Author: Beau Baez

Law School Exam Myth: Art and Science

Post author By Beau Baez
Post date October 12, 2017
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So you get back your first law school exam and you did not do as well as you were hoping. You go to the professor and ask what you could do to improve on the final exam. At some point during your meeting with the professor, he or she says that exam writing is part art and part science. Even I used to say garbage like that when I was a new professor. What the professor is really telling you is that you really can’t improve and there is really nothing that he or she can do to help you. You’re either born with this art or you are not. If it is innate, then, unless you are born with it, you are doomed!

But if this is a skill that you can learn, then you can improve your performance on a law school exam.

You Are Different

Students come to law school with different skills and abilities. Some have had lots of experience writing technical essays and others just have not. Those with strong technical writing skills do better than those without that experience. And this is not art! I have read thousands of law school exams and what I’ve seen is students at various stages in their writing career. I can count on one hand the number of times I have seen great writers during the first semester of law school. And only once have I seen a student who had writing skills that surpassed my own. Since his name was also Beau, I jokingly surmise that there must be something about the name.

So why would a professor tell you that law is part art and part science if it isn’t true? One reason is that it just sounds true, at least until you are challenged by someone else. That’s what happened to me. I gave the whole “its part science, part art” argument to a senior professor with a Ph.D. in Educational Psychology. He helped me to understand that higher level writing skills are based on an amalgamation of lower level skills. What that means, in the context of essay writing, is that there are many skills that we lump together and conclude that someone is either a strong writer or a weak writer.

Example

Law school exam essay writing is made up of different components: the ability to organize thoughts, writing in paragraph form, using correct spelling, following English grammar, organizing sentences in paragraph form, use of topic sentences, and so on. Once you realize that there is no dark art, some hidden path for the select few, you can begin figuring out how to improve.

Depending on where you start your journey, you may have more or fewer skills you need to learn to catch up with the top writers in your class. But make no mistake, someone that started essay writing in high school has an advantage, just not an insurmountable one.

Continuous Improvement

The key is continuous improvement. To this day, my writing keeps improving. Recently I was writing in a forum and someone compared my writing to Faulkner. I was certainly flattered by the comment but I recognize he would not have made that comment even ten years ago.

Becoming a better writer takes determination. You need to first diagnose where you are and then work on developing those lower level skills. Once you’ve mastered those skills, then you start working on higher skills, and higher skills. The key is to keep practicing until you improve. (Check out these apps to work on your writing skills.)

The biggest mistake I see when grading law school exams is students failing to distinguish between issues. All issues and sub-issues are lumped together, without using the IRAC method. All that accomplishes is a poorly written law school exam. Before your next exam complete some practice exams–you can get some at my exam bank .

Once you realize that you don’t have to have been born a skilled writer, and have implemented your new skills on the final exam, check out my mini series on steps to take after completing the final exam.

Advanced Law School Tip

If you are ready to take your exams to the next level, you need to write your exams using the Nested IRAC method. This approach to writing law school essay exams is what usually distinguishes the top students. Practice using the method a few times, that way it becomes second nature. Also, organize your notes by creating a pre-written essay outline, which will save you time on the exam.

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Tags law school academic success, law school essay, law school exam, law school grades, law school myth, law school success

Classroom law school academic success Study Technique

Law School Notes

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Are you wondering how to take law school notes? If you are not a genius, like Mike from Suits, you will need to learn how to take notes during a classroom discussion. Many students fall into the trap of thinking they need to write down every word said during a class. This is a mistake! The key is engagement, rather than mindlessly copying everything you hear in class. Additionally, copying everything you hear stimulates the wrong part of the brain, as I discuss in Handwrite or Type Notes, and which is also discussed in the scientific study “The Pen is Mightier than the Keyboard.”

One thing you should be aware of is that most of a classroom discussion is irrelevant for the final exam. That’s right, 95% of what you hear in class will not be necessary for the final exam! The key for law school success is to separate the important from the unimportant. Here are a few things that will help you determine what you need to write down from a classroom discussion.

Keep the End in Mind

When taking law school notes, you need to keep the end in mind. So ask yourself during a classroom discussion, “what do I need to help me in the final exam?” The vast majority of law professors test you on your ability to apply laws to a set of facts, NOT facts from cases read and discussed throughout the course. (Just as an aside, check out this article on how Supreme Court justices write their opinions). So step number one during class is to figure out the rule that your professor will test you on. Over a typical one and a half hour classroom session, you might have, at most, half a page of notes dedicated to the rules needed for exam purposes. Keep in mind that each case usually represents one rule and you only need a sentence or two for each rule.

Policy Rationale

Second, a few professors might want you to provide them with policy rationales on an exam. If your professor is going to test you on policy rationales, then yes, capture the policy rationales when they come up in class. If your professor makes past exams available, the best way to find out if he or she tests on policy rationale is by getting an exam from a previous semester, along with the best student answer. Remember, few professors actually want this information on an exam. And even the few that do will not usually assign too many points to policy rationales. So don’t lose too much sleep over policy! In most cases, you can create your own policy rationale, rather than providing the exact policies that were covered in class.

Professor Clues

Third, anytime your professor tells you that something is important, write it down. This is a major clue that you are likely going to see it on the final. For example, when I teach Torts, I tell students that they will see a products liability question on the final. Also, your professor may say something like “this is very important, so listen.” Again, a clue that you are going to be tested on this. If you have to, place a star or some mark by this in your notes.

Themes

Fourth, listen for recurring words and themes the professor keeps coming back to. These may be important in helping you determine what he or she might place on the test. Also, if your professor is an expert in an area that they teach, prepare for some of that to appear on your exam.

Writes on Board

Fifth, if the professor writes on the board, put that information in your notes. This is especially true if the professor rarely writes on the board. If the professor is writing too quickly, see if you’re allowed to make a picture of the board with your smart phone. However, if your professor writes lots of information on the board, they might be doing it for discussion and not exam purporses.

Don’t Do

Now let’s discuss what NOT to write down. Not everything your professor says or asks needs to go into your notes. Most of a classroom discussion is directed at getting you to understand the facts and law from a particular case. Do not write down facts from a case to help you understand the case better. Unless this is a constitutional law class, you will never need to know the facts from that case again. For example, if you read Pennoyer v. Neff in your Civil Procedure class, you might be tempted to write down some additional facts that the professor provides to help you understand the case. Don’t write those facts down as they are completely useless for exam purposes.

Also, don’t write down what your classmates say. Unless the professor tells you that the colleague just articulated a correct rule of law, much of what your colleagues say is irrelevant. The purpose of the Socratic Method is to get students to get to the right answer. But along the way, there will be dialogue that is just not necessary.

Taking notes is important, so make sure to primarily rely on YOUR law school notes, and not on what you find in study aids. As I explain in more detail in this video on study aids, there is a right way and a wrong way to use them.

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Tags law school classroom, law school notes, law school success, law school tips

law school academic success Study Technique

Case Briefs: Key to Success

Post author By Beau Baez
Post date September 7, 2017
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Shakespeare Portrait: to case brief or not case brief

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To case brief or not to case brief? That is the question! Your professors and academic support faculty are telling you yes. And some upper level students are telling you no.

Early in my teaching career, this question came up in a faculty meeting. In the room were very successful academics who attended the most prestigious law schools in the country. About half of them said they briefed all throughout school, the other half saying they quit after the first semester.

Purpose

Before answering the question, we have to discuss the purpose of case-briefing, which is two-fold. First, case-briefing is designed to prepare you for classroom discussion. Some professors cold-call and you don’t want to be embarrassed by not being prepared. But even if you’re not in that situation, you still need to be prepared because being it will allow for greater engagement during class time. If you’re not engaged, you will not fully understand the discussion which will lead to lower grades.

Rules of Law

The second reason is to get the rule of law. At a bare minimum, before class time, you need to find the rule of law for each case. Write it down. Then revise it during class if it’s not correct. This is important because the rule of law is the only information you will need after you finish discussing the case. If you are struggling with a difficult reading and just cannot find the rule of law, please watch this video on how to get through and understand difficult reading.

Should You Brief Cases

So now let’s answer the question of whether you need to brief cases. The answer is yes and no. During your first semester you should absolutely brief cases, including the case name, the court’s name, relevant facts, procedural history, issue, rule of law, holding, and the Court’s rationale. This is essential because you are learning how to read and understand case law. And I don’t mean a superficial knowledge, but a deep understanding that will help you develop the skills you need to succeed.

Most law students who do not brief cases do so because they think they understand the case after one read-through. They don’t. So use case briefing as a method, at least for the first semester, to learn how to think like a lawyer. After the first semester, if you’ve mastered the skill sufficiently, then you can cut corners. You can start writing notes in the margins of your case book.

How Much Time

Since I’m recommending case-briefing, let’s talk about how much time to spend on this task, which is, not a lot. Your brief should be no more than a page in length and ideally, around half a page.

Additionally, spend the bulk of the time on articulating the rule statement, which is vitally important for the final exam. As for the rest of the case, you only need a working knowledge of the case for classroom discussion. You do not need to completely master a case because you will never look at that case after the class is over. Some of your colleagues will spend hours on a single case, attempting to master every part of it. That’s a waste of time and effort since your two goals are class engagement and rule identification. Your time is better spent on other tasks like outlining and final exam prep. As I tell my students, if you are called on and you miss some facts or you don’t have the rule exactly right, the result is a little embarrassment. But ultimately most if not all of your course grade is coming from a single final exam. Instead you should use your time in a way that will maximize your grade, not help you feel better after being called on by the professor.

As an aside, if you are considering using study aids to get your case briefs, DON’T! Canned case briefs will not help you develop the skills you need to succeed in law school.

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Tags case brief, case briefing, law school class, law school success

Exam Preparation law school academic success Study Technique

When to Use Law School Study Aids

Post author By Beau Baez
Post date August 31, 2017
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Person at desk with a book covering their face

Have you wondered when to use law school study aids? Perhaps you have heard some 2Ls or 3Ls talk about certain study aids that helped them get an A in a class. Maybe one of your friends bought one of those 3L’s study outlines. If you are considering using a commercial study aid, please read this first to learn how to effectively use these study aids.

Commercial Law School Study Aids

A commercial study aid is anything other than what you created. This can be outlines, hornbooks, treatises, notes from a prior year, case briefs, audio, video, anything that you did not create is what I include in the concept of a commercial study aid.

In my first week of law school, my professors told me to never ever use law school study aids. I now understand why they gave their students that advice. This was because most students use study aids that hurt their chances for success. For example, study aids used the wrong way will create a false sense a mastery that results in lower grades. I’m not telling you that you will fail law school. But you may remain a B or C student when you could be an A student.

Canned Case Briefs

The one study aid that you should never use is the case brief. A case brief is when someone else has read the case and provided you with the relevant facts, issue, and rule of law. Since this is the one study aid that I am telling you to avoid, let me tell you why. The sole purpose for reading cases is class preparation. So in all likelihood, your professor will cover the case in class. It is okay to go to class not fully understanding every case you read as long as you truly worked through it and tried to understand it before class. If you want to learn more about this, check out my video on how to brief a case.

Most students believe they have to go into class as experts or their professor will destroy them. That may have been true years ago but today, the vast majority of professors will work with students if they are struggling with understanding a case as opposed to not having read the case at all. It is through struggling through the law that you learn, not by reading someone else’s notes. (For more information, watch my video on how law school professors operate).

Available Law School Study Aids

Now let’s look at all the resources that provide the black letter law. These resources include hornbooks, treatises, outlines, audio, and video. My recommendation is that you use these resources to help you understand the law. For most students, you should probably read one of these resources first and then read your assigned cases. That way the case will make more sense to you. After all, you learn the law better if you read a case in its legal context.

Audio resources in particular can be used very effectively. For example, you have to get to school, that means you either walked there or drove there, taking some time to get to class. Don’t waste that time! Use your time effectively. Audio can be a great way to use that down time rather than listening to the radio or something else as you’re driving into school.

How to Use Commercial Outlines

Finally, let’s discuss commercial outlines. DO NOT USE someone else’s outline, whether purchased or not, without making your own law school outline first. You are going to learn a whole lot more if you condense your notes and turn them into your own outline instead of relying on someone else’s thought process. Now, you did not hear me say to not use someone else’s outline, period. What I tell you is to struggle and make your own outline first. Once you have put your best time and effort into creating your own outline, and you are convinced that you have the best outline possible, then look at someone else’s outline to see what they have done. Then you can make changes to your own outline. Certainly you are going to miss things but you do not want to look at someone else’s outline first and then not do the hard work because then you don’t learn and you remain that B or C student.

The primary reason why most people that use law school study aids never reach their full potential is because they never struggle with the law, which is how we learn. Many students become satisfied with their grades, believing that they can’t do better because they just didn’t understand the material, the professor was too hard, or the exam wasn’t fair. While a B student will graduate law school and pass the bar exam, the best jobs and opportunities go to A students.

Tags law school, law school academic success, law school outline, law school study aid, law school tips

law school academic success Study Technique

How to Read and Outline a Book

Post author By Beau Baez
Post date August 28, 2017
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An open book with eye glasses on an open page.

Have you wondered what is the best way to read and outline a book? When most students read an assignment from a book, they pull out the book and the assignment, which says, for example, read pages 39-47. So they go and read the pages. That’s what most of us do unless you learn how to read a book better.

When you start reading the assignment on those pages, have you ever asked yourself what you are about to read? Probably not. Students will of course know the title of the course and maybe even the topic. But they probably will not have a good sense of what they will be covering for that particular assignment or even, for that matter, the course. So here are some steps to help you learn how to read books better. (If the reading is especially difficult, try out the 15 minute method video)

First, review the table of contents. This will help you understand what the book is about, where the author is going, and how the author is getting there. You need to do this so you can start developing your own schema, which will help you understand and categorize the material better.

After you review the table of contents, I strongly recommend that you then use the table as your outline. If this is new material for you, then you don’t have a starting point. Presumably the book’s author is an expert and has categorized the material in a systematic manner. If at some point during the course you find a better way of organizing the material, then by all means, make changes. But at the beginning, the table of contents is a great organizational tool to help you start your outline.

Index

Step number two is to look at the index. The index will help provide you with all sorts of great information that will give you a sense of where the author is going, what are the key terms, how much does he or she cover certain material. All of this is very valuable information that will help you learn the law better.

Chapter Summary

Step three, go to each chapter in the book and see if the author has provided a chapter summary at the beginning or ending of each chapter. Many books have this kind of summary information. Read it so you will have a sense of what the book is about.

Skim the Book

Step four, skim through the book. Read a few paragraphs here and there to get a sense of the author’s style and purpose. Also go to the end of the book and read through the last few pages since most authors summarize the book at the end.

Many of you are not convinced that this will help. So let me tell you why these steps are important by sharing a story with you.

Suppose for a moment you know nothing about American history. Someone shares with you a story about some low-ranking colonial officer that served in the British colonial forces in the 1750s during the Seven Years’ War. Your initial reaction would probably be one of disdain as you wonder why you would care about some lowly colonial officer who lived some 300 years ago. But as you get more of the story, you find out that the officer’s name was George Washington. Now, without more information, that is also rather meaningless. Finally you find out that this George Washington guy went on to lead the American army during the war of independence from England and he became America’s first President. Now it all starts to make sense.

So do you see what I did there? I created context for you which helped you learn the story better. Without that context, you would have forgotten the information. But with context you were more likely to remember it because you understand where it fits in with everything else that is stored in your brain.

Non-Fiction

It’s no different with works of nonfiction. If you just start reading a book, like most of you currently do, your brain doesn’t have the place to put the new information. But your brain desperately wants to comprehend that information. So it starts working on placing that new information in categories. In effect, unless you provide some context for the new information, you’re asking your brain to do double duty. One, to create new categories for the information. And two, place that new information into those new categories. But it’s even worse than that! Because in addition to adding two steps to the process, you’re creating categories that later on may not make any sense. So you may have to forget bad categories and learn better ones.

So by following these steps, you will create context for what you will learn, which will help you learn the material faster and better than if you just jump in and read the assigned pages. To see how to take preparing your reading assignments to the next level, check out How to Prepare for Law School Classes.

If it anytime you need more help, our tutors are ready to help.

Tags law school study, law school success, law school tips, outline book, read book

Study Technique Time Management

Don’t Give up on Difficult Reading!

Post author By Beau Baez
Post date August 22, 2017
No Comments on Don’t Give up on Difficult Reading!

Medieval manuscript that is difficult to read.

Don’t give up on difficult reading! We’ve all been there! It’s 11:00 at night, you’re tired, you have been in classes all day, and now you have 50 pages of reading to get through before tomorrow. You find yourself struggling with understanding concepts within the material. Most law students, especially new law students, struggle with law school textbooks.

To be honest, a lot of lawyers sometimes struggle to get through wordy legal documents. This is why they employ associates and paralegals to do that kind of tedious work. But in law school, you can’t exactly hire someone to do your reading for you. This would be ineffective and a violation of a school’s honor code!

Dale Corson Method

So, what do you do? Dale Corson, the eighth president of Cornell University, developed a technique to help students not only get through difficult reading, but to also understand it. When you are having a hard time with a reading assignment, mark each paragraph that you don’t understand with a small “s” which stands for “struggling.” Many times, the next paragraph or two will help to clarify what you did not understand in a previous paragraph. However, if this is not the case, and you have a page or two of “s” paragraphs, you must first struggle to understand it on your own. This is vital! (For more information on pushing through when you just want to give up, watch my video on grit and motivation). Once you reach your breaking point of truly not being able to understand the material without help, follow these steps.

First

First, get paper, a pencil, and a timer. Set the timer for 15 minutes. During that 15 minutes, give it everything you’ve got to try to understand the material. This may seem like a pointless exercise because you have already hit that mental block where you feel like you just can’t get it. But there is a good reason to do this. You have given yourself permission to stop working on the problem at a definite time.

The fifteen minutes you set on the timer acts as a trigger to your brain to relax and often this will be enough for you to be able to figure it out.

Second

Second, during those fifteen minutes, go back to the first “s” that you marked in the material. Write down everything that you do not understand. What is it precisely that does not make sense? If you figure it out while you are writing these notes, great! But if after this exercise, something still does not make sense, then take it to your professor, private tutor, or study partner. You will have fifteen minutes worth of detailed notes to go over with that person. (Just as an aside, writing your notes, as opposed to typing them on a laptop, will vastly improve your note-taking abilities. See another episode of mine titled Handwrite or Type Notes

Many professors will have more sympathy for the student who has struggled with the difficult reading, over the student that just shows up at the professor’s office to ask him or her to explain a concept covered in class. Additionally, the student that uses this method will be in a much better position to understand the material because they worked so hard to understand it on their own before seeking help from anyone else. Finally, if you aren’t getting the help you need from your professor, you can always reach out to one of our tutors.

Tags corson technique, law school academic success

Essay Exam law school academic success Study Technique

Memorization Issues: Try Leitner Boxes (Flash Cards)!

Post author By Beau Baez
Post date August 6, 2017
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Law books. Use Leitner boxes to learn law.

Have you considered using flash cards in a more focused manner? If you have worked hard to prepare for classes all semester, you probably get frustrated when you have trouble memorizing the law for final exams. This method will help you move that information from your short-term memory to long-term memory. Unless active steps are taken to remember what we learn, much of that is forgotten within the first 24 hours of learning it. (See this government publication for more information on the different types of memory.) The Leitner boxes will help you retain that information throughout the semester. Also, you will want to use the elaborative interrogation technique for deep learning.

Four Sets

For this method, you will need notecards and four boxes to hold those notecards. After you have assembled these materials, the first step is to write on the notecards. This includes all of the rule statements, definitions, etc., you will need for your final exam. All of these cards will go in box number one.

Next, memorize all of the information on each notecard perfectly. Perfectly means you can recite all of the information on the notecard without looking down at it once. You go through all of the notecards in box number one every two days. Once you have a notecard memorized, it goes in box number two.

The notecards in box number two you will go through every four days. If there is a card you cannot remember perfectly, it goes back in box number one. Once you have a card from box number two memorized perfectly it goes in box number three.

The notecards in box number three you will go through once a week. Again, if there is a card you cannot remember perfectly, it goes back to the previous box, i.e. box number two. Once you have a card from box number three memorized it goes in box number four.

The notecards in box number four you will go through every two weeks. You get the idea; if there is a card you cannot remember perfectly, it goes back to box number three. Keep reviewing these throughout the semester until the final exam.

Caution

A word of caution to those who know they will be having an open-book or open-notes exam. You still need to know and use this method to learn and remember the information. As you know, the meat of an exam essay answer comes in the analysis / application section. In this section, you link the rule of law to the set of facts provided in the exam question–watch this video on the IRAC method to learn how to to this. Your notes and textbook will not contain the answers to an application portion of an essay. You need to know the rules of law front to back so you can go right into your application section with complete confidence that you know that rule and how to apply it. If you are spending time looking for rule statements or definitions in your notes or books, this will take away time you could be spending on actually analyzing an issue. And if the exam is timed, you do not want to spend that time flipping through your book when you could be writing your answer. The Leitner box method will save you that time because you will already know the information in your notes and in the book and will be able to write it from memory.

Tags flash cards, law school essays, law school exams, law school success, law school tips, leitner box, memorization

Essay Exam Exam Grading

Steps to Take After a Law School Final Exam: Part 1

Post author By Beau Baez
Post date November 11, 2015
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Have you met with your professor to discuss your law school final exam? Part of being a successful person is to learn from your mistakes and to take steps on improving. Unless you got the highest grade on an exam, you should find out how you could have done better. This means going to your professor. Ask for advice on how you could have done better on your law school essay exam.

Professor Mistakes

Another reason to ask to see your exam and meet with your professor is because professors make mistakes. At almost every law school professors cannot change grades for errors in judgment. For example, the professor may tell you that she should have awarded you 10 points instead of 8 points. But there are times when the professor made a simple math mistake or just wrote down the wrong number in the computer. This is more common than you might think.

Many students fail to seek meetings with their professors because they erroneously believe that they just did not “get” the material. That may be true occasionally, but in most cases law students have not mastered the art of writing a law school exam. So go and talk to your professor and find out what you did wrong. That is the most powerful way to learn and improve.

Think IRAC

When you meet with your professor, think in terms of IRAC. Try to determine if you have a problem with issue spotting, rule articulation, or analysis. Once you know the problem, then you can focus your time and attention on developing the skills you need to improve.

Without feedback from the person that graded your law school final exam, you won’t really know what you did wrong. Keep in mind that a few professors may refuse to meet with you, believing it is a waste of their time. You never want to come across as belligerent. Assure the professor that your sole motivation for a meeting is to discuss strategies for improving, either in one of their other classes or in essay writing in general. With or without that feedback, you may get to the point that you need help from professionals on how to take law school exams.

For more information on how to get feedback from your professors, watch all four parts of this series:

Part I, Part II, Part III, and Part IV

Tags law school exam, law school final, law school final exam

law school academic success Physical Study Technique

Overcome Mental Roadblocks When You Can’t Study Any Longer

Post author By Beau Baez
Post date November 8, 2015
No Comments on Overcome Mental Roadblocks When You Can’t Study Any Longer

Have you ever encountered mental roadblocks? We’ve all reached the point where we just can’t study any longer because we have been studying too long. Some people just keep reading, even though their brain stopped working hours before. Our brains were not designed to run marathons, so they need regular breaks. Also, regular sleep is important to keep your brain operating at peak efficiency.

Mental Reboot

When you hit mental roadblocks, you need a mental reboot. So just stop what you are doing and go do something else for a couple of hours. Make sure that whatever you do is completely unrelated to what you’ve been studying. For many that might be going to the movies or out for some exercise. If you go out with friends, try to avoid talking about the law. The key is to think about anything except what you were studying, which will allow your brain to recharge and prepare you for studying when you return. When you complete your two hours away from studying you will find that you can continue studying.

Most of the time when your brain is tired, a small break will do. But when the small break doesn’t work you need to reboot your brain. You do this by engaging in an activity where you completely forget about the law for a couple of hours, which allows you to return later and begin refreshed.

Fun

For example, go watch a movie at the theater and enjoy a soda and popcorn. If you like to exercise, go to the gym for a few hours–your brain will benefit from exercise. For some, get a good night’s sleep, maybe 10 to 12 hours. Go hang out with your friends for awhile and enjoy some pizza with them. The key is to do something, anything, that will get you to stop thinking about the law for a few hours. Once you reset your brain, then you will be ready to start learning again.

Artificial Stimulants

By the way, you should not take stimulants to try to keep you going. Drinking coffee, soda, and energy drinks may work for short periods of time, but when you are at a complete roadblock all that will happen is that you will become more mentally exhausted. You may make some miniscule gains, but soon you will be back to where you were: tired and unable to learn.

By the way, if you think your real issue is procrastination, you might want to learn how to fight procrastination.

Tags Experience, Method, Performance, Professional Tips

Essay Exam Exam Grading law school academic success

Law School Exam Grading: How Law Professors Grade Exams

Post author By Beau Baez
Post date November 7, 2015
No Comments on Law School Exam Grading: How Law Professors Grade Exams

A plus law school graded exam for law school exam bank.

Law school exam grading is one of the least transparent aspects of the law school experience. A student takes an exam and then weeks or months later gets a grade. But a grade without feedback from their professor. They will never discover why they received the grade, and almost certainly no help on improving.

Holistic Grading

The traditional law school exam grading method is holistic grading. This is where the professor reads the exam and assigns a grade based on the professor’s past grading experience. For example, the professor decides that “this exam is an A and the other one is a C.” Thankfully, very few professors grade using this method.

Analytic Grading

The most common form of law school exam grading is analytic grading. The professor creates a grading sheet, where points are assigned for discussing certain issues. For example, on a Torts exam, there may be 1 to 5 points for Breach of Duty. The professor will then decide, after reading each exam, whether the student gets 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 points for Breach of Duty. While this approach is better than pure holistic grading, in practice, most professors are still grading holistically as there are no written criteria for each issue. A true analytic grading sheet, which some professors use, have written criteria in assigning points. For example, a 5 might be given for “rule statements that clearly identified the law and connected the correct facts to the law.”

Feedback

Many law professors don’t provide good feedback for several reasons. First, many are not rewarded by their law schools for teaching. They are not required to meet with their students or help them improve their exam skills. Most law schools reward professors that write scholarly articles that get published in top journals. And for many professors, that means spending time writing and not helping students. A friend of mine was visiting at a top 50 law school and he shared this story with me. His office was next to a faculty member who was always busy writing. This faculty member always kept his door closed and locked, so that he could spend time writing. When students knocked on his door, the students were ignored. Even though the faculty member was inside his office and the students desperately wanted help. This faculty member understood that his top 50 law school rewarded scholarship over teaching. While this story is disturbing, it is all too common at many law schools.

Professors Not Trained in Feedback Techniques

Another reason that professors don’t provide meaningful feedback is because the professor hasn’t spent the time learning how to provide good feedback. For almost every law professor, grading is the least desirable part of the job–who really wants to grade a hundred essays in three weeks. This means that many professors use checklists in assigning grades. For example, a professor grading a 4th Amendment exam might have something like this on her spreadsheet: Police are legally allowed to observe Joe on public street (2 points); Police may stop Joe and ask him a quick question (3 points); Police may pat down Joe for weapons (5 points). And with that checklist, if you are ever allowed to see it, you see that you got 2 points, 2 points, and 3 points.

But that kind of information is almost worthless because you don’t know WHY the professor assigned those points to you. Suppose that you do meet with your professor and you ask her why she gave you 3 points for an issue, you are likely going to get a response like this: “you need to have a stronger rule statement and your analysis could have been stronger.” That is a conclusion that does not really help you for the next exam, and you are likely to continue making the same errors on future exams.

Meaningful Feedback

What every law student needs is meaningful feedback and a plan to improve. From day one I have worked hard at trying to help students improve, but I did a poor job during my first few years of teaching. At first, I would meet with students for about half an hour and go through their exam with them, line by line. That sounds good, but it didn’t work. Then I had shorter meetings and provided students with resources to improve, and that didn’t work either. Over the last few years I came to realize that students don’t improve because they don’t really understand what law school essay exams are really about. Most students believe that an essay exam grade is based on their understanding of the material. That is a profound misunderstanding of the law school essay exam!

Students need more than the law. They also need to use the IRAC Method for organizing their exams. After meeting with many students, especially those that got the lowest grades, I came to realize that they knew the material. If I had given them an oral exam they would have received high grades, not low grades. This taught me that students don’t know HOW to write an answer that makes sense to professors and bar examiners. So once you get your grade, make an appointment with your professor.

Empowering Students

Ideally, feedback should be designed to help students become self-reflective learners. This will allow them to see the patterns embedded in future law school or bar exams. Let me tell you about Henry (not his real name), who was in the first group of students that I worked with using my self-reflection method. Henry got one of the lowest grades on the midterm exam. He was devastated and came to me for help as he did not understand how he could have received this low grade. Rather than telling him what he did wrong, I provided him with some tools so that he could use to self-diagnose his midterm exam. He then spent hours using those tools, and on the final exam received the second highest grade in the class. That was an epiphany for me. I now follow the old saying: give a person a fish, they eat for a day. But teach them to fish then they eat for a lifetime.

You can significantly improve your writing if you stop expecting line-by-line debriefs of your answers. Instead, become a self-reflective learner. It’s hard at first because most students have never done it. It’s also time consuming, which stops many students because they don’t see the value behind the method. But once you go down this path it will help you become a better writer and thinker. For more information on this method please check out our exam grading page.

Tags law school, law school essay, law school exam, law school grading, law school grading method, law school professor

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Table of Contents

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Non-Fiction

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First

Second

Four Sets

Caution

Professor Mistakes

Think IRAC

Mental Reboot

Fun

Artificial Stimulants

Holistic Grading

Analytic Grading

Feedback

Professors Not Trained in Feedback Techniques

Meaningful Feedback

Empowering Students

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