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In one of my casebooks, the black letter law (straight from the restatements) relevant to the case always directly follows it in the book. This makes digging out the relevant law easy, but i'm wondering exactly how useful that is. Can you write an "A" exam simply knowing all the BLL and nothing more? I'm definitely not going to straight up skip reading the cases and just memorize the BLL, but do you think a lot of a great exam paper is in the nuances in the case? Also, would you say this makes supplements more or less useless because the law is laid out for you in the casebook?

skoobily doobily wrote:In one of my casebooks, the black letter law (straight from the restatements) relevant to the case always directly follows it in the book. This makes digging out the relevant law easy, but i'm wondering exactly how useful that is. Can you write an "A" exam simply knowing all the BLL and nothing more? I'm definitely not going to straight up skip reading the cases and just memorize the BLL, but do you think a lot of a great exam paper is in the nuances in the case? Also, would you say this makes supplements more or less useless because the law is laid out for you in the casebook?

For the exam, you need:
1. Black letter law
2. Cases (depends on the teacher; I would figure constitutional law and property would appreciate these the most)
3. to be able to make logical arguments (this is way harder for people than you think)
4. to be able to argue for both sides
5. to be able to argue the old and new rules (depends on the teacher - ASK!)
6. to be able to argue different approaches (this is different from 5)

Unless I'm missing something, that is all you need.

Personally, I am weary of using supplements that are not keyed to your textbook/class. However, many people will swear by E&Es or massive course outline books that aren't keyed to your textbook.

Aberzombie1892 wrote:

skoobily doobily wrote:In one of my casebooks, the black letter law (straight from the restatements) relevant to the case always directly follows it in the book. This makes digging out the relevant law easy, but i'm wondering exactly how useful that is. Can you write an "A" exam simply knowing all the BLL and nothing more? I'm definitely not going to straight up skip reading the cases and just memorize the BLL, but do you think a lot of a great exam paper is in the nuances in the case? Also, would you say this makes supplements more or less useless because the law is laid out for you in the casebook?

For the exam, you need:
1. Black letter law
2. Cases (depends on the teacher; I would figure constitutional law and property would appreciate these the most)
3. to be able to make logical arguments (this is way harder for people than you think)
4. to be able to argue for both sides
5. to be able to argue the old and new rules (depends on the teacher - ASK!)
6. to be able to argue different approaches (this is different from 5)

Unless I'm missing something, that is all you need.

Personally, I am weary of using supplements that are not keyed to your textbook/class. However, many people will swear by E&Es or massive course outline books that aren't keyed to your textbook.

Well, this class in contracts, and based on all the exam advice i've heard we won't be needing the cases or the old rules. Do you think 3,4, and 6 could be derived from the BLL and a sufficient number of practice tests alone?

Aberzombie1892 wrote:

skoobily doobily wrote:In one of my casebooks, the black letter law (straight from the restatements) relevant to the case always directly follows it in the book. This makes digging out the relevant law easy, but i'm wondering exactly how useful that is. Can you write an "A" exam simply knowing all the BLL and nothing more? I'm definitely not going to straight up skip reading the cases and just memorize the BLL, but do you think a lot of a great exam paper is in the nuances in the case? Also, would you say this makes supplements more or less useless because the law is laid out for you in the casebook?

For the exam, you need:
1. Black letter law
2. Cases (depends on the teacher; I would figure constitutional law and property would appreciate these the most)
3. to be able to make logical arguments (this is way harder for people than you think)
4. to be able to argue for both sides
5. to be able to argue the old and new rules (depends on the teacher - ASK!)
6. to be able to argue different approaches (this is different from 5)

Unless I'm missing something, that is all you need.

Personally, I am weary of using supplements that are not keyed to your textbook/class. However, many people will swear by E&Es or massive course outline books that aren't keyed to your textbook.

Ok, #5 has got me worried. My Civ Pro teacher when discussing pleading rules keeps discussing old/new trends in terms of what judges are starting to allow or not allow.

I'd just talk about the majority, existing rule and then the recent case law (Twombley, Iqbal) that might lead to a different result.