Customer Reviews

Criminal Law (Law in a Flash Cards)

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I'm a huge fan of the Law in a Flash series of study aids for 1L courses. The Torts, Contracts, and Civil Procedure cards are great. I haven't used the Property cards yet, but my study partner is using them right now, and he gives high reviews. I earned A's in Torts and Contracts after using these cards to supplement my outlining. (haven't gotten my Civ Pro grade back yet)

The Crim Law cards fell short of my expectations. Crim Law is a vast area, and lot of case books are floating around. We used Dressler, a common case book. These cards weren't even close to using the same cases. Further, several topics, e.g. rape, only had four or five cards in total. Under inchoate offenses, there were more than fifty on just conspiracy (not a huge 1L topic).

If I had it to do over, I'd buy a used set of these unless they get radically updated soon. They might be useful to you, but it's a close call. If you're on the fence, maybe it's best to just spend a couple extra hours on you outline.

I'm a big fan of the Law in a Flash series. These cards make for a great supplemental study aid. The best feature, in my opinion, is the "scenario" questions. These are like mini-fact patterns designed to get you thinking about one particular issue. I've found these to help get my mind around particular topics in a format conducive to an essay style exam (which all of my instructors use). I do wish that the cards had some more "concept w/definition" cards (where one side gives a word, concept, or issue, and the answer side has a rote definition), but it's not a major issue. I also do think that there was a bit too much repetition at times, and the product could have been pared down a bit. But maybe that repetition helps some people, despite annoying people like me.

I hate the law and wouldn't encourage my worst enemy to attend law school. Having said that, I found these law cards highly useful. I recommend that people use these before going to law school and they may end up getting the best grades and going on their way to being the next Johnnie Cochran. I understand these cards much better than that boring, Socratic, in-class garbage. Even if you have already been dumb enough to start law school, keep flashing these cards into your face every free moment you get and this difficult stuff might start sinking in. These flash cards are my favorite legal aids and I recommend them highly, again only if you are masochistic to want to have anything to do with the legal arena.