Restatements? Forum

[DrSpaceman]

My exams are mostly 'open universe' and allow for full use of whatever online resources we care to use. Does anyone know of a place to find restatements with the best user interface? Is the Cornell one the best thing going?

[banjo]

It's not super user-friendly, but you can use Westlaw. If you go to the index of a Restatement and hit the download button, there's usually an option to download the entire restatement as a single PDF (with live links). You can also download the index alone, which will also have live links.

[Traynor Brah]

My exams are mostly 'open universe' and allow for full use of whatever online resources we care to use. Does anyone know of a place to find restatements with the best user interface? Is the Cornell one the best thing going?

Westlaw has the best interface I've come across. I would advise against going the PDF route, though, because you can use the index to select the correct subsection of the treatise then use the omnibox to search that subsection alone. Can't do that w/ the PDFs.

I've never taken an "open universe" exam, but assuming these are 1L exams, I would also pretty strongly advise against referencing a treatise/getting too far into the weeds, generally speaking. You do not need to get deep into the nuances of x rule to do very well, and often, you should not: that means you're spending comparatively more time regurgitating rules than applying the basic rule to the facts and giving your own analysis/argument, which is where you're going to rack up the points. It's not LRW, you're not going to get (many) bonus points for finding some random caselaw support for x result, compared to, for example, making strong policy arguments for x result.

[DrSpaceman]

Great advice- thanks. I'll keep that in mind.