well, it sounds like french to you b/c you haven't started to law school yet. and b/c promissory estoppel and those other doctrines are not the first things you learn in those subjects. believe it or not, courses have a certain progression to them. and probably b/c i didn't do a good job explaining promissory estoppel . let me try again: promissory estoppel is a doctrine from the law of contracts that allows a person to enforce a promise when she has reasonably relied on that promise. for example, let's say jane promises to donate $200,000 to the salvation army. the salvation army enters into a new lease for a bigger store, reasonably expecting jane to keep her promise. jane then gets cold feet and backs out. the salvation army can use the doctrine of promissory estoppel to enforce jane's promise, even though they don't have a "contract."A.Taarabt7 wrote:iamgeorgebush wrote:i assume you're a 0L, given that you included "restitution" among examples of doctrines that are supposedly difficult to understand. (it's not.) the RAP and PER are kinda difficult to grasp at first, but those others you mentioned are fairly easy. promissory estoppel, for example, is just a (1) promise that (2) induces substantial reliance in the promisee where (3) the promisor reasonably should have expected her promise to induce such reliance and (4) injustice can be prevented only by enforcing the promise. that description might sound a bit opaque to you right now, but that's b/c you haven't started law school yet. i "promise" you'll get it once you read some cases/do some E&E problems/etc.A.Taarabt7 wrote:TheUnicornHunter wrote:Plus freaking one. "The Law" is not conceptually difficult.pancakes3 wrote: "The black letter law is not that hard." and it's the truest thing you'll ever learn all year.
so rule of perpetuities, adverse possession, promissory estoppel, duress, restitution, and parol evidence rule are easy to understand?
what i cannot promise is that you'll spot the promissory estoppel issue on the exam or write a good analysis of the promissory estoppel issue. indeed, the more difficult thing than understanding the black letter law is getting good at applying it to novel fact patterns. you can know the elements of promissory estoppel like the back of your hand and understand precisely what they mean, but if you miss the promissory estoppel issue on the exam or write a weak analysis on the issue, you will do poorly. that's why i recommend reading GTM before law school; you can at least kinda start down that path by getting an understanding of what it means to "apply law to fact." read GTM and some of the guides to success on TLS; that is all. do not worry about learning the BLL before you've even stepped foot in law school.
also, your random examples illustrate a reason why it's a mistake to worry about learning the BLL as a 0L: your profs might not even cover those doctrines, let alone test them. for example, take the dreaded Rule Against Perpetuities. many property courses do not cover the RAP, and many property courses that do cover the RAP place very little weigh on it. my property prof put just one RAP multiple choice question (out of like 30 multiple choice questions, in section that comprised only 1/3 of the exam grade) on the exam. and to learn the RAP, you must first learn the estate system (present and future interests), which is takes a lot of time itself. imagine how must time you would have wasted if none of that came up on the exam!
one last thing: given that you get points on law school exams mostly from applying the BLL to novel fact patterns in the way that your professor thinks it applies, a big danger that others have probably mentioned ITT is that learning the BLL one way when you professor has a slightly different take may cause you to apply a version of the BLL that the prof doesn't want you applying.
Bro your first and Third patagraph sounded like French to me. Why can't I just read a portion of the e and e or at least chirelstein to get the basics down. Give me more confidence which will make happy and in my mind at least I have an edge
I plan to read gtm as well. Im not reading an entire e and e just a few select portions.
perhaps you still don't understand promissory estoppel, but that's not the point. you won't have trouble understanding it once you start law school.
anyway, if you ~*really*~ wanna crack open some E&Es, go ahead, but i don't think it'll help you at all. i would recommend taking it easy beforehand---burnout is a real danger. pretty much everyone i know burned out at least a little bit during second semester, and doing a bunch of 0L prep could exacerbate any burnout.
