Do you have any statistics to back this vacuous allegation?

I could hardly believe it took as many posts as it did...back to back errors like that make OP's advice hard to swallow, and even harder to take seriously (I vote flame). I'll qualify this though since I don't have any grades back, but I can't imagine OP is going to be happy next month.

Kobe you sound like an advertisement for the PLS method. I agree with you to a point, but because the PLS method makes sense, but the proof is in the pudding. When you get your grades back let us know how you did, and we will see if your method is valid.

I did research on law school before i went. Unlike you. Just ask the professors. They will tell you.

They will usually say

" as long as i can read it"

If you read the model answers of students who got A's you would say wtf? This does not make any sense.

I think you are the one is going to be upset. You are probaly one those kids who got a 4.0 under grad and a 176 on the lsat. And did not ask anybody what law professors care about on exams.

There is a reason when you ask a upper classmen and the first advice they would give you is law school is nothing like undergrad.

People with writing backgrounds consistently do worse then people with math backgrounds.

What law school professors want is that nit picky lawyer like analysis.

They do not want well written policy oriented answers.


YOU WILL SEE.

I spent pretty every Saturday / Sunday in the library. Looking back, I feel that I had a strong grasp of the material in each class. Nevertheless, I feel that all this preperation really didn't help all that much come exam writing under intense time pressures. Looking back, I would have been better served to take a typing class so that I can type in excess of 100 wpm.

I will still read cases, but not nearly has indepth as I originally had. I found the casebriefs to be much more useful. I also found that using a PY outline in preparation for each individual class to be helpful as I had a better sense of direction.

FYI, judging from his other alt, OP has not received first year grades yet, so he's basically full of shit. I, however, have two years of grades and find a direct correlation to read/briefing cases, making your own outline, supplementing as necessary and knowing the relevant policy underpinnings in each of your classes. And my grades seem to reflect that I know what I'm doing.

Forgive me for sounding a bit discourteous, but is this thread your way of conducting a post-exam cathartic rationalization? Just thinking to yourself, "Hey, my system must have worked. I'm going to get good grades, and a giant two finger salute to anyone who says otherwise." Honestly, I think the best advice came from Getting to Maybe - only you (and your classmates) have the best feel for what your professors want to see. I'm in no position to judge how well you did on your exams and what approach you took - and you are in no position to judge mine.

But I suppose we'll just wait for exam results to come out.

In my experience, 2Ls and 3Ls understand that the first year is tough and that usually the best way to get through it is through hard work. They also don't laugh at 1Ls except the strident ones who vocally assert that they have it down before the grades come out. If law school taught me anything, it's (1) absolutes are usually indefensible; and (2) it's okay to presume the incompetence of those who try to defend them anyway.

So you basically admit that you are making an allegation without any foundation whatsoever.

And as for your second claim, I've read plenty of A answers, just like any other well prepared law student, and most were well written and well organized. Many students use short hand, and I also partook.

And I love how you continue making claims with no basis: I researched law school pretty thoroughly before I went, I read Getting to Maybe, I've looked over LEEWS but I do not like their system of legal writing, I think it is a too formulaic to guarantee success, and it certainly doesn't fit the way that many of my professors thought.

That being said, I've utilized IRAC on occasion, some professors prefer it. I don't comprehensively brief cases, I brief them to extract rules. But I think that spending the time in the library, taking practice tests, reading hornbooks and other supplements, all of these things are important, if not integral to success. Even students like Arrow, who are LEEWS disciples, spent countless hours toiling in the library, doing practice problems, learning rules, learning how to write exams.

Seriously man, don't make baseless claims; it detracts from your credibility and makes you sound arrogant and ignorant.

You've got my vote.

OP I just disagree with the method you're trying to pawn off on people when you have no idea if it paid off. Trust me, I incorporated elements of your plan into one of my classes (Torts) and I'm not going to lie, I have a feeling it's going to be my worst grade. However, using PK's method in K's and property I feel pretty good about how the exams went. We'll see I suppose.

Nobody here is saying that well written policy oriented answers is the path to success.

Of course BLL is crucial, I didn't need PLS to tell me that. Of course you aren't tested purely on your knowledge of cases, I never met anybody who thought that we were.

However, all my professors have said that the worst grades tend to be given to people who just regurgitate black letter law. Like the other poster said, a trained monkey could recite BLL.

The trick is careful factual analysis, and applying the relevant portions of BLL to the fact pattern. If this is what you are arguing, then I don't think anybody here is disagreeing. However, you are coming off very abrasive, as if you are the first person to realize that the cases aren't terribly important.

I think reading cases and briefing is important because it forces you to follow and understand the legal reasoning that judge's use to arrive at a conclusion, which is, oh, I don't know, the entire point of the first year of LS.

I agree with displeased except that I think statutory construction / deconstruction and policy analysis (where you need to make a new law or have to decide between two countervailing policies) also help separate from the masses who can puke up their BLL outlines with the best of them. Cases are useful for shorthand for analysis patterns (the facts here are similar to those in Burger King and therefore...)

1. issue spotting and tailored factual analysis
2. statutory arguments (overlooked all the time)
3. policy underpinning.

Enjoy your A's.

even if what you are saying is right, op, different things work for different people. part of 1L is finding out what works for you.

Oh, I didn't mean to imply that reading cases was unimportant. Its very important, for the reasons you said.

EDIT: Just to clarify, I'm saying that knowing the specific facts and procedural posture of Pennoyer, for example, isn't going to help you on a Civ Pro exam. However, knowing the court's reasoning in that case, and how it influenced (or didn't) the development of personal jurisdiction doctrine. Maybe Pennoyer is a bad example, since its notorious for being sort of useless for law students, but its all I can think of right now.

The point is, cases are important for learning legal reasoning and seeing BLL in action. I don't think what I'm saying is controversial, I think 90% of law students realize by the second week or so that writing 600 word summaries of a case's fact pattern and procedural posture isn't terribly helpful.

And finding out what works requires grades.

Its not important at all. This is crappy advice. The professors know reading cases are not important. You have to know the important cases. ( the black/legal reasoning) the facts don't mean anything. And when you read a case in a casebook you are mostly reading facts.



Commercial outlines teach you what you need to know out of the cases better then a casebook.


I don't go to Yale. But every one of my exams came out of concepts from one of the highlighted cases in commercial outlines.

I don't know how i did. But reading the cases helps 0. Reading the cases helps you prepare for class. So when the professor calls on you sound ok.

But everyone knows participation does not count.

Step 1: Create a "system" about how to succeed (in love, money, race car driving, law school...whatever) using little or no substance.

Step 2: Get morons to buy your "system."

Step 3: Roll around on your pile of money.

As a 1L, I went to pretty much every class, took good notes, did all the assigned readings, and made my own outlines. I didn't use a supplement of any sort in any class. Ended up top 5% at NYU. That was just my experience, but I think it's pretty clear that reading cases is not, in fact, worthless.

A prof assigns particular cases because he/she thinks they are important for specific reasons. By reading the cases and going to class, you can figure out what those reasons are. I'm not saying supplements or commercial outlines aren't useful, but sometimes they emphasize points and issues from cases that the prof has absolutely no interest in (or, on occasion, disagrees with).

so, so true. i think the op is just fearing what his grades will be and wishes he didn't put in all that hard work for nothing. or he is a complete troll.

NOT TRUE AT ALL. You guys live in a dreamy world. A professor does not carefully assign cases in the case book.

They have to fill up credit hours. All you guys are full of crap. You did well because you spot issues well.

Leews=Crap. I have had 2 professors (I'm only on my first semester) already tell our sections that they can spot a LEEWS user. They didn't say it in a reverent way, either.

lol they could spot a leews user because they get more issues.

OP is a troll. Please stop feeding him.