MODULE 1 The professor asks sustained and increasingly

WHAT TO EXPECT IN LAW SCHOOL penetrating questions of students rather than lecturing on the
cases that the students have read.
In law school, you will learn in two primary ways: by reading and
by doing. Law school is not about identifying the “right answers” It involves calling students without warning (Cold-
to legal question, but about developing abilities, tools, and calling)
process for constructing answers and solving problems.
PRIMARY OBJECTIVES OF LAW SCHOOL
Three different aspects of 1styears Experience
1. Students should understand legal doctrines
1. First year curriculum
2. Students should be able to use legal doctrines
2. Method of Instruction
3. Students should be able to extend their knowledge of legal
3. Material you read
doctrines in their own
COURSES TAUGHT IN FIRST YEAR
TIPS TO PREPAPRE FOR CLASS
CIVIL PROCEDURE
1. Break your bad reading habits cold turkey
Will help to understand how a lawsuit works: how 2. Don’t skim
parties initiate and respond to a suit (pleading), where the suit 3. Use a dictionary
may be brought (jurisdiction), who may sue whom (joinder), how 4. Get used to uncertainty and ambiguity
the parties obtain information (discovery), and when in the
OUTSIDE OF CLASS
litigation a case will be resolved (motions to dismiss and summary
judgment). 1. Review and Organize – your notes, integrating those from
the most recent class with you notes prior classes. Reviewing
CONSTITUTIONAL LAW
notes away from class will reveal points and connections that
How the constitution allocates decision making authority weren’t [previously apparent and help you to absorb new ideas
among government institutions and grants the substantives
2. Formal Study Group or Informal discussions – work with
powers of government. The course about who gets to decides
classmates.
what.
If you still have questions, considering using published
CONTRACTS
materials created by legal experts and aimed at law students and
About promises – why, when, and how to enforce them. other similarly users. (Treaties, Hornbooks)
Typical topics include contract formation, interpretation,
3. Commercial study aids (use after class)
performance and remedies.
- Commercial outlines
CRIMINAL LAW - Canned briefs
- Primers
Examines criminal liability but not criminal procedure. - Questions and answers texts
Explore the purposes of punishment and the sources and
limitations of the government’s power to punish. LAW SCHOOL EXAM

PROPERTY 1. Essay Question - Issue Spotter

A complex hypothetical scenario and ask you to play a
Deals with land ownership, possession, and use, and certain role evaluating the legal issues raised by the facts.
may be called Real Property to distinguish it from courses on
Personal property and Intellectual property. 2. Theory or Policy question

TORTS Outlining – the process of organizing, digesting and condensing

your notes and other class materials.
Is about harms. Tort claims may rise from injuries to
people or property. It will cover strict liability and negligence, and Practice Exam – a mini version of the final exam that does not
might explore malpractice, products liability, defamation, and affect your grade and that is given during the term. It allows you
other civil wrongs for which the law gives a remedy. to anticipate the final exam’s structure and format.

LEGAL RESEARCH AND WRITING CATEGORIZING THE MATERIALS

Focuses directly on practice skills rather than 1. Direct knowledge

substantive law. Learn how to conduct legal research, how to Able to recall and use this information automatically
write legal documents and how to present oral arguments. without looking it up.

READING ASSIGNMENTS / TEACHING METHODS 2. General knowledge

Need to be generally familiar with but need not know in
1. Case Method detail. It give bases for understanding and absorbing them.

Instead of reading about the law, you will read the law 3. Available knowledge
itself. Reading cases and other primary sources helps you develop Not needed to carry in the head but do need to be able
the skills you will need as a lawyer. to find when needed

Legal Materials you might Read (1styear class) 4. Examples

- Excerpts from a judicial opinion Not directly relevant but included to illustrate the text
- A statute
- A contract

2. Socratic Method
Notes by: RMLabisto (1stsem 2019)
 and uses them to create a generalized
MODULE 2 conclusions.
THE LANGUAGE OF THE LAW
 DEDUCTIVE
Lawyers are problem solvers. Lawyers solve problems through Starts with general, universally applicable
careful attention to language: interpreting words and statements and deduces particular conclusions.
choosing words. Requires that all premises be true.

LANGUAGE AT FOUR DIFFERENT TIMES  ANALOGICAL REASONING

Reasoning by analogy
1. READ Draws arguments from across parallel cases
rather than from first premises to reach a conclusion as
- Actively focused on the language of the document. Identify the -
to specific analogous case.
important phrases and extracting relevant principles.
Able to pick out relevant similarities and
2. PREPAPRE differences.

- Translate the language of the document into your own words. PREPARING FOR CLASS
- Paraphrasing and interpreting.
1. Briefing
3. ENGAGE 2. Annotating

- Thoughtful note taking IN CLASS

Focus on listening to what’s being said and
4. COMMUNICATE understanding it. Remember to write in your own words
as much as possible. Don’t try to make verbatim notes.
- When you communicate, the language that you use matters.
- Clarity and precision are paramount
COMMUNICATING LIKE A LAWYER
THREE STEP PROCESS (Reading like a Lawyer)
1. BE ORGANIZED
1. EXAMINE THE CONTEXT - To form into coherent unity
- Formulate a logically ordered response
Examine the context of the assignment and the context
of the legal material itself. 2. BE PRECISE
- Substitute more precise language, instead of
Case Context using “it”, “this” or “they”.
 The court
3. BE CONCISE
 The date
- Free from all elaboration and unnecessary
 The parties
details
 The judge(s) and number and kind of opinions
- Avoid irrelevant and redundant statements
 The topic
 The outcome

2. EXTRACT LEGAL PRINCIPLES

It requires to “BRIEF” the case. It means to identify in

your own words, the following four pieces of information:

 The relevant facts of the case

 The procedural posture of the case
 The courts holding
 The court’s reasoning

FACTS

The real events that have occurred in the world

LAW
It is how society chooses to respond to those facts –
how society governs and adjusts the relationships among people
given the factual events.

SUBSTANCE (substantive law)

it creates and controls rights and obligations

PROCEDURE (procedural Law)

Defines and describes the process by which parties
protect their rights or enforce others’ obligations.

3. EVALUATE THE REASONING

 ANALYTICAL REASONING
 INDUCTIVE
Starts with many particular factual statements

Notes by: RMLabisto (1stsem 2019)

MODULE 3 Ask what matters (relevant)
THE SKILLS YOU’LL NEED Focus on what confuses you
Look for ambiguity
Focus on what’s new
Focus on your assumptions
1. DISTILLING THE LAW

Organizing large quantities of legal information into

usable form. 3. ARGUMENTS

DISTILLING – the skill of turning a long, difficult text Offering your analysis of the questions you found when
into a single, well-articulated legal concept. you were issue spotting. It means making an argument, not
getting into argument. It means following a chain of legal
LEGAL PROPOSITION reasoning through to its end.

 Black-Letter Law Articulating the best legal answers on both sides of the
Legal rule or doctrine, as opposed to all the questions you’ve identified.
other things you find in judicial decisions and
ARGUE ON FOUR BASIC THINGS
other legal contexts
 Legal Texts
 Facts Constitution, statute, judicial opinions, treaty etc.
Explains how a legal rule applies to a given What legal texts stands for?
set of facts. Treating the facts as part of the Text itself (plain meaning)
law. The facts of prior cases are part of the law Intent of drafters
that binds future courts. Purpose of the text
Principles of interpretation
 Beyond Rules
Lawmakers might choose to create standard  Precedents
rather than rule because they want judge’s A court did and said in the past case
decisions to be sensitive to consequences and Judicial Opinions
justice in individual cases.
 Policy Arguments
 Bad Law What the law should be?
The rules we study might have been If policy behind the doctrine is weak, policy is
overruled; or they might not apply in some vulnerable.
jurisdictions.
 Arguments about facts
 Theory and Policy Make arguments about which legal category of a given
Ideas from fields like philosophy, economics, set of facts falls into
and political science, which overlap with the Apply the propositions you’ve learned to facts.
study of law.

REQUIREMENTS OF GOOD DISTILLING

1. Put the propositions into your own words
2.Test your understanding of the propositions by applying
them to new fact patterns
3. Put the propositions into context to see how they fit
into the course as a whole
4. Disregard the propositions that don’t matter.

Mercenary Method
 It cannot be distilled. It strip cases down to their
bare doctrinal core.

2. ISSUE SPOTTING

Identifying relevant legal questions presented by a

situation and framing them in the right doctrinal
language.

RIGHT ISSUES/QUESTIONS

 Issues about which propositions are relevant to

some aspects and facts. (ask which
propositions are relevant)
 Issues about how propositions should be
interpreted. (what they mean)
 Issues about how they should apply. (apply
each propositions to the facts pattern)

Notes by: RMLabisto (1stsem 2019)