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the e&e for contracts (by blum) is a lifesaver

thuggishruggishbone wrote:the e&e for contracts (by blum) is a lifesaver

You are the first person, not just on this site, to ever say anything even mildly approving of the E&E for K. My professor said nasty things about Blum in a previous exam question.

Law Professor asked about 0L prep (Law Profesor: shortporch):
http://autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_ ... 2#13414839

mikeytwoshoes wrote:

thuggishruggishbone wrote:the e&e for contracts (by blum) is a lifesaver

You are the first person, not just on this site, to ever say anything even mildly approving of the E&E for K. My professor said nasty things about Blum in a previous exam question.

The biggest problem with the K's E&E is that it isn't really worth the time when there are better supplements available (Chirelstein for an insightful reading of the key cases, Crunchtime for a straightforward review of the fundamentals with good practice questions). I wouldn't say that it's a major outlier in terms of its quality relative to that of other E&Es (especially if some of the non-1L ones are included). Based on my reading of ~1/3 of the book, I'd say Blum is too thorough on minor points that aren't that relevant (especially when he talks about dead issues from the past), but the questions were pretty helpful for a couple of the chapters.

Son of Cicero wrote:

mikeytwoshoes wrote:

thuggishruggishbone wrote:the e&e for contracts (by blum) is a lifesaver

You are the first person, not just on this site, to ever say anything even mildly approving of the E&E for K. My professor said nasty things about Blum in a previous exam question.

The biggest problem with the K's E&E is that it isn't really worth the time when there are better supplements available (Chirelstein for an insightful reading of the key cases, Crunchtime for a straightforward review of the fundamentals with good practice questions). I wouldn't say that it's a major outlier in terms of its quality relative to that of other E&Es (especially if some of the non-1L ones are included). Based on my reading of ~1/3 of the book, I'd say Blum is too thorough on minor points that aren't that relevant (especially when he talks about dead issues from the past), but the questions were pretty helpful for a couple of the chapters.

TITCR. Blum spends time making points redundantly and the sections are laborious to read; he is thorough, however, it is a tedious, overly meticulous kind of thoroughness that is kind of irritating.

The problems he presents are pretty good, however, suffer from the same deficiencies as the book. When I am confronted with an explanation that spans nearly three pages, I shudder and try to skim for the important material. The K's Crunch time is definitely more concise and gets to the point, however, I have generally found the E&E helpful for elucidating important/subtle points, I guess.

My outline was based solely on the Blum E&E, and I did great. I thought the book was great too (if you have the time to read it all; it definitely isn't cramming material).

Chirelstein just wasn't detailed enough for me. I tossed the book in a few weeks.

Son of Cicero wrote:

mikeytwoshoes wrote:

thuggishruggishbone wrote:the e&e for contracts (by blum) is a lifesaver

You are the first person, not just on this site, to ever say anything even mildly approving of the E&E for K. My professor said nasty things about Blum in a previous exam question.

The biggest problem with the K's E&E is that it isn't really worth the time when there are better supplements available (Chirelstein for an insightful reading of the key cases, Crunchtime for a straightforward review of the fundamentals with good practice questions). I wouldn't say that it's a major outlier in terms of its quality relative to that of other E&Es (especially if some of the non-1L ones are included). Based on my reading of ~1/3 of the book, I'd say Blum is too thorough on minor points that aren't that relevant (especially when he talks about dead issues from the past), but the questions were pretty helpful for a couple of the chapters.

+1. I found the questions to be the only helpful part too.

misformafia wrote:

Son of Cicero wrote:

mikeytwoshoes wrote:

thuggishruggishbone wrote:the e&e for contracts (by blum) is a lifesaver

You are the first person, not just on this site, to ever say anything even mildly approving of the E&E for K. My professor said nasty things about Blum in a previous exam question.

The biggest problem with the K's E&E is that it isn't really worth the time when there are better supplements available (Chirelstein for an insightful reading of the key cases, Crunchtime for a straightforward review of the fundamentals with good practice questions). I wouldn't say that it's a major outlier in terms of its quality relative to that of other E&Es (especially if some of the non-1L ones are included). Based on my reading of ~1/3 of the book, I'd say Blum is too thorough on minor points that aren't that relevant (especially when he talks about dead issues from the past), but the questions were pretty helpful for a couple of the chapters.

+1. I found the questions to be the only helpful part too.

I'd say the same for the property E&E. Is Civ Pro the only essential E&E?

Any suggestions on good supps for Property aside from the E&E? We have property in the Spring.

RudeDudewithAttitude wrote:I'd say the same for the property E&E. Is Civ Pro the only essential E&E?

Torts E&E was money. Glannon wrote that one too.

StarsOfTheLid wrote:My outline was based solely on the Blum E&E, and I did great. I thought the book was great too (if you have the time to read it all; it definitely isn't cramming material).

Chirelstein just wasn't detailed enough for me. I tossed the book in a few weeks.

I did something similar with the Blum E&E. I made one outline with all the cases in the course, and then I made a shorter shotgun outline based on the Blum E&E. I only outlined the chapters that seemed to correlate to my professor's curriculum, but that shorter outline helped a lot.

E and E's are overrated.

Get the sum and substance audio off amazon. I swear my torts exam came off that tape. They teach you the material and how to make arguments on the exam.

kobeoverlebron wrote:E and E's are overrated.

Get the sum and substance audio off amazon. I swear my torts exam came off that tape. They teach you the material and how to make arguments on the exam.

You have to be a troll.

great thread. thanks for posting!

Thanks for the links.

kobeoverlebron wrote:E and E's are overrated.

Get the sum and substance audio off amazon. I swear my torts exam came off that tape. They teach you the material and how to make arguments on the exam.

Care to share your school and grades?

I'll polish this stream of conciousness later, but here's what I think as a 3L at a T20 in the top 10%...and what has worked for me..

All you need to know on how to get top 1-10% grades at a T20:

Tips:

A. -- Take classes that are "known commodities," profs who grade well + have outlines/notes you can get + tips for the exam. (Depending on how your school's curve works this might be extremely helpful if you find an easy grader who gives everyone As and A-s.)

B. -- Go to class semi-regularly and try to take notes, stenographer style. This isn't essential, as explained below, but at the least, you catch a set of all the details the prof brings up. Even if you have the last 3 years of notes from others, you can see what your prof ALWAYS talks about, or what is NEW, that can be a lot of very easy points...you can just vomit lots of stuff onto a page and get free points even if you have no idea what's going on...surprisingly, this works often! Otherwise, if you have good resources, you can ditch class and use others' notes.

C. -- On exam writing: Be repetitive / clear / organize. Profs read your exams in like 90 seconds, they skim, and they are LAZY, profs have admitted this many times to me!!! They say that the right answer that is EASILY SEEN is part of exam taking...

I don't mean outline your answer, I mean use underlines/bolds/tabs/bullets to make it EASY to demonstrate you are grabbing the issues. If there's an issue on consideration and there are 5 rules/cases that are involved, you might wanna even number them, so your prof gives you 5 points, if you muddle it all together you might only get 3 or 4 points. If you are explaining a complicated concept, try hand-holding the prof to the right answer. For instance, if you're explaining a complicated mens rea theory, write it one time (in 2-3 sentences) then say, "what I mean to say" or "in other words," or "put in other terms," and then RE-EXPLAIN the same thing with different words, try to be clearer (as if you were re-drafting the last 3 sentences), trust me on this one, it helps a prof understand WHAT you mean. You might be WRONG, but you will get POINTS if your theory is well reasoned, problem is, if you come up w/ crazy theories the prof is going to ignore them and move on if he doesn't understand them.

Details:

1. Analyze your prof. -- if he reads from the code and gives little analysis, the exam will probably be black letter, if they are an academic and that's their field, write down every little comment they say, and regurgitate it in your exams...literally, you should be able to walk into an exam with a page or so already written in your head about things you will say no matter what....it's far easier to tell the professor what he thinks than explain what you think.

2. Analyze the class material -- if you're taking civ pro, bankruptcy, securities regulation, or any REAL law class (i.e. based on a real code/body with a real meaning) it's a safer bet you can read a supplement, i mean, Summary Judgment only means ONE thing really, there aren't going to be 10 rules your prof likes or even knows, like there might be in contracts, corporations, conlaw, or anything else.

3. Use a varied study approach. -- Previous exams are ok, i never use them and I do very well, it's better to ask people who took the class for their notes and how they felt the exam went and most importantly: their grade! Notes / Outlines made for YOUR prof that led to a great grade are the best approach...you can never have too many outlines.

Don't make your own outlines unless you can't find any, making your own outlines are for suckers, you can read 5 outlines, 2 supplements and a couple sets of notes in the time it'd take you to make an outline...if you must...edit one up for your own tastes, but just find one you like and use it, DON'T RE-INVENT THE WHEEL, let the gunners and idiots do that.

Get a few dif outlines, get a BIG ONE, like 100-200 pages, and read that through, that's like a supplement written FOR your particular professor, that should TEACH you everything, then find a small one to use during the exam, to familiarize yourself after you learn it once from the big one. (if you go to a closed book school, transfer to an open book school nobody studies at open book schools which is why all this works there). Then get a mini/checklist outline, and have that ready to go so you can spot issues fast when time is at a premium.

2-3 sets of notes can teach you a class as if you went and read, it also helps you pick out the strange thing a prof says that can score you easy points on an exam, i.e. if your Corporations prof loves to talk about Efficient Capital Markets Hypothesis, and does so all the time, PUT THAT ON THERE in a comment/aside, for points.

Supplements are a last resort usually. Use them when you know NOTHING and you read an outline and it makes no sense to you, and you can't find a BIG outline to teach you. So say you have a small 40 page outline and it doesn't really help you much b/c you don't even know wtf is going on? Well grab one of the Concepts and Insights (the blue ones, like the Chirelstein on Ks or Abrams on Torts, or Soderquist on Securities Regulations, or the one on Bankruptcy), I have found these are the most helpful and they are shorter than E&Es...try a nutshell if you can't find one of these blue ones. E&Es are BIG, they go into a LOT of detail, but they cover way too much usually for your class, you don't wanna do any unnecessary reading!

Look at what the class actually did, and see if you can skip chapters of the supplement, then read one of the short ones. THEN look at your outline, see if it makes sense to you now. Throw in reading of some notes you get from others to fill in the blanks, and if you are still confused, consult an E&E, treatise, your book, wikipedia, law firm websites (yes, they have some good sources i've aced classes with printouts from law firms before...), and learn it as best as you can, but remember it is TRIAGE, don't spend 10 years trying to learn one aspect of a class at the sake of 90% of other materials.

The name of the game is speed and ease of work, if you're reading this, you aren't a gunner d-bag robot studier, you're lazy, but brilliant. It's not WHAT you know, it's what your prof THINKS you know. Learning how to study for, and write for an exam is the game, a lot of people try to learn the material...that's a suckers bet...learn the exam!

I disagree with the outline part. I read other student outlines for our classes and many of them had huge mistakes on them that would have been catastrophic to bring into an exam. You don't need Joe 1L's reading of the case, much less five Joe 1L's reading of the case. Hornbooks are good; the law reviews say that students who read them tend to score higher. Hypos and such are also good. There isn't apparently a massive difference between the different study methods, though; hornbook and practice exam students tend to do better, but there isn't any dominance by any one group of students.

.

Anyone have any recommendations for crim pro? Any supplement that seemed to work well?

Tag for later. Thanks for all the advice everyone!

Great resource thread... Gratzi.

very very useful. Thanks.

I also disagree with the person who advised against using your own outline. I always build my own outline, and the reason why is because it is easier to understand my own writing, and because I have yet to find another person who outlines similar to the way I outline. I find that often times, I will read somebody else's outline and not understand what they are saying. Some people make pretty awful outlines, and not only because of the way they look, but because they are confusing and/or contain bad information. By making your own outline, I think that in itself gives you the opportunity to separate yourself from you classmates when it comes time for the exam. If ten people are using the same outline, or a similar outline, and yours is way better, you will probably do better on the exam.

Now, when it comes to time management and learning the material, I am not a huge proponent of briefing every case. I would even say that for some courses, you could get away with not even bothering with the casebook at all and just reading a supplement. For example, I got an A+ in constitutional law. I did not open the casebook once. I read Constitutional Law: Principle and Policies by Chemerinsky, and built my whole outline based on that treatise. I also incorporated class notes into the outline. I understood exactly what my professor wanted on his exam, and looked at his old exams. The same thing for contracts. I got an A, but did not read much of the casebook. I also did not take notes in class because I could tell almost immediately that it was going to be very difficult to do so with the way my professor was teaching the course. I used the Casenote LegalBriefs by Aspen, as keyed to my casebook, and built my outline based the contracts Examples & Explanations.

I also do not recommend being lazy in law school. I think the term "gunner" is an unfair label to cast upon somebody who works hard. Personally, I study at least 6-8 hours per day. The reason why is because I do not consider myself so "brilliant” to where I could get away with slacking and still stay in the top 5%, where I would like to graduate. I found that success in law school requires a proper balance between confidence and humility. Obviously, you have to be confident in your smarts and abilities. However, I find it important to have enough humility to know that smarts alone may not cut it. In my experience, the people who work hard are the ones who get good grades. There are exceptions, but for the most part, the people that “pride” themselves on being slackers pay for it when finals come around.

TwanBeezy wrote:
I also do not recommend being lazy in law school. I think the term "gunner" is an unfair label to cast upon somebody who works hard. Personally, I study at least 6-8 hours per day. The reason why is because I do not consider myself so "brilliant” to where I could get away with slacking and still stay in the top 5%, where I would like to graduate. I found that success in law school requires a proper balance between confidence and humility. Obviously, you have to be confident in your smarts and abilities. However, I find it important to have enough humility to know that smarts alone may not cut it. In my experience, the people who work hard are the ones who get good grades. There are exceptions, but for the most part, the people that “pride” themselves on being slackers pay for it when finals come around.

+1