I'm hoping that if you are reading this, it's not because you haven't diligently prepared for class (and attended class), invested substantial time in preparing class outlines, practiced exam writing, and engaged in the kind of serious work necessary to excel on law school exams, as I discuss in "Law School Labyrinth- A Guide to Making the Most of Your Legal Education ( Kaplan Publishing, 2009).  This blog is not intended to be a "How to Ace Your Exams Without Going to Class or Reading a Case" guide, unlike some of the get-rich-quick literature out there.

Instead, I'm hoping you're reading this because you have done all of the above but like most good law students are still feeling pretty intimidated by law school exams.  You have worked hard all semester but have a sneaking suspicion that you are going to need that extra "edge" in order to earn that "A" of "A+" position on the grading curve. 

There are law school "success" books that advocate throwing away your casebook, avoid attending class and limiting your reading to commercial outlines.  There are also books and courses that claim to contain secret formulae that will enable you to raise above the masses and earn those cherished "As".  However, as students who have done well in law school know and despite the prevalence of law school study aids purporting to give you an edge, the truth is  that there is no way around the hard work and preparation required, in order to master the material and demonstrate mastery, in order to optimize your chances of doing well. 

Further, if you have worked hard, faithfully attended class and worked diligently, you have created for yourself an excellent platform from which to succeed on exams.  My hope is that you have adopted the advice contained in my book, and especially utilized the "Pyramid Outline" method.  Regardless, if you have kept up with the reading and class discussions, and captured both in your class outline, you have already done much of the heavy lifting required to increase your chances of success.

That said, now that you are in the final stretch of your semester, the follow "dos" and "don'ts" are suggestions that you may find helpful as you allocate the precious time remaining before exams:

1.  Do review and distill the information contained in your class notes and outlines.  A fundamental principle of active learning is engaging yourself with the material.  In terms of law school exams, the best way to do this is to digest and distill the vast amount of information you read and hear during the semester into an "outline" and then distill the outline ultimately into a few pages, which serve simply as a memory prompter.

2.  Don't spend a lot of your precious study time re-reading cases.  Cases are intended to teach a point of law, or a trend or change in the law, or illustrate legal reasoning or a legal principle.  The facts of these cases are the vehicle for such teaching, however, memorizing these facts will not help at exam-time.

3.  Do practice writing exams, especially under timed conditions, and check your answers against the model answer, if available.  Your law school library probably has old exams on file.  There are also many other ways to find practice law school exams, including on the internet and through commercial study aids.  It is critical that you practice writing exams that are organized and cohesive.  All of the black letter law on the planet will not earn you an "A", if you cannot articulate a readable and cogent exam answer.  Of course, you have to know the black letter law, in order to spot legal issues.  But my point is that you must not overlook this critical step in your exam preparation.

4.  Do not throw out your basic writing skills, in the midst of the law school exam fray.  Law professors are people too.  They value penmanship (it makes grading exams infinitely easier), shorter sentences and active verb uses.  A sure way to irritate the grader and reduce your chances of a decent grade is to write a messy, rambling answer.

5.  Do use headings and subheadings liberally.  These can make your exam easier to understand and provide the grader with a roadmap to your answer.

6.  Do not begin writing until you have a pretty good idea of what your answer is going to look like.  The best way to do this is by creating a short outline of your answer.  Once the exam begins, you will see people immediately begin writing.  You will be tempted to start writing for fear of being left behind.  I suggest that you avoid the temptation.

7.  Do follow any instructions your professor has given you, either during the semester or in the exam itself.  Another way to irritate the grader is to not follow instructions.  Also, I suggest you read through the entire exam, in order to ensure that you properly allocate available time.  As I discussed in my book, the worst kind of surprise at hour two and a half of a three hour exam is to find out the exam contains three questions, instead of the two because you overlooked a question.  "A+" answers to the first two questions, followed by a "C" answer to the last overlooked question, will likely average out to a less than desirable grade.

8.  Do adopt "on the one hand, on the other hand" as your exam mantra.  Everything in law school- from facts to the law, and everything in between can be argued at least two ways.  I discuss this critical component of law school exam in "Law School Labyrinth" in more detail, but suffice it to say that if you find yourself arguing only one side you will likely lose points due to conclusory thinking.  And there is nothing more offensive to law professors than conclusory thinking.

I wish you success on your exams.  This is the opportunity to demonstrate the product of your hard work over the semester.  Law school exams are typically difficult.  They have to be, otherwise the grader will have no objective way to disperse the grades along the recommended grading curve.  But then again, someone has to get the "A"s and A+"s.  And it might as well be you.

As incredible as it may sound, the secret I am going to reveal to you about reading cases for law school did not occur to me until well after I graduated.  After you think about it for a while, it makes perfect sense, but as with most things law school, no one explains anything to you.  And after you graduate, you are so busy with things like bar exams, careers and the like, you quickly forget about the law school labyrinth.  It was only because I had waited so long to finally achieve my dream of law school that I continued to fixate on the process, and especially try to make sense of it in light of my prior business experience.

Business is all about managing the various business processes.  A good manager identifies a process and then proceeds to identify the variables affecting the process and finally managing and optimizing those variables.  If a business's critical processes are optimized, that business will have a much greater likelihood of success than a business whose processes are out of control. 

W. Edwards Deming is commonly credited as the father of statistical process control in the U.S.  In the 1970's and 80's U.S. car companies were faced with the Asian competitive threat and turned to Deming, who following the decimation of Japan in World War II, was charged by General Douglas MacArthur to assist in the rebuilding of that country.  Before long, the Japanese had not only rebuilt their country, but had begun to overtake the U.S. as the dominant manufacturing power, especially in the automotive market.

I grew up in my business career during those times and as with most executives, became adept at process control.  When I was faced with the apparently chaotic processes involved in legal education, I struggled to make sense of it both during and after I graduated.  The net result of my struggle is my book entitled "Law School Labyrinth-  A Guide to Making the Most of Your Legal Education" (Kaplan Publishing, 2009).  The book not only describes my struggle, but more importantly describes the key "lessons learned" as I traversed the labyrinth, especially the lessons about dealing with the Socratic method, learning the legal reasoning methodology and digesting vast amounts of information in such a way as to perform optimally when it counts-  at exam time.

Anyway, on with the secret.  When you start law school, you will be assigned to read numerous lengthy and often arcane cases.  You will not be given any quidance, questions, tips or anything else that will help you understand the point of even reading the cases.  Instead, you will read cases, go to class and hope you don't embarrass yourself in a Socratic grilling.

Different students respond differently to this apparent paradox.  Some students read and read and reread the cases, memorizing the most minute details.  Other students mark, highlight and underline the cases, in the hopes of being able to recall the reading.  Still other students do "briefs" using IRAC (Issue, Rule, Analysis, Conclusion).  Regardless, most students go to class, are called on and in up being embarrassed anyway (dealing with the Socratic method is beyond the scope of this blog post-  I'm afraid you'll have to read my book, or wait for a later post for that).

After I graduated and went to work for a law firm, I was often assigned legal research and memoranda writing in support of motions, such as a motion for summary judgment or a motion to dismiss.  A brief is a persuasive document, intended to persuade the judge that you are entitled to the relief you seek (i.e. dismissal of the plaintiff's complaint).  As I read these cases, I read them with a fury and intensity unlike anything I had ever done in law school.  The reason for this is that I read these cases with purpose-  the purpose was to sift through the opinion until I could find law in support of my facts; or conversely facts in support of my law.

What I mean is that a lawyer reads cases in order to find precedent that will convince the judge that the particular issue has already been decided.  It's called stare decisis.  And as with anything in life, when you do something with purpose, it becomes easy and almost automatic.

In law school, however, you do not read the cases with a purpose, other than to avoid embarassment if the professor happens to call on you.  But the truth is, you can't win that battle.  The professor knows the questions and the answers.  If the professor wants to embarrass you, then will.

So here's the secret.  When you read a case, try and imagine that you are a practicing lawyer.  You are reading this case because you want to find out more about particular issues(s).  As  you read the case, ask yourself why the writer included a particular fact or a discussion of the law.  I assure you that there really was a reason.  Try an imagine how subsequent judges would interpret this particular opinion.  Would it be upheld or overturned?  If so why; if not, why not?  In short, work the facts and work the law.  Read with as much purpose as you can.  The purposeful work will enable the material to stick with you much more so than an attempt at brute memorization.  It will likely also make you a better lawyer.

Regardless, if a case doesn't make sense, after you have given it your best shot (and perhaps a quick read of a commercial outline-  also discussed in my book), then don't sweat it.  There are simply poorly edited cases, poorly chosen cases or cases that are so old that they are merely a rite of passage for every neophyte law student.  If they don't make sense, it is most likely not because you lack intelligence.  It's simply because they are old, arcane "classics" that every professor relishes as a rite of passage for law students.  Everyone's read them; everyone has struggled with them.  And yet, we all somehow remember them.

For those of you who have ever played golf, you realize that what at first glance appears to be a simple act, swinging a golf club at a ball, is in reality an extremely complex transaction.  Hundreds of books have been written, thousands of dollars have been spent and millions of hours have been invested by golfers throughout history trying to achieve an effective golf swing.

An effective golf swing requires proper setup by the golfer and stance, a specific grip of the golf club, a predetermined backswing and timing such that it all comes together to strike and propel the ball the required distance and to the target at hand.  Golfers, either consciously or unconsciously, go through a pre-swing check and analysis, almost like the sensor mechanism/ processor of an automobile's airbag system, which goes through a split-second analysis prior to actual detonation.

If the golfer actually thought about each step of this analysis and made conscious independent decisions each step of the swing, the swing would take hours, instead of seconds.

A "swing thought", is a  simple thought that the golfer keeps in mind as they swing the golf club, in order to hit the ball properly.  Swing thoughts are sort of a shorthand memory that golfers use to trigger the proper physical response.  Swing thoughts enable golfers to "automate" a great deal of the analysis and hit the ball smoothly and effectively, and avoid the golfer having to make independent decisions each step of the way.  Swing thoughts boil it all down to one simple thought that the golfer can use to hit the ball. 

For example, one popular swing thought is to grip the golf club as if one were "gripping a tiny sparrow".  This swing thought instructs the golfer to not overgrip the club, but hold the club just securely enough to maintain control of the club.  The result is a more relaxed swing, with the other compents of the swing less likely impeded.

In law school, as you probably realize by now, the analyses are complicated and complex, ever-changing, infinitely detailed and challenging.  Every single day that you go to law school (and when you take exams), you are faced with analyses of legal problems. 

Generally, it all starts with the basic currency of law school- the cases; judicial opinions used to explain, describe or establish a point of law, trend in the law, or new direction of the law.  Law students are assigned cases to read and go to class to face the dreaded Socratic inquest (or witness their peers being grilled).  Law students spend hours upon hours attempting to make sense of cases, trying to memorize facts and generally familiarizing themselves to the point of avoiding the worst kind of embarassment in class.

But throughout their studies, many law students read cases in a rote manner, conducting analysis upon analysis.  One popular shorthand used by law students since time immemorial is "IRAC"- Issue Rule Analysis Conclusion.  IRAC is certainly a useful tool for dissecting the basic structure of a judicial opinion.  The student identifys the issue, states the rule provided in the case, describes the analysis and then the conclusion reached by the judge.  Many students read cases, use IRAC and stop there.  However, IRAC is an analytical tool, but certainly not an analysis in and of itself.  Students who stop at IRAC miss a key step in the analytical process and are severly disadvantaged at exam time.

Now for the law student "swing thought".  This swing thought will also help you to begin to think about how to perform the key step in the legal analytical process that most students miss (at least until well into their second year). 

The swing thought is simply this:  before you read a case or an exam fact pattern imagine that you have graduated from law school and passed the bar.  You are sitting in your office and your adminstrative assistant brings a new client in.  The client has a problem. 

Now read the case or exam fact pattern.

That's it.  The swing thought is that you are a real lawyer, faced with a real legal problem.  This will make the reading less abstract, and the fact-sifting and analysis real to you.  You will read with purpose.  The assignment before you will hopefully cease being an abstract notion, with dry facts and issues and become a real legal problem to be solved.

And by the way, that's what the legal pedagogy is all about-  teaching you to think like a lawyer.  Law school, in many ways is a trade school-  you learn by doing (as opposed to most of your undergraduate studies, in which you learn by reading, memorizing and regurgitating). 

You are a few short years away from becoming a real lawyer.  Now is the time to start thinking like a lawyer.  And the best way to do it is to begin to solve legal problems.  As you read your cases, and especially as you approach exams, begin to the work the same way you will do the work in practice.

In my book, Law School Labyrinth, I describe a methodology, the Pyramid Outline Method, to help you read and analyze cases, as well as assimilate the "black letter" law, so necessary for succeeding on exams.  I encourage you to read the book and develop your methodology as quickly as possible in law school.  It will help you to succeed in law school, but more importantly, begin to learn to "think like a lawyer.