Top Law Schools

At what point does one have too many headings? Main heading for each conflict pairing and subheading for each cause of action sound about right. But what about a subheading for defenses? Or sub-subheadings for each element of a cause of action?

Have you written a brief in LRW yet?

You can look at how you use headers in briefs as a way to estimate how to use them. Don't panic right now, I'm not telling you that you need to follow the LRW writing format for your exams; I'm just saying that writing briefs will give you a sense of how to organize information and where to put headers, and you can use that knowledge when organizing your exam answers.

The real answer is "it depends on the particular exam question/format". Some professors will ask a single "please describe the liabilities of all parties" question and you'll find several layers of headers useful in organizing your single long answer. Other profs will give you a bunch of questions with shorter answers, and those won't require more than just headers and maybe one layer of subheaders.

I think, on a typical under-the-gun timed exam, any headings that make clear what you are going to discuss are fine.

Thinking back to how I did it, outline your answers before you begin furiously typing (see 8 Secrets to Top law school exam performance, Prof. Whitebread).

The outline of your answer provides your headings.

Better to have too many than to have your exam look like a wall of text.

Thank you!