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Hey I was reading the Success in Law School - A Unique Perspective article and the idea of case summary books sounded great. After looking in to it I found the High court Case Summary Books which are keyed to specific casebooks and of rom law which is an electronic database with over 22,000 case briefs. From the article I figured the person was using the high court case summaries, but what if there arent any that are keyed to your specific casebooks? I was thinking that maybe it didnt matter because how different can the casebooks on torts or crim law be? I figure there are the standard "important" cases that can be found in most if not all casebooks on specific subjects. Anyone have any insight into this? Is there another source of case summary books that i am overlooking or is it basically just the high court case summaries?

Casenotes is another line of canned case briefs.

cool thanks. i just downloaded the rom law free 3 day trial and its pretty sick, from first glance. They have all the case briefs keyed to like 6 different casebooks and for the casebooks that i have that i cant find a specific keyed summary book for, i have been able to find most of the briefs in their database. I'm not sure how accurate the briefs are, but they look good to me.

Rom law is bad news...

if thats true, which it very well may be, i appreciate the warning... care to explain why?

christmas mouse wrote:Hey I was reading the Success in Law School - A Unique Perspective article and the idea of case summary books sounded great. After looking in to it I found the High court Case Summary Books which are keyed to specific casebooks and of rom law which is an electronic database with over 22,000 case briefs. From the article I figured the person was using the high court case summaries, but what if there arent any that are keyed to your specific casebooks? I was thinking that maybe it didnt matter because how different can the casebooks on torts or crim law be? I figure there are the standard "important" cases that can be found in most if not all casebooks on specific subjects. Anyone have any insight into this? Is there another source of case summary books that i am overlooking or is it basically just the high court case summaries?

+1. My crim law book is only its its second edition, and there is no case summary book keyed to it. Should I just buy a popular generic case summary book for crim law?

I have since learned that rom law is not the way to go, the creators arent lawyers and never went to law school, so im sure as hell not putting my faith into their program. Beyond that tidbit im still stuck, im thinking canned briefs just might not be the way to go.

Any other tips on how to differentiate ones studying from their classmates?

Stop being so afraid of law school and just read the cases. The whole point of law school is to learn how to actually read and understand the law quickly. If you use summaries, you won't learn the only real skill that these classes teach you. Aside from learning a useful skill, you can do very well without picking up a commercial outline as long as you know to take the tests and practice at it.

subgdubb wrote:Stop being so afraid of law school and just read the cases. The whole point of law school is to learn how to actually read and understand the law quickly. If you use summaries, you won't learn the only real skill that these classes teach you. Aside from learning a useful skill, you can do very well without picking up a commercial outline as long as you know to take the tests and practice at it.

im leaning towards thinking that this advice is credited

christmas mouse wrote:

subgdubb wrote:Stop being so afraid of law school and just read the cases. The whole point of law school is to learn how to actually read and understand the law quickly. If you use summaries, you won't learn the only real skill that these classes teach you. Aside from learning a useful skill, you can do very well without picking up a commercial outline as long as you know to take the tests and practice at it.

im leaning towards thinking that this advice is credited

cept that it goes against most of the 2l/3l wisdom both on TLS and in the real world.

I always hear so much from successful students about how the exam should be all you focus on, and how you should often consult supplements for understanding of the BLL and then apply them to hypothetical situations with frequency. That way you never let a concept from class go by without seeing how it could be used in an exam situation. How can one have the time to do this without skimping at all on briefing?

Lexis/Nexis provides a good way to review cases. You should have free access to L/N and Westlaw. Look at 538 U.S. 408 for a good example.

Brief them yourself unless you think its a waste of your time. Find some way of organizing the information. It seems really easy until Thanksgiving when you realize you've read a ton of cases for each class and can't keep the law straight in your head.

Read the cases too. If you don't get into the habit of reading them now, you'll struggle in the real world. Most of the cases you'll use as a SA or real lawyer are not famous and would not be cited in a casebook. You'll have to find out how to read them and discern dicta from a holding yourself, which isn't always easy.