First Year Study Aids: Academic Success

Assigned as required or recommended reading at law schools throughout the country, 1L of a Ride provides a candid, comprehensive roadmap to both academic and emotional success in law school's crucial first year. Legal education continues to evolve and so does this classic work. Told in an accessible first-person voice, covered topics in this completely updated fifth edition include: pre-planning, top student fears, the first-year curriculum, the Socratic and case methods of teaching, effective class participation, the top habits of successful students, essential study techniques, legal research and writing, exam strategies, maintaining well-being, online learning, career planning, and much more. Combines comments from hundreds of law students, empirical research, and authentic samples of signature documents from the 1L experience, including exam questions, Socratic dialogue, and student case-briefs, class notes, and course outlines. McClurg is an award-winning professor who taught at six different law schools. For the first time, this edition includes free access to the 1L of a Ride Video Course, a collection of thirteen videos designed to reinforce the reading, often from fresh angles and with additional content. Along with McClurg, the videos feature award-winning law professors Christine Coughlin (Wake Forest University), Meredith Duncan (University of Houston), and Nancy Levit (University of Missouri-Kansas City). Each video is roughly ten minutes, followed by a short self-assessment quiz.

Cracking the Case Method, 3d ed., provides concise and accessible instruction on how to succeed in law school by answering these questions—and many others. Students need to know what to study and how the opinions they read and discuss in class relate to law school exams. This book provides an in-depth examination of these critical topics: The Case Method: 1) how it relates to Socratic-style questioning, and 2) how it helps develop analytical skills; How to develop case briefs and use them to prepare for class discussions, outlining, and exams—with illustrations drawn from two sample annotated briefs; and more.

Reading cases and statutes is challenging for students and attorneys. However, everybody can learn critical reading strategies and become effective legal readers and advocates. Critical Reading for Success in Law School and Beyond identifies the reading strategies used by expert legal readers and presents the strategies in a systematic sequence. Critical Reading is written in an easy to read style with lots of examples. Readers will learn: the purpose for reading cases, how to read with focus, case structure and important civil and criminal procedure terms, techniques for understanding complex text, strategies for identifying the parts of a case, how to brief a case, legal analysis skills such as analogical reasoning and case synthesis, and strategies for reading statutes. The second edition adds chapters that address reading on screens and techniques for reading bar prep materials. The second edition also has a seventeen part video series with PowerPoint slides. Each video introduces a reading strategy, provides helpful tips, includes a short student exercise, and gives students the opportunity to self-assess their proficiency. Critical Reading can be used in law school pre-orientation and orientation programs, academic success courses, bar prep courses, and legal writing and doctrinal classes. It is also useful for legal readers who want to improve their reading efficiency and effectiveness.

A Short & Happy Guide to Being a Law Student is a must-read whenever worry or doubt creep in. In this volume you will find essential wisdom for the study of law and life. Learn from the unprecedented ten-time recipient of the Professor of the Year award how to be your best in and out of class, how to prepare for exams, how to succeed on exams, how to put your best foot forward in a job interview, how to find teachers to inspire you, what to do in classes that leave you uninspired, how to cope with stress and how to create value in everything you do. Learn more from the author in this short video.

The book provides a concise overview of the legal doctrines you will learn in your 1L classes--Criminal Law, Torts, Civil Procedure, Contracts, Constitutional Law, Property, and Legal Research and Writing. It then explains how to succeed in each of those classes by showing you the way to prepare for class, how your professor will use the Socratic Method, what study guides to buy and not buy, how to outline your classes, and the strategies for successfully taking your exams. In this book, Professor Gershowitz (a ten-time teaching award winner) shows you the forest so that you will not get lost in the trees.

With the aim of decreasing students' anxiety and increasing their chances of achieving academic success, What Every Law Student Really Needs to Know: An Introduction to the Study of Law, Third Edition prepares students to get through their first year of law school. It also serves as a valuable reference over an entire law school career, contributing to students' continuing academic success. With a friendly and informal writing style, this guide to law school features insights into how and why law school classes work the way they do, and the tools and techniques to better understand the substance of the first-year courses. It helps students enter law school with an understanding of legal concepts, the American legal system, and court structures, allowing the students not only to succeed, but to thrive in the classroom. New to the Third Edition: Improved graphics Up-to-date information Expanded explanations of difficult concepts Professors and students will benefit from: An introduction to analytic tools and methods of reasoning. Exercises that allow students to independently test their understanding of the material in each section. Visual aids that help students grasp and remember the material. A self-study resource that students may use as they need throughout their entire law school career. Grounding in discrete non-legal topics that are important to the contemporary study of law. A look ahead at the goals of a legal education and the life, duties, and responsibilities of being a lawyer.

Mastering the Law School Exam is designed to provide students with a knowledgeable, reasonable, and rational voice to navigate the intricacies of law school exams. This book is practical rather than theoretical where the emphasis is on providing the type of detailed examples necessary to show students precisely "how to do it" and "how to write it." By working with numerous illustrations in the context of substantive law, students learn to: Fill the gap between what the professor refers to as learning to "think like a lawyer" and the actual means for doing so. Create a successful path from note-taking--to outlining--to exam writing. Identify the basic skills that exams seek to test and the precise manner in which they are tested. Become familiar with the general types of law school exams through examples and detailed analyses of sample answers. Use the language of the law in the writing of issues, statements of the rule, and analysis of the facts. Draw appropriate inferences from the facts. Improve close reading skills as well as writing skills. Be pro-active by taking formative assessments in a variety of subject areas and formats. Simulate exam conditions by writing exams under timed conditions. Target assessments according to identified learning objectives. Self-assess by following detailed grading rubrics. Use formative assessment to improve learning through identified feedback mechanisms. Draw appropriate inferences from the facts. Organize their thoughts to write an organized analysis. Develop a facility with adapting the "IRAC" structure of legal analysis to answer multiple-choice questions, write essay answers, and address varying performance test tasks.

Written for every law student who ever wondered how to get better grades in law school or how to ensure passage of the bar, How to Write Law Exams: IRAC Perfected provides students of all levels with a detailed, comprehensive, and practical guide to success on law school and bar exams. What's more, How to Write Law Exams applies equally to all subject matters, making this text an ideal supplement for every law school course. Focuses on law school and bar exams rather than the kind of assignments seen in legal writing class. As such, the book helps students improve their grades in all of their substantive courses, not just in their first year legal writing class, and helps prepare students for the bar in any jurisdiction. Provides readers with a proven and easy-to-implement means of maximizing points on a law school exam. Rather than repeating vague generalities about grammar and style or providing simple bullet-point lists as other writing guides do, this text breaks the well-known IRAC method of legal writing into comprehensible segments and gives students the tools needed to master their law exams. Provides readers with detailed student-written examples of the IRAC method in action. Annotated with line-by-line critiques, these sample essays show readers exactly what can go wrong in a law school or bar exam and how to fix those problems before they appear on a graded paper.

This book answers the most-asked questions of first, second, and third year law school students. Exam Preparation: How long should my outline be? What should I include in my outline? What secondary sources should I use? Are study groups effective? Should I swap outlines with other students? How do I prepare for open and closed book exams? And much more Writing the Exam: What is the best way to read the exam questions? How do I schedule my time? How do I organize my answer? When do I need to assume facts? How do I impress the professor? And much more

Law School and Exams: Preparing and Writing to Win, Third Editionis the third edition of a popular book whose first edition Bryan Garner reviewed and judged to be "the best on the market." It combines: Clear and comprehensive explanations of study and exam techniques Numerous illustrative samples that are truly instructive Twenty in-class exercises or take-home assignments on everything from case briefs to essay and multiple-choice exam questions. Comprehensive and self-contained, the Third Edition is suitable for use as the textbook for a sophisticated Prelaw course, 1L Orientation, or a 1L Academic Success course. Alternatively, incoming freshmen can work through it independently over the summer to be optimally prepared for law school in the fall.

Open Book: The Inside Track to Law School Success, 2E is a book that every JD and LLM law student needs to read, either before classes start or as they get going in their 1L year. Now in an expanded second edition, the book explains in a clear and easygoing, conversational manner what law professors expect from their students both in classes and exams. The authors, award-winning teachers with a wealth of classroom experience, give students an inside look at law school by explaining how, despite appearances to the contrary, classes connect to exams and exams connect to the practice of law.

Exam First Aid: Multiple Choice Exams

Ancillary purchase book appropriate for incoming and first - year law students, law students in academic support programs, pre - law students, and graduates studying for the bar exam. Features: The student answer to the Hayakawa problem in Chapter 4 is now annotated to show key features, such as explanations of rules, explanation of elements, application of sub-elements to facts, and conclusions An all-new Chapter 8 explains how exams are like the real practice of law