sure what it's like 2L and 3L when you're taking elective classes but for these
foundational doctrinal classes, where the grades are really going to set the sort of
tone for the rest of your time in law school, you just sort of have to keep the exam in
mind as you start class.
What I mean by that is taking really organized notes and trying your hardest to brief the
cases yourself if you have time and can handle it.
A lot of people use commercial briefs like Quimbee or casebriefs or different websites,
and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that per se, but you really don't absorb the
material in the same way if you skim a case brief that someone else prepared versus writing
that brief out yourself.
If you want a little more information on what "briefing a case" means, please check out
my other video: "What I Wish I'd Known When Starting Law School," where I talk about that
more.
So my briefing method, basically: when I'm reading for the class in my casebook, I have
like, a 5 or 6 color highlighting system.
I know it sounds crazy, but if you're going to law school you're probably that type of
person anyway.
You probably already have 10 highlighters, so you're ready for this...as I read, I color-code
and highlight things and then when I type up my case brief, I can just sort of pull,
visually, the chunks of color that I need into each section, so it's a lot more efficient
that way.
And it actually doesn't take that much longer, and is a good way to review the reading for
the next day.
It kind of goes without saying that in class, especially if your professor is the type to
lecture or put a lot of concrete information in slides, you need to be taking really good
notes.
What I do to take notes is use Microsoft Word, linked to my dropbox, and then, for the headings
for each class and for case names I'll use the styles built into Microsoft Word so that
I can auto-generate a table of contents later.
I basically take my notes in outline form, which makes it that much easier to import
to an outline later.
So yeah, basically just trying to make sure that you really stay on top of those class
notes...I mean, you may do the reading every single day super thoroughly...I find that
if I don't take notes, though, it's almost impossible to keep everything straight especially
when you have multiple classes going on, you're stressed, you're trying to figure out this
new method of studying and being in class...so giving yourself strong notes from the beginning
is a really really useful foundation for what's to come later.
The next step in your preparation will be to make your outline.
So, when I say outline it's just one of those...things that you never think about until you come
to law school, and then it seems like...the day you step onto campus, people are like,
talking about it in the background.
An outline is basically what it sounds like: it's a condensed version of your class notes
with all the essential information that you will use as a reference point during the exam.
So for us, we type our exam in a Microsoft word document and we're allowed to have a
printed outline that we bring with us.
It sounds very comforting to have an outline with you on the day of, but I have found that,
because of the time limitation, if you don't already have all that information in your
head, you're not going to be able to page through your outline slowly and re-read cases
and think..."oh, I need to find this doctrine...where is the doctrine in my outline...what does
this doctrine mean again?
what case was it?"
You're going to lose very precious time, and it's not going to work out very well.
The outline is really more about the process of creating that outline rather than the finished
product that you have in the exam room with you.
The process of creating that outline is the way that you will review all of the information
and translate it from this unwieldy class notes package into something that is usable.
I basically make two outlines: the first outline that I make is a pretty full version of my
class notes.
I mean, I do edit it down a little bit, but it's basically the reference point so it contains
almost everything that I might conceivably need to know for the exam.
For the typical quarter-long class 1L fall, my outline was probably between 70 and 100
pages, so pretty long.
I also make something called an attack outline, which is basically a 2-3 page, very condensed
sort of checklist for each area of the class---let's say for civpro, I will make an attack outline
that says, if the question is about personal jurisdiction, here are the 3 or 4 points I
know I must hit and I'll also add a couple of notes for myself with regard to things
that I, personally, normally miss in practice questions.
So that way when I'm doing the exam, I do actually know the information in my head for
the most part, and then I can use my attack outline as a sort of final checklist before
I move on to the next question, just to make sure that in the heat of the moment, when
I'm stressed during the exam, I didn't forget a sort of, fundamental part or a little detail
that I normally miss, but that might put my exam over the edge and make it a good one.
So for the outline, the way that you make it is really up to you.
Some people use commercial outlines like Barbri outlines.
I wouldn't really recommend that because it's a little bit too generalized, I mean you want
to try to make an outline or find an outline that is specific to your professor's approach,
because obviously not every torts class is going to cover all of the same doctrines,
for example.
There's not enough time in that term to cover that entire area of law.
You don't want to get an outline where there's sort of, an adjacent doctrine that sort of
seems like you might have covered it but you didn't really...and then you're looking at
the outline, and you waste time trying to learn something new that you won't need on
the exam.
For us, we have an outline database where previous students can upload their outlines
and you can use that as a starting point or a reference.
That's called a shell outline.
So that's what I basically do.
About a month and a half...maybe closer to two months before 1L fall exams, I took a
look at the database and sort of, picked the shell outlines that I wanted to use, and perused
them.
I mean, you'll get varying levels of intensity.
Some people download a shell outline in the first week of class, use it to anticipate
where the class is going to go, and like pre-study...I don't really think that's necessary.
I mean, from what I can tell, I don't know whether those people know the material that
much better.
I mean, the chances are just that your class contributions will be shaped by that outline,
and you'll kind of sound like you're parroting someone else's words, even if you don't mean
to, when you're contributing in class.
You don't want to be the person who is, you know, just a tiny bit ahead and uses that
tiny bit of advance preparation to try to sound smarter than the rest of the class,
because it's not going to impress the professor...they have been probably teaching the class for
years and know everything about the area, and whatever little advantage you were able
to get from someone else's outline, they've heard it all before.
It just doesn't come across as very...I don't know, "collegial," I guess.
It's hard---I mean, you can do what you want, but I also just don't think it's very necessary,
preparation-wise.
Making yourself a study schedule is also extremely important.
For 1L fall, we had four exams basically spaced out with one day in between each.
That is a lot of exams within a very short period of time, and so I needed to make a
schedule where I blocked out the day into a morning chunk and an afternoon/evening chunk,
and I would assign myself: "this morning I'm going to do crim, this afternoon I'm doing
torts."
That way I didn't have to make that decision the day of and maybe accidentally assign less
time to one subject over another.
It also can be very helpful to have a study group.
I don't know that it's super necessary---that, you know, you'll fail if you don't have a
study group, or you know, having a study group means you're going to do really well, but
it is really nice to have sort of a backup group of friends to just sort of, de-stress
with sometimes.
And also to hold you accountable.
I mean, accountability is the main thing.
That's why you make a study schedule, that's why you make an outline, that's why you have
your study group...A lot of law school is not really about aptitude for the law, because
a lot of times the law is so artificial and so constrained by these rules that seem to
make no sense.
It would be very strange for someone to have a natural aptitude for picking that up.
It's really about being able to hold your nose to the grindstone, hold yourself accountable,
and just make sure that the work gets done.
If you can do that, you're going to do really well.
The most useful thing that your study group will be able to do is to go over old practice
exams.
In my experience, professors provide at least 1 or 2 practice exams.
Sometimes there's an online database through the school, sometimes the professor will provide
it themselves...but the practice exams are invaluable for two reasons.
They give you a sense of the way that the professor structures the hypothetical, what
their exam looks like, and what they expect, and it gives you a practice so that...I mean,
you know, just the way that you studied for the LSAT, for example.
Doing practice exams alleviates some of that unknown that contributes to stress and also
gets you into the physical habit of doing these exams, because it is very unnatural
to sit somewhere for 3 or 4 hours just typing nonstop, sort of...word-vomiting the answers,
because that's basically what you're going to do.
You shouldn't be under any illusion that the exam that you produce will be a beautiful
piece of writing, because you're going to be typing, let's say, between 14 and maybe
like, 22 pages during that 3-4 hour period, depending on the circumstance, and there's
just no way that you can structure it, and edit it beautifully.
It's just going to be what you can get out onto the page.
So taking a practice exam is very, very useful for that and pretty much essential.
That is the way that you study.
I mean, I don't really do much besides take a lot of practice exams.
I put together the outline, read it maybe once or twice...but I don't rely on reading
the outline over and over to study, because it's not really the best way for the information
to absorb into your brain.
It should already kind of be there, and the outline is a refresher.
Then I take practice exams---wow, "prac-tice ex-ams"---and then I take the real exam.
That's pretty much it.
A lot of times, you can go into office hours and discuss your answers to the practice questions,
and sort of get your professor's take on the way that you approach the question, whether
you have any sort of deficiencies in your answer, and that is also really helpful.
And finally, I would say, just try not to stress too much.
I mean, the good and the bad thing is that I feel a lot of the preparation for your exam
happens throughout the quarter, or throughout the semester, so you know, if you stay on
top of it, exam prep time is obviously going to be very stressful and difficult, but on
the other hand, you're ready for it!
And finally I would say that even though your grade for the quarter or the term is determined
by the exam, your grades are not the only thing that matters.
In a lot of ways, they're just sort of a benchmark or a hoop to jump through, but your relationships
with your professors, the activities you do, the clubs you join, the pro bono hours that
you work---all of that will contribute to the fully-rounded experience that you have
in law school, and all of those things are going to give you experiences that will make
you a good lawyer in the future.
It's not the end-all be-all when it comes to exams.
So, if you feel like you could have done better---and you know, obviously, we could all always do
a little bit better---there's no need to beat yourself up because the exam is both a very
artificial thing and is one very specific way of testing knowledge that doesn't necessarily
indicate whether you are smart or whether you know the doctrine or whether you're going
to be a good lawyer.
It's just very specific to law school.
That's pretty much it for this introduction to exams.
I hope that it was helpful.
If you guys want to see other videos on other topics, please let me know in the comments
or let me know what you think.
If you have other ways of preparing for exams that you find really helpful, I'd also love
to hear that as well because, as you know, I've really only been through two cycles and,
while my methods kind of worked out the first time, we'll see about the second time...who
knows if they'll keep working...I always want to hear more from you guys.
So, go ahead and leave me a comment below.
Thank you so much for watching, and I'll see you next time!