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Taking a land use class. Lectures are two hours, once a week, in the evenings. I have been eschewing the 75-100+ pg. readings and studying purely from outlines and flashcards. Has anyone ever done this and done well in a course?

depends on the professor. I would advise looking at a practice exam first before you decide to use this strategy

Good advice. Prof. is pretty dry, I guess by nature of the course. His lectures are very bare bones. Goes through each case methodically: facts, issue, rule, holding. About 8-10 minutes per case on average. I'd imagine his finals are just as straightforward. Assuming they are, is this a viable strategy or am I shooting myself in the foot?

Yes you can & prob will. I stopped reading after my first semester. Keep head low in class though but act like your reading along, my profs would always call on ppl who were looking at them and/or zoning out

oblitigate wrote:Yes you can & prob will. I stopped reading after my first semester. Keep head low in class though but act like your reading along, my profs would always call on ppl who were looking at them and/or zoning out

Thanks for the input. I'm guessing it worked out for you?

hichvichwoh wrote:depends on the professor. I would advise looking at a practice exam first before you decide to use this strategy

This is the correct approach. In some classes you might not even have to know any cases to get an A. I've never had a class requiring knowing expansive details of the cases. Generally, a few lines of facts, rules and logic is sufficient.

RichardBrosner wrote:Good advice. Prof. is pretty dry, I guess by nature of the course. His lectures are very bare bones. Goes through each case methodically: facts, issue, rule, holding. About 8-10 minutes per case on average. I'd imagine his finals are just as straightforward. Assuming they are, is this a viable strategy or am I shooting myself in the foot?

this is a pretty good way to get a B, imo

Yea but it can also backfire.

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Yes, and conversely it might not be possible to read every case and get an A.

Yes, but it can be professor and topic specific. TCR is look at prof's past exams to see what he tests/looks for in a response. If there is a model answer, see what that answer focuses on. Sometimes you can also get away with using a case brief book. But YMMV.

Yeah, this approach will hardly get you an A. But, if that's not your goal, save your time as much as possible.

I find it amusing when people pose abstract questions about matters that are so obviously context dependent.

I've taken classes where it was possible to get an "A" on an exam without having read a single case.

And I've taken classes where I would've been lost without knowing certain cases. I've had a couple of exams where the hypo was clearly based off of the fact pattern of a case we had read for class. I'm sure it would have been possible to pass the exam without having read the case, but familiarity with the facts and law of the case was a huge advantage.

bruinfan10 wrote:Yes. I did this for Contracts, Con Law, Jurisdiction, Choice of Law, Corporations, Civil Procedure, Evidence, Section 1983 Litigation, and a handful of other classes I've forgotten because I did not read the cases. Did not work for Federal Courts, however. Can I recommend it? No idea. Law grades are insane.

Humble brag much bro?

I know multiple law students that regularly pull As and never read. I've had multiple classes, both in 1L and later, where I never read a case and got an A. As everyone has pointed out, whether it's 'possible' for you in a particular class is dependent primarily on two things: (1) the professor, and (2) you.

Many Professors will not expect you to delve into an individual cases with much depth on an exam. They may expect you to associate principles with case names, but that's typically something you can do just by taking good notes in class. There are, however, Professors that take a different approach. For example, some expect you to spend much of your time making intricate comparisons between the facts of the hypothetical and the facts of cases you read. If you have such a professor, you will be feeling sore if you did not read any of the cases.

How do you know which kind your Professor is? There is no fail-safe method. My experience is that the vast majority of professors are in the first category, those that don't design exams that draw on information beyond what was discussed in class. I always attempt to verify this, though, through some combination of looking at previous exams, looking at model answers, taking note of what the Professor emphasizes in class, talking with people who have had the Professor, etc.

And, of course, there is you and how you learn. Some people find that reading the cases makes the principles they learn in class much more memorable. Some people find it difficult to pay attention in class, take good notes, and distill what they will need to know for the exam. And some people just enjoy studying more if they read the cases. I can't tell you if you are one of these people who are probably better off reading the cases, but you should have a good idea of whether you are, and if not, you can experiment.

Finally, it's probably worth pointing out that there are reasons to read the cases beyond getting an A in the class. If you plan to do litigation, you're going to be spending some chunk of your life reading through and breaking down cases. Experience helps. I personally wouldn't stop reading cases if I were you until you feel that you have a very strong sense of the anatomy of a case, until you feel like you know where to look in cases to find what you want.

Hope that helps. Good luck.

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I for one radically scaled back my case-reading last quarter. I would read e&e's, then occasionally skim cases to see how the law had been applied. Felt more efficient and I thought I had a better understanding of the law than I did when trying to learn it directly from cases. But I won't be able to say how well it worked until grades come out.

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bruinfan10 wrote:Yes. I did this for Contracts, Con Law, Jurisdiction, Choice of Law, Corporations, Civil Procedure, Evidence, Section 1983 Litigation, and a handful of other classes I've forgotten because I did not read the cases. Did not work for Federal Courts, however. Can I recommend it? No idea. Law grades are insane.

How did you pass CivPro without reading a case?

Yes for seminar classes where final grade is on a paper.

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bruinfan10 wrote: That's the one that surprises you? I obsessed over the FRCP and the related commentary. What cases would you normally freak out about in CivPro? Twiqbal? Erie? Franchise Tax Board? I didn't think anybody focused primarily on cases for CivPro.

I remember for Personal Jurisdiction, I had to compare the final exam's fact pattern with cases like International Shoes, Burger King, etc. Without reading those cases, I wouldnt have remembered them. But again, maybe that was just my CivPro prof.

The bulk of our entire CivPro exam issue spotters (Erie + PJ) both required heavy citing of cases and applying rules from the cases/distinguishing facts etc. I don't think there would be a way to do even OK on the exam without having utilized the cases specifically.

RichardBrosner wrote:

oblitigate wrote:Yes you can & prob will. I stopped reading after my first semester. Keep head low in class though but act like your reading along, my profs would always call on ppl who were looking at them and/or zoning out

Thanks for the input. I'm guessing it worked out for you?

Well I didn't ace every class (by any means) but I landed a good job. You'll get a feel for what works best

No, you can't. You're a fool if you try. The person at the top of your class fucking read cases. And I bet that's not you.

I've gotten multiple As this way.

I've also gotten a B- this way.