Exam Guide

There are a lot of resources on how to succeed in law school / on law exams. Evaluate these resources as you would any other secondary source. That is: the general advice curated here likely won't be as helpful as advice from a student who did well in the same professor's course last semester. To paraphrase the adage "a good lawyer knows the law; a great lawyer knows the judge," a good student knows the material; a great student knows the professor.

Outlining

• Do your own outline!
  • "[H]igh-performing students outlined for exams through a multi-step process that included distilling or condensing outlines. . . . [U]nderperforming students either did not outline or did not engage in a multi-step distillation of their outlines. . . . [which] reflected more of a running cut and paste from class briefs. . . ." Karol Schmidt, Learning from the Learners, 4 Phoenix L. Rev. 287, 304-5 (2010).
  • CALI Lesson - Outlining Basics
  • CALI Podcast - Why Outlining Should Be Called Synthesizing: Discussions in Law School Success
  • University of Virginia - Outlining Strategies and Techniques (video)
  • Quimbee - How to Write an Outline
• Commercial outlines (e.g. Barbri) and other students' outlines (SBA Outline Bank) are only supplementary materials.
• Start your outline early: the 2nd week of the semester
  • Spaced repetition: update weekly after
  • If behind, prepare for the next class session and break the remaining material to learn into manageable pieces.

Saving Time by Strategizing

• SQ3R (Survey, Question, Read, Recite, & Review)
  • Learn Faster with the SQ3R Method (video)
• EMPOWER method

• "Leisure" reading can help illuminate the big picture
  • Law journal articles for areas where the law is evolving
  • Popular books and other media for policy aspects
• Studicata (videos) can help round out ideas

Asking for Help

• Office hours!
• Peer Tutoring Center
  • Modules > Law School Workshops
• BLSA Review
• Personal Librarian

Practicing

• Ask your professor for a past exam (with model answers!)
• Types of Practice
  • Mechanics of Memorization (LSS18)
  • Creating Study Aids (LSS02)
  • Practice Makes Prepared: Discussion in Law School Success Podcast (LSS64P)
  • Hyped about Hypos (LSS25)
• Organizing Your Answer
  • IRAC (LSS01)
  • IRAC: There Is No Better Way! Discussions in Law School Success Podcast (LSS57P)
  • Issue Spotting (LSS12)
  • Analysis 2: The "A" in IRAC: Application and Analysis (LSS06)
  • Analysis 3: Using Your Facts (LSS58) (Includes video commentary from the author)
• The Night Before Your Exam… Discussions in Law School Success Podcast (LSS46P)

During the Exam

• Strategy
  • CALI Lesson - Attacking Exams
  • CALI Lesson - Reading Comprehension Strategies for Exams (LSS23) (Includes video commentary from the author)
• Writing
  • Legal Writing v. Exam Writing (LSS24)
  • 10 Tips for Essay Exam Writing: Discussions in Law School Success
  • Improving Exam Writing with Deductive Reasoning (LSS39) (Includes video commentary from the author)
  • Advanced Exam Writing - Using Cases on Final Exams (LSS38) (Includes video commentary from the author)
  • The Counterargument: A Key (But Often Overlooked) Part of Legal Reasoning (LSS48)
• Multiple Choice / Non-Essay Exams
  • Types of Law School Exams
  • A Methodical Approach to Improve Multiple Choice Performance (LSS05)
  • Multiple-Choice Questions: Wrong Answer Pathology (LSS11)

General Advice

• NYU Law Forum Video, [76:17 min.]
  Prof. Barry Friedman gives advice about taking law exams.
• Alan Childress' That Time of Year: Exam Tips for Law Students Reloaded Blog Post (April 16, 2009)
• Prof. John H. Langbein's Writing Law Examiniations
• Prof. Eugene Volokh's Bad Answers, Good Answers, and Terrific Answers
• Top Law Schools (TLS) forum guide to law school success
• Exam Taking Skills (Panel 1) Podcast, [21:38 min.]
  Discusses how to: catch up if you're behind, ask for practice exams, outline a course, and see the big picture in a course.
• Exam Taking Skills (Panel 2) Podcast, [12:19 min.]

  Discusses how to: catch up if you're behind, strategize like an attorney, stick to essay prompts, read a multiple choice question, skip questions, and other practical considerations during the exam.
• Exam Taking Skills (Panel 3) Podcast, [11:48 min.]

  Discusses how to: manage time during the exam, taking practice exams, and other practical considerations during the exam.

Elizabeth M. Bloom, Teaching Law Student to Teach Themselves: Using Lessons from Educational Psychology to Shape Self-Regulated Learners, 59 Wayne L. Rev. 311, 330-38 (2013).

Aaron H. Caplan, How to Take a Law School Essay Exam, SSRN J. (2014).

Jennifer M. Cooper & Regan A. R. Gurung, Smarter Law Study Habits: An Empirical Analysis of Law Learning Strategies and Relationship with Law GPA, 62 St. Louis U. L.J. 361, 392-394 (2018).

Jennifer M. Cooper, Smarter Law Learning: Using Cognitive Science to Maximize Law Learning, 44 Cap. U. L. Rev. 551 (2016).

Andrea A. Curcio, Gregory Todd Jones & Tanya M. Washington, Does Practice Make Perfect - An Empirical Examination of the Impact of Practice Essays on Essay Exam Performance, 35 Fla. St. U. L. Rev. 271 (2008).

Karol Schmidt, Learning from the Learners: What High-Performing Law Students Teach Us About Academic Support Programming,4 Phoenix L. Rev. 287, 289-309 (2010).

ADA accommodations here at CWRU Law are approved and processed by the Office of Disability Resources, then administered by Law Exam Coordinators here at the School of Law. Here is everything you need to know about Getting Started, and here is general information and procedures related to the Office of Disability Resources. Please reach out to disability@case.edu directly to begin the process.