1L Exam Prep and Motivation Thread Forum

[Grizz]

Make sure you know the case that is the current "good law." For commerce you only need to know Lopez and Raich for example. All the law before that is pretty much irrelevant. So don't waste your time learning old cases that you can't even use to make a point.

Huge +1. A friend of mine was studying Gibbons v. Ogdon the other day. LOL

Wut. Also, aren't you banned?

[snowpeach06]

Make sure you know the case that is the current "good law." For commerce you only need to know Lopez and Raich for example. All the law before that is pretty much irrelevant. So don't waste your time learning old cases that you can't even use to make a point.

Huge +1. A friend of mine was studying Gibbons v. Ogdon the other day. LOL

My prof. told me to bring that up for a commerce clause question when I met with him.

[romothesavior]

Did you read getting to maybe? I'm pretty sure just knowing how to take the exam puts you past a huge chunk of your class.

What school does she attend? If it's anything in the first (second too?) tier then hell no it won't. If it's in the top 25 then HELL, and I mean HELL no it won't.

Are you saying that knowing how to take an exam doesn't put you past a huge chunk of your class? I mean, know you've said some dumb things on TLS before and taken some flak for it, but this takes the cake. Being able to properly organize an answer, write clearly and concisely, and write a metric shit ton is incredibly important. So, so many people can't write law school exams or communicate their answers in ways that rack up points.

[09042014]

Make sure you know the case that is the current "good law." For commerce you only need to know Lopez and Raich for example. All the law before that is pretty much irrelevant. So don't waste your time learning old cases that you can't even use to make a point.

Huge +1. A friend of mine was studying Gibbons v. Ogdon the other day. LOL

My Civ pro prof had to tell us after our practice final to not cite Pennoyer.

[09042014]

Maybe a huge chunk isn't the right magnitude, but I think just knowing to argue both sides of issues gets you within striking range of median.

I think it's also the number one cause of bad grades. It's not sufficient for top grades, but it's damn near necessary.

[Sogui]

Make sure you know the case that is the current "good law." For commerce you only need to know Lopez and Raich for example. All the law before that is pretty much irrelevant. So don't waste your time learning old cases that you can't even use to make a point.

Did you read getting to maybe? I'm pretty sure just knowing how to take the exam puts you past a huge chunk of your class.

I would add United States v. Morrison since Lopez leaves some possibilities open that are explicitly foreclosed in Morrison and not really handled in Raich. Plus it depends on your professor. Some professors cream themselves if you can point out how the law has evolved and how it might revert if the court's style changes in a certain way. For example in my class we covered:

Champion v. Ames,
Hammer v. Dagenhart,
NLRB v. Jones & McLaughlin Steel Corp.,
United States v. Darby,
Wickard v. Filburn,
Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States,
Katzenbach v. McClung and Notes,
United States v. Lopez,
US v. Morrison,
Raich v. Gonzalez

A good answer would discuss how the last 3 cases might guide us to understand if a law is a legitimate exercise of commerce clause power, but the answer that would get an A would inevitably bring out past interpretations of the CC. After all if the clause was once interpreted narrowly, then broadly, and now more narrowly, wouldn't it be sensible to suggest as part of your answer that the law might shift back to a more broad interpretation urged by the dissents in Morrison?

So naturally the great answers might talk about how a given law would have been seen as Constitutional under Katzenbach or even Champion and a shift in court membership might push the Constitutional jurisprudence in that direction, along with the usual discussion about the modern CC cases.

Are you saying that knowing how to take an exam doesn't put you past a huge chunk of your class? I mean, know you've said some dumb things on TLS before and taken some flak for it, but this takes the cake. Being able to properly organize an answer, write clearly and concisely, and write a metric shit ton is incredibly important. So, so many people can't write law school exams or communicate their answers in ways that rack up points.

I think knowing how to write an exam keeps you out of B- range and will make even B's a rare occasion. After last semester and seeing model answers for this semester I have a new-found appreciation for just how arbitrary bad professors can be. For my upcoming Property exam, the Professor is a former CLS dean and is Director of the American Law Institute. He's smart, but he's clearly in retirement - I don't give a fuck - mode. Roughly half of class time is listening to his (non-property) stories and other excuses for him to name-drop like there's no tomorrow.

The first thing his TA's told us during the exam review was that the grading would be unpredictable and often arbitrary. The model answers read more like grocery lists containing property law summaries, and there was almost none of the style that is advocated by Getting to Maybe. While GTM encourages exploring and discussing both sides of a fork and then reasoning to favor one side over the other, this prof was more than happy to conclude "the other side's stupid, ignore it!"

So in retrospect, I'd say GTM is best if you don't have access to some of your professor's model answers or you can't discern any useful answer patterns from the model answers. Some good professors will emphasize the style advocated by GTM by writing questions with "close" answers that could come out either way, not expressing a grade preference for the answer but rather the reasoning used to reach it, etc... but others won't and individual practice with a professor's material will probably give you a better sense of how to write a good answer than reading GTM.

[geekrocker37]

Make sure you know the case that is the current "good law." For commerce you only need to know Lopez and Raich for example. All the law before that is pretty much irrelevant. So don't waste your time learning old cases that you can't even use to make a point.

Did you read getting to maybe? I'm pretty sure just knowing how to take the exam puts you past a huge chunk of your class.

I would add United States v. Morrison since Lopez leaves some possibilities open that are explicitly foreclosed in Morrison and not really handled in Raich. Plus it depends on your professor. Some professors cream themselves if you can point out how the law has evolved and how it might revert if the court's style changes in a certain way. For example in my class we covered:

Champion v. Ames,
Hammer v. Dagenhart,
NLRB v. Jones & McLaughlin Steel Corp.,
United States v. Darby,
Wickard v. Filburn,
Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States,
Katzenbach v. McClung and Notes,
United States v. Lopez,
US v. Morrison,
Raich v. Gonzalez

A good answer would discuss how the last 3 cases might guide us to understand if a law is a legitimate exercise of commerce clause power, but the answer that would get an A would inevitably bring out past interpretations of the CC. After all if the clause was once interpreted narrowly, then broadly, and now more narrowly, wouldn't it be sensible to suggest as part of your answer that the law might shift back to a more broad interpretation urged by the dissents in Morrison?

So naturally the great answers might talk about how a given law would have been seen as Constitutional under Katzenbach or even Champion and a shift in court membership might push the Constitutional jurisprudence in that direction, along with the usual discussion about the modern CC cases.

I think your point about bringing up past interpretations of issues is really helpful. I know for my Fall exams at least (specifically Crim (A) and Torts (A-)), a substantial part of my answers were about why one possible solution would not be correct in light of recent case holdings. Just seems to help firm up the understanding that you read all Semester, and that you understand why the holding in a case like Lopez is so important.

[09042014]

Morrison, wickard, and the civil rights cases are still good law. I didn't really see much in Morrison worth talking about since it pretty much just upheld Lopez. Though my prof. didn't cover it that much. If yours did use it.

[weee]

Morrison, wickard, and the civil rights cases are still good law. I didn't really see much in Morrison worth talking about since it pretty much just upheld Lopez. Though my prof. didn't cover it that much. If yours did use it.

The main thing I can recall here is that in Lopez the court said that the Government had not made an adequate showing of evidence that there was a substantial effect, so the attorneys in Morrison came with a huge load of evidence of the effects on commerce.

The court rejected the evidence as still being too attenuated, arguing that following the same logic could lead to a broad police power for Congress, which isn't what the Commerce Clause is meant to authorize.

The bolded is TCR though.

[YourCaptain]

Morrison, wickard, and the civil rights cases are still good law. I didn't really see much in Morrison worth talking about since it pretty much just upheld Lopez. Though my prof. didn't cover it that much. If yours did use it.

Morrison is simply an application of the Lopz test on something not generally considered economic the effects of which can yield economic results.

My professor explained that the data provided by the government in Morrison was more compelling, so while they struck it down it was a harder case to do it in.

[BarbellDreams]

Morrison, wickard, and the civil rights cases are still good law. I didn't really see much in Morrison worth talking about since it pretty much just upheld Lopez. Though my prof. didn't cover it that much. If yours did use it.

Morrison is simply an application of the Lopz test on something not generally considered economic the effects of which can yield economic results.

My professor explained that the data provided by the government in Morrison was more compelling, so while they struck it down it was a harder case to do it in.

TITCR.

Morrison isn't too different from Lopez and I am not sure why some people made it a point to study it seperately. All it did was apply the Lopez test to show how the first prong (Is it commercial in nature) cannot be met and thus this cannot be considered commerce unlike Wickard and Raich.

[YourCaptain]

In other news the teachers who write the CALI lessons do an infuriatingly poor job of doing so.

"Does the language of Rule 20 expressly allow you to join these claims?" Well...rule 20 concerns party joinder, not claim joinder. *clicks no*

"Wrong. Nothing in Rule 20 disallows the joinder of these claims. Rule 18 would permit it." NO JOKE SHERLOCK BUT YOU WEREN'T ASKING THAT.

[Rurik]

In other news the teachers who write the CALI lessons do an infuriatingly poor job of doing so.

"Does the language of Rule 20 expressly allow you to join these claims?" Well...rule 20 concerns party joinder, not claim joinder. *clicks no*

"Wrong. Nothing in Rule 20 disallows the joinder of these claims. Rule 18 would permit it." NO JOKE SHERLOCK BUT YOU WEREN'T ASKING THAT.

The CALI civpro is a joke, same for conlaw. The only subjects I've found them useful for are Ks and property.

[snowpeach06]

In other news the teachers who write the CALI lessons do an infuriatingly poor job of doing so.

"Does the language of Rule 20 expressly allow you to join these claims?" Well...rule 20 concerns party joinder, not claim joinder. *clicks no*

"Wrong. Nothing in Rule 20 disallows the joinder of these claims. Rule 18 would permit it." NO JOKE SHERLOCK BUT YOU WEREN'T ASKING THAT.

The CALI civpro is a joke, same for conlaw. The only subjects I've found them useful for are Ks and property.

Agreed. I found the K's ones crazy helpful and property. Civ Pro ones just confused me and kept saying my type in answers were wrong cuse I didn't phrase it exactly the way they did. Cali is very hit or miss, but they are always at least worth trying.

[solotee]

So does my fear of a 'tighter curve for 2nd semester of 1L' have any merit?

I feel like I was on the lower end of my grade rather than the higher end. A tighter curve will put me into the next category of grades...sigh

[IthacaIsWet]

So does my fear of a 'tighter curve for 2nd semester of 1L' have any merit?

I feel like I was on the lower end of my grade rather than the higher end. A tighter curve will put me into the next category of grades...sigh

I'm wondering whether last semester has made people smarter and harder workers and better exam takers, or if it's made them more burnt out and studying less.

No way of knowing, really.

[fathergoose]

I'm wondering whether last semester has made people smarter and harder workers and better exam takers, or if it's made them more burnt out and studying less.

No way of knowing, really.

A little bit of both from what I can tell. Some people are clearly studying better and sound more confident than after the exams last semester, but there are some people who clearly just don't give a damn.

I imagine a lot of that has to do with how people did last semester, so people not giving a damn probably doesn't help you because they probably aren't the people you are trying to leap frog.

[Grizz]

So does my fear of a 'tighter curve for 2nd semester of 1L' have any merit?

I feel like I was on the lower end of my grade rather than the higher end. A tighter curve will put me into the next category of grades...sigh

I'm wondering whether last semester has made people smarter and harder workers and better exam takers, or if it's made them more burnt out and studying less.

No way of knowing, really.

So far here, it seems the latter.

[solotee]

So does my fear of a 'tighter curve for 2nd semester of 1L' have any merit?

I feel like I was on the lower end of my grade rather than the higher end. A tighter curve will put me into the next category of grades...sigh

I'm wondering whether last semester has made people smarter and harder workers and better exam takers, or if it's made them more burnt out and studying less.

No way of knowing, really.

So far here, it seems the latter.

I'm part of the 'burnt out/studying less' group. I just could not force myself to bring the same game this semester as I did last. o_O

[keg411]

So does my fear of a 'tighter curve for 2nd semester of 1L' have any merit?

I feel like I was on the lower end of my grade rather than the higher end. A tighter curve will put me into the next category of grades...sigh

Same fear, except I feel like I'm studying more (at least during exam period), but it's not going as well and that I understand the material less.

Probably because my last exam last semester wasn't a real final and ConLaw is the devil.

[traehekat]

yeah i absolutely get the sense that it will be a tighter curve. there is no reason why it wouldn't be, unless people just get bad grades and give up/settle for where they are.

[09042014]

I'm struggling for motivation for my uncurved classes.

[mths]

I'm struggling for motivation for my uncurved classes.

QF thinking that'll help your cause

[kalvano]

Morrison, wickard, and the civil rights cases are still good law. I didn't really see much in Morrison worth talking about since it pretty much just upheld Lopez. Though my prof. didn't cover it that much. If yours did use it.

Morrison is simply an application of the Lopz test on something not generally considered economic the effects of which can yield economic results.

My professor explained that the data provided by the government in Morrison was more compelling, so while they struck it down it was a harder case to do it in.

TITCR.

Morrison isn't too different from Lopez and I am not sure why some people made it a point to study it seperately. All it did was apply the Lopez test to show how the first prong (Is it commercial in nature) cannot be met and thus this cannot be considered commerce unlike Wickard and Raich.

Going back to the Lopez stuff, since I am working on it now - this might prove useful for people

[BarbellDreams]

Civ Pro exam in about 16 hours. Feel pretty good, still slightly hazy on some discovery stuff but hopefully will work out the kinks in a couple of hours. Lets do this!