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Before starting law school, I thought it might be a good idea to read a couple of good 0L prep books. I read 1 L of A Ride and parts of Law School Confidential. I heard much praise for Getting to Maybe, so I decided to read it. I started reading the book and I am just lost! I'm still in part one but the more I read, the more confused and anxious I get. Am I supposed to memorize and know all the types and patterns of the "forks in the law/facts"? Or are the authors merely trying to familiarize the reader with the types of problems they might encounter? Should I wait until part II which deals with how to tackle exams?

How would you guys suggest I read and use the book?

I mean, don't get me wrong, it's not that I am lazy and want the book to make law school exams seem like the ABCs. I know fully well how difficult law school exams are going to be. It's just that I don't know if on the day of the exam, where every second counts, I am supposed to spend some time figuring out whether this question is a fork in the law or fork in the facts, what type of pattern it follows, does this exception in Getting To Maybe's analysis apply here...etc.

Also, for those of you who found the book very useful, how did you use the book? Did you follow it religiously?

Note: I bought John Delaney's How to Do Your Best on Law School Exams and the LEEWS CD program. If anyone wants to comment on those, please feel free. I know that contradictions among the various resources I'm planning on using are inevitable, but I want to make sure I explore as many exam guides as I could and then maybe see which one might work better for me.

Another note: I know that none of these aids should substitute studying the ACTUAL material (i.e: cases, lecture notes...etc), and that these books should not substitute my own exam outline.

Holy shit, relax. Don't overwhelm yourself. I've heard you get the best use out of this book a month-ish before finals when you're already well into your classes.

Yeah, I actually don't think GTM is the helpful until partway through the semester. It's hard to follow their examples when you haven't done any law yet; you don't really know yet how to distinguish the law from the facts, because you're not at all familiar with the law. So I wouldn't worry about it at all. I also don't think it's necessary to learn all the different kinds of forks they talk about - it's more helpful just to see some of the different ways that arguments can go. Skim through it to get a basic sense of their argument, and go back to it later.

These materials won't fully make sense until just before final exams, when you've covered an entire semester's worth of substantive material and are working on practice exams.

It's great to read them for a general overview of what a law school exam is (plenty of people never even think about it!), but the specifics don't matter right now. You won't be using any kind of rigid method from the books (looking for forks in the law or forks in the facts), but familiarizing yourself with that kind of thinking will help you stay focused on what matters as you move through the semester.

For reference, I read Getting to Maybe before law school (was lost and confused), then again over Thanksgiving break (was extremely helpful).

GTM is great, but will make way more sense later in the semester when doing practice exams. For now, read it so you know what to look out for in class and take note of when you identify a fork in the law.

For simplicities sake, a simplified example:

Battery is (1) contact that (2) causes harm to another person.
Assault is (1) a threat or a perceived threat that (2) causes a person to apprehend harm.

Think of these two as contrasting (although, not mutually exclusive). I liked to visualize forks, for example my outlines often included scenarios like this:

a) Was there contact?
I) YES - there may be a battery
II) NO - There is not a battery, but may be an assault

This is a "fork" because it is a point where the law diverges and can go two different directions.

Once again, this is a very simplified example, and some aspects of the law will have multiple forks, and forks that build upon one another. Pay attention in class/reading/black letter law as to where different aspects of the law differ, why they do, and what causes them to differ (why do we punish for a threat if we already punish for the actual occurrence? - the answer to this could give a good policy argument).

It will make more sense about half way through the semester though, as the fuller picture of the course starts to come into perspective.