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How to Do Your Best on Law School Exams

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First, I should begin by saying what has turned out to be true. Law school is tough. It is extremely challenging, the amount of information is overwhelming, and the in-class atmosphere is unnerving. It is, I believe, more different and difficult than most undergrad and grad students realize.


Second, your time constraints will be intense. If you undertake an earnest effort to read your cases, properly brief, use resources such as hornbooks and outline, you will probably not have enough time to develop the skills necessary to write an effective exam-answer during law school.


Last, it is why this book is so important to read and prior to entering law school: difficulty of exams, complexity of material, vast amounts of information and reading, intense time constraints, and most importantly, your grade will be determined by your final exam performance.


SOME COMMENTARY ON LAW EXAMS & SOCRATIC METHOD (*WARNING*)
I would be disingenuous and perhaps remiss if I did not seize a good opportunity to complain about law school to those considering attending law school. Do not fret, I will try to be brief. I think after the first or second semester of law school, you acquire the analytical skills, discipline, and ability to read and understand complex material at a maximum level. I am skeptical that a second year of law school is necessary, let alone a third year. The second-year should consist of skills development, job-training, and some classroom work. The third-year should be eliminated or optional for those that want more education or specialization (such as an LLM). Most (all?) countries do not have law schools in the way the United States does; instead, students study law as undergrads or earn a master's in law.

LAW SCHOOL EXAMS
Your law school grade is, exclusive of everything else (class participation, research papers, group projects, etc.) based on the final exam. You will not obtain credit for research papers, drafting memorandum, participating in class, or for group projects. Your entire grade is based on the final. It is a bizarre if not backward way of measuring a person's ability to think like a lawyer.

It behooves you to develop exam-taking skills now if you are a serious student and hope to succeed in law school.

SOCRATIC METHOD
In some respects, I think my speaking ability has slightly diminished as a result of the socratic method. I find it especially jarring when a law student is called-on to recite a fact-pattern or passage. I think it is completely unnecessary for students to have to read paragraphs and mostly a waste of time. If some of you were like me, you probably participated in class actively as an undegrad or grad students, were always well prepared, and most-likely shined in class discussions. Law school is more challenging to shine in class because the amount of material is considerable and complex, and the professor will ask you questions that will probably tongue-tie you. And this will occur in class, surrounded by nearly 100 of your classmates, depending on your school. You are, however, expected to be well-prepared for class and you will be called upon at random.

I dislike the socratic method because it makes law students unnecessarily neurotic and undermines learning. In business school, for example, students' participation was often (but not always) grounded in real-life experiences that enhanced discussion and added flavor to debate.

Law school classroom discussions are an altogether different atmosphere, and I think a rather deficient method of teaching.

As an aside, I wish law schools would format classroom participation in a similar way such as at the London School of Economics. You attend a lecture by a professor for around an hour or so. You can ask questions during the prof's lecture but it is primarily the prof's perspective on the material. Then in the evening you attend a group discussion with a Ph.D. candidate, where participation is the focus. Everyone has an opportunity to speak, raise questions, engage in debate, and so forth. You attain a deeper, more sophisticated understanding of the subject material and acquire strong communication skills in the process.

The combination of your grade being based solely on the final exam and the socratic method make law school a much more challenging, stressful, and somewhat confusing experience than it has to be. Be prepared.


USEFULNESS OF THE BOOK
You are the individual responsible for your education and grades. I find classroom learning, in law school, to be inadequate. I have found learning from casebooks to be particularly inadequate. Law school is about YOU, the law student, and less about reading cases and fretting about the socratic method. It is about YOU in terms of your skills, abilities, and exam performance. It is a strange if not deficient way to exclusively measure law school performance, but it is the system.

Reading this book and preparing in earnest will provide you with an understanding on how to analyze complex legal material. You need to learn the material and work with it daily. Reading a case and briefing it is not sufficient to do well. Law school is not college; it is a challenging and complex job.

Your ability to issue-spot on law exams should improve, which is a critical exam-taking skill. The author explains how to anticipate issues, identify primary and secondary issues, and how to explain and illustrate the issues you spotted. Spotting issues, though critical, is not sufficient on law exams. You will be expected to supply a lawyerly analysis of each and every issue as it relates to the fact pattern on a law school exam. Serious preparation, a whole lot of practice, and a bit of luck are all necessary.

You will also learn to outline, and I would not rely on others' outlines in law school. The most important part of outlining is the process of studying, creating your own outline. It will be how you learn the material, and you should use a good hornbook in making your outline. Outlining is not sufficient in law school. The best outline in the world will not help you if you do not prepare and practice regularly.

The book will help you with understanding your own learning strategy, which is vital to know prior to entering law school. You need to know how to study, prepare, and practice law school exams prior to entering. The book also provides excellent practice essay exams with answers.


CONCLUSION
I confidently recommend HOW TO DO YOUR BEST ON LAW SCHOOL EXAMS for those interested in preparing for law school. I have read many and varied "law school prep" books and courses. Many are inadequate, some are useless, and others provide bad advice. Success in law school is determined by one and only one measure: the final exam. If you are considering or are about to attend law school, it is wise to pick-up this book to better understand and prepare for law school exams. Law school is an intellectual privilege, although I am somewhat skeptical of its value after the first-year.

You must get-through (survive) law school to practice law. I wish you the best of luck in the endeavor. Never forget to pursue Justice and defend the Constitution.

Goodness... long review!

I hope the above was helpful.

I am a retired New York University School of Law Professor. There I had the good fortune to work with Professor Delaney who was then the Department Chief of the School's Criminal Law Education and Research Department. In my view, Professor Delaney's "How to Do your Best on Law Schoool Exams" book is unique among a multitude of law exam technique books. It is appropriate for beginning and advanced students. The new edition is supplemented by a dynamic website that elaborates on points that are explained in the book. The website also updates in accordance with new testing trends, e.g. multiple choice questions. Prof. Delaney offers refreshing criticism of most law school pedagogy, and its failure to prepare students for their exams. He has a good description of the practice of mystifying and obfuscating legal principles. His methods are effective for students from their first year to the bar examination. I would recommend the book without hesitation.

This book contains everything you need to know to succeed at law school exams. After reviewing several exam writing guides on the market including "Getting to Maybe" and "The 8 Secrets of Top Exam Performance in Law School" I stumbled across Prof. Delaney's book and subsequently never read anything else. It provides you with instructions on day to day preparation, outlining and multiple methods of exam writing depending on the test question (whereas other books try to use one formula to apply to all tests, which is ridiculous). This will absolutely change the performance of every first year law student. Just before exams I was studying very hard, but I had little idea about how to put my knowledge down on paper as applied to a fact pattern. I ordered Delaney's book just weeks before exams and it was still very helpful, and even more so when I used it in Spring semester. I finished my first year in the top 20% of a top 20 law school. Nothing will substitute hard work and stict class attendance in law school, but this book will put you above and beyond the grade curve during exams.

I'm Professor John Delaney, the author of this Exam book as well as "Learning Legal Reasoning" and "Learning Criminal Law As Advocacy Argument." I wrote all three books to aid in piercing the obscurity, mystification and the "hide-the-ball" teaching that is still practiced in so much of legal pegagogy.

Many first-year students do not know that college-exam skills and LSAT skills are definitely not the skills you need to excel on law-school exams, and are also unaware that you are not systematically taught the latter skills in most law schools. In addition, many beginning students also do not know that law exams do not flow directly from the assigned materials and classroom discussion. They are therefore surprised and in many instances dismayed if their grades are mediocre or worse.

This Exam book helps students to learn and practice the two key skills you need to excel on these exams: issue-spotting and then the writing of succinct legal arguments to resolve each spotted issue. FAQ and parts of the Book are availale on my website.

All three books emerge from thirty years of law school teaching at two law schools (N.Y.U. and CUNY).

This book was invaluable to me. I was able to work throughout the semester in anticiaption of the exams and was very prepared for what I faced at exam time. It is tru that professors DO NOT prepare you in class for the exams and than I credit my good grades with the very concrete and incvaluable advice from Professor Delaney in his book.
It is NOT out of print and is available at johndelaneypub.com.

The newest edition of this book does what many lesser books with similar titles fail to do. Prof. Delaney provides the most user friendly, succinct methods to master the form and difficult placement of information required on law school exams. The new edition, some 30-40 pages slimmer than previous editions, cuts to the chase. Students are presented with several methods developed over Delaney's three decades of law school instruction. For instance, many law school prep books discuss issue spotting, whereas Delaney decodes the evasive skill and instructs readers how to issue spot. His emphasis is on how; others merely acknowledge the importance of issue spotting. Additionally, Delaney has revamped and greatly expanded his invaluable CIRIP and HATRI methods, placing even the most idle law student in good shape for the meatiest law school exams. The simple formulas can help overcome exam writer's block and severe test anxiety, as they both provide a logical starting off point. Coupled with an intense study of the content of the law, this book is essential reading for any law student looking to craft adequate responses to exam questions. In law school, content alone is not enough to overcome a burdensome question and develop an essay that demonstrates legal analysis. With so many similar books on the market demanding attention, this book is a wise, arguably invaluable, investment.

This book was invaluable to me. I was able to work throughout the semester in anticiaption of the exams and was very prepared for what I faced at exam time. It is tru that professors DO NOT prepare you in class for the exams and than I credit my good grades with the very concrete and incvaluable advice from Professor Delaney in his book.
It is NOT out of print and is available at johndelaneypub.com.

I only wish that I had discovered this book sooner so that I could've gotten more out of it. Now that school is in session, I have little time to spend with it. But when final exams get closer, I plan on spending mroe time with it. I have all of John Delaney's books and have found them all to be very helpful. Currently, I am using Delaney's book on Criminal Law, which I highly recommend as a supplement. Not only is it good with Criminal Law but it also helps a lot with learning what is required of you on an exam.

You aren't going to be taught, most likely, how to write an exam answer in law school. But you're going to need to write a good one if you want to do well. This book will help you learn. It helped me, and I had a pretty good first year.

You will find relief from confusion in Delaney's beautifully written, clearly presented exam book. Delaney gives precise directions for dissecting exam questions and formulating issues. His examples clarify those directions and guide the reader through the process of writing concise, exhaustive answers. But How to Do Your Best is more than just an exam book, it's an indispensable collection of study techniques and learning strategies combined with succinct instructions for their application.