How to Kick Ass on Law School Exams

Law school exams are a major source of stress and anxiety for most law students, especially during their first year of law study. Law exam scores will be the determining factor regarding whether you are able to continue on to your next year of legal education, what your class rank will be and whether your grade point average (GPA) will be impressive enough to land a summer associate position at a law firm. Most first year students have a very difficult time determining the best way to approach exams, and for good reason. There is a lot of information that you must process and digest. The best way to prepare for exams is to focus on the specific topics that you learned during class and to organize the information in a manner that can be easily reviewed.

Outlines vs. Briefing

When you started law school, you were probably told by professors and other students that you should "brief" you cases. Unless you are required to hand in case briefs as part of your required coursework, you should avoid it. Briefing involves regurgitating a particular case on paper- which can be extremely time consuming. You may need to know the facts of a particular case that you read for class, but if you read you cases a day or two before class, you should have no problem talking about the facts of a particular case. Law school's force students to read case law so that they can put legal principles into context. It is highly unlikely that you will ever need to know the particular facts of a case for exam taking purposes. What you will need to know is the "black letter law". Black letter law are concrete legal principles that can be applied to any set of relevant facts. For example, the elements of negligence would be considered black letter law.

Focus your efforts on creating a solid outline. Outlines consist of black letter legal principles. During each of your individual law school classes, you will be focusing on one (sometimes two) black letter legal topics. Begin your outline on the first day of class by creating a heading for each legal topic. For example, you first few classes on Contract Law will involve the "elements of an enforceable contract"- this should be your first topic heading in your Contracts outline. Below the heading you will list the elements such as "consideration", "capacity", "allowable subject matter". etc. Next to each sub-heading you should provide a very brief description to help you recall the important details of each black letter topic.

Update Your Outline After Each Class and Review At the End of Each Week

If you wait until you are a month or two into the semester to start your outlines, creating and updating them will become a painful and nearly unattainable goal. Update your outline after each class or even during class as you are going over specific legal principles. Repetition is the key to remembering all of the information that you will need to know for exams. At the end of each week, read over your entire outline. If you consistently engage in this practice, you should have most of the legal principals for each class memorized by the time exams roll around.

Use a Commercial Outline or Horn Book to Clarify Points of Law that Are Unclear

Some law professors make it a point to "hide the ball" from students. You may sit through a law school class and feel totally lost. Often, professors won't come right out and say "the law is X" for a particular topic. You can survive this hurdle by seeking the information that you need using a commercial outline or horn book. Commercial outlines such as Gilberts will provide you with the basic black letter law on all of your first year classes. Horn books go into more detail and discuss specific case law that lead to the formation of particular legal principles.

Check to See if Your Law Professor Has Past Exams on File In Your Law School's Library.

Many professors will keep past exams on file in the library. All you need to do is ask the librarian or receptionist if you can check them out. Make a copy of the exam and work through it as if you were taking an actual exam. Ask your law professor if you can set up an appointment to review your answers. Some professors will be open to this idea, while others will not, but it's worth inquiring into. If a professor agrees to review your answers, pay close attention to the feedback that he or she gives you. Some professors want answers to be presented in a specific way. For example, some prefer you to IRAC your answers, while others prefer that you cut to the chase and simply answer the question. Even if a professor will not agree to meet with you, reviewing past exams will give you insight into the types of questions that will be asked on your exam. Some professors will even recycle questions or change the facts only slightly from exam to exam.

Use Your Outlines to Study For Your Exams

As your exams are approaching you should begin reviewing your outlines on a daily basis. Your goal will be to memorize that information contained within the outlines. Create a list of all of the basic topics contained within your outline and write down as much of the information about each topic as you can without looking at your outline. Compare your written answers with your outline and give additional attention to topics that you are having a difficult time remembering.

Write Your Exam Using the IRAC Format

Unless your professor has instructed otherwise, write your exam in the IRAC format. IRAC stands for: "Issue" "Rule", "Application", "Conclusion". It is not necessary that you create heading for each section.

After you read you exam question, write a sentence explaining what the legal issue is. For example, you might state "The issue is whether the court will find that the defendant was negligent when he did not remove or warn of a dangerous condition on his land that caused injury to the Plaintiff".

In the next paragraph, you would explain the different rules of law that apply to dangerous conditions on land in different situations. For example, you would state the standards of care that apply to trespassers, licensees, and invitees.

The analysis or application section is where you apply the rule to the facts. If the plaintiff was trespassing on the defendant's land, he wouldn't have a duty to the plaintiff unless he had reason to know that the plaintiff would trespass. State the facts that support or discredit the contention that the plaintiff is indeed a trespasser and any facts that support or deny the contention that the defendant should have known that the plaintiff would trespass on his land.In the conclusion section, you would state the final resolution of the matter. For example, if you found that the facts supported the contention that the defendant had no duty to protect the plaintiff against dangerous conditions on his land, you would state that conclusion here.