Law School 411: Books & Films on Law & Law School

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Law School Exams: A Guide to Better Grades is the complete handbook for students who want to significantly improve their performance in law school. In most law school classes, 90% of a student's final grade is based on a single comprehensive exam that is given at the end of the semester. This book focuses on developing the one skill that can really improve a student's GPA: getting the best possible grade on that all-important exam. Law School Exams: A Guide to Better Grades offers a practical, top-to-bottom strategy that can be applied to almost any law school exam, regardless of the topic or level. Law School Exams: A Guide to Better Grades is perfect for the over-achieving law student who is aiming for perfect grades, the struggling upper-division student who needs guidance to stay afloat, or the eager pre-law student who wants a peek at what lies ahead.

If students wish to survive and excel in law school, they must approach it correctly. Students also need to understand what professors expect of them, or they will be left behind. Hard-Nosed Advice from a Cranky Professor explains some of the correct ways to approach law school and provides insight into professor expectations.This book is designed for new law students who would like to improve their chances of doing well in law school. Written from the perspective of a cranky, cantankerous professor, the book side-steps pleasantries to provide no-nonsense, sometimes hard-nosed advice that is intended to instruct students on what they must do to succeed. While blunt, the practical advice is provided in a light-hearted, humorous way. The book's aim is to give concise answers to questions that most students have when they begin law school.

Nine Steps to Law School Success is the first scientifically proven study process for success in law school. Synthesized from the study processes of other successful law students, this book provides a straightforward, linear, and chronological study process for students to follow from the beginning of the semester up to their final examination. Students will learn how to complete each step, how each step leads to a deep understanding of course material, and how each step ultimately leads to success in their courses. Students will also learn how to incorporate Nine Steps into their weekly schedules during the semester.

This book is not soaked in academic opinion or war stories of hardened practitioners. Instead, it is the purest form of the collective successful study process as articulated straight from the mouths of other successful law students. Since Nine Steps is the result of a qualitative phenomenological study, it also serves as a template for anyone interested in conducting their own qualitative research in legal education and beyond.

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This study aid explains that success in law school does not require any special skill or genius. It demonstrates that if students can apply the basic techniques described in this book, they can be in the top 10% of their class. This comprehensive guide provides reliable frameworks (backed by cognitive neuroscience) to navigate everything from the first day of law school to the first year of practicing law. It offers frameworks for handling reading assignments, classes, taking exams, and getting on law review—all the way through succeeding as an associate in a law firm.

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Some students recommend reading and re-reading this book. It is hailed for its sound advice on time management, reading cases, and even dealing with law school stress. The author is the Director of Suffolk University Law School’s Academic Support Program, and he routinely deals with a single question from recently admitted students? "What do I need to do to succeed in law school?" His answer is in the pages of this very helpful book.

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Letter to a One L Friend teaches students how to rise to the top of their law school class. The book began as a letter the author wrote in his final year of law school to a good friend who was just starting. Weaving in anecdotes from his experience as a student, the author presents a simple, proven system for law students to excel.

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The Pre-Writing Handbook for Law Students describes a detailed, systematic approach to the task of analyzing a legal problem. The Handbook is designed to help students focus on and become competent in the process of legal analysis that precedes their work on early legal writing products such as memos, case briefs, and other documents. The Handbook is designed with first-semester legal writing students in mind, but it is also suitable for use in academic support courses and in pre-law programs.
The Handbook teaches the process of legal analysis by walking students through a series of repeatable steps they can apply to any legal scenario. By practicing and internalizing these analytic steps, students will experience a smoother writing process that translates into a better written product.

The second edition includes three new Independent Practice Exercise sets (in addition to the one that appeared in the first edition). These Independent Practice Exercise sets reinforce the steps in the pre-writing process and encourage students to work on their own to internalize those steps. The Independent Practice Exercise sets, which increase in complexity, are ideal for classwork, for out-of-class assignments, or as vehicles for graded writing assignments.

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This new edition of the popular text teaches the foundational principles of critical reading, analysis, and writing in a clear and accessible way. By putting the reader in the place of a first-year attorney, the text shows law students how to succeed in law school and in the practice of law. Using graphics and contrasting effective and weak examples to illustrate concepts, the book demonstrates best practices in both traditional and electronic environments. Speaking to its readers in a straightforward manner, A Lawyer Writes communicates essential skills and theories so that they will be retained for a lifetime of legal practice.
This third edition of A Lawyer Writes preserves the original concepts from the previous edition while refining content to reflect current practices. Chapter 18, "Professional Emails," not only discusses the form and substance of electronic communication, but now features new material on how to convey analysis effectively in email. Chapter 19, "The Transition from Objective to Persuasive Writing," has been reorganized and revised to highlight effective strategies for drafting persuasive analysis. Revisions in other chapters reorganize and update the original content by expanding on or clarifying ideas.

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Plain English for Lawyers has been a favorite of law students, legal writing teachers, lawyers, and judges for almost 40 years. The sixth edition, now co-authored by Amy Sloan, updates this classic text, including new chapter exercises, while preserving all the approaches that make it such a standard in the field. It remains (in size only!) a little book, small enough and palatable enough not to intimidate over-loaded law students.
In January 2005, the Legal Writing Institute gave Wydick its Golden Pen Award for having written Plain English for Lawyers. The Legal Writing Institute is a non-profit organization that provides a forum for discussion and scholarship about legal writing, analysis, and research. The Institute has over 1,300 members representing all of the ABA-accredited law schools in the United States. Its membership also includes law teachers from other nations, English teachers, and practicing lawyers. 

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Beyond One L: Stories About Finding Meaning and Making a Difference in Law is inspired by Scott Turow's One L, the classic account of a first year law student's experience at Harvard Law School. With an introduction by Turow, Beyond One L explores first, second, and third year experiences in the decades since One L was published. It then moves beyond law school to tell the stories of taking the bar, searching for judicial clerkships, practicing law, and leaving law practice to become a teacher or judge. Story authors include lawyer Gerry Spence; Above the Law editor David Lat; professors Ian Ayres, Stephen Carter, Deborah Waire Post, and Adrienne Wing; and judges Marilyn Skoglund, Donn Kessler, and Michael Zimmerman. The stories are about the moments in life that were game-changers—ones that changed the course of the authors' careers or brought them extraordinary meaning.

"[This book provides a] roadmap to both academic and emotional success in law school's crucial first year...[Covered] topics in the revised and updated third edition include pre-planning, top student fears, first-year curriculum, the Socratic and case methods of teaching, effective class participation, top habits of successful students, essential study techniques, legal research and writing, exam strategies, maintaining well-being, and much more. Combines anecdotes, comments from law students, empirical research, and authentic samples of signature documents from the 1L experience, including exam questions, Socratic dialogue, and student case-briefs, class notes, and course outlines. McClurg is an award-winning professor who has taught at six different law schools."-- Provided by publisher.

Answers questions students have as they begin their studies. What is a tort? A Hornbook? Should I join a study group? It also explains and gives examples of the best methods for studying and for taking exams. It provides questions and model answers from actual law school exams. The Nutshell also provides information about the types of legal practice that are available to you when you graduate. And it describes the opportunities that will be available to you during your second and third years of law school, such as law journals, law clinics, internships, joint degree programs, and study abroad.

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This book is for entering law students and law school orientation programs about how to study law. It covers how lawyers use the law, how the legal system works, how to study, how to read and brief case decisions, how to participate in class, how to prepare course outlines, and how to study for exams and write essay exam answers. It also provides a chapter with pointers about legal research and writing because of the importance of these subjects in the first-year curriculum. The book s aim is to provide a practical, prescriptive, and descriptive treatment of the conventional topics and instruction given by law professors about studying law. It has been vetted by over twenty-five reviewers, consisting of law professors, current and prospective law students, and practicing lawyers.

Law school, particularly the first year, can be a rather intimidating and challenging experience for many students. This book is designed to give students the tools they need to successfully navigate their way through it. It introduces students to the fundamentals of legal analysis and writing and teaches them how to read and brief cases, outline, study, master law school exams, and care for their physical and emotional well-being. In short, it prepares students for every aspect of their journey through law school.

Unlike other introduction to law school texts, this book is unique in that it takes a cognitive approach to its instruction. It is premised on the belief that students learn new information best when they have a "schema" or framework that allows them to think logically about the information. Thus, it routinely draws on non-legal examples when introducing new topics and skills, and spends substantial time explaining why law students are expected to read and brief cases, outline, study, and write exam answers the way they are.

Additionally, this book builds upon the same core problems throughout, including the chapter exercises, so that students can more easily master the relevant skills. Every concept is illustrated and every chapter includes exercises that encourage students to apply what they have just learned. Accordingly, this book provides more than just written instructions on how to navigate law school's waters. It shows law students how to do so, thereby allowing them to sail smoothly through the experience with great skill and confidence.

Open Book: The Inside Track to Law School Success is a book that every JD and LLM law student needs to read, either before classes start or as they get going in their 1L year. Now in an expanded second edition, the book explains in a clear and easygoing, conversational manner what law professors expect from their students both in classes and exams. The authors, award-winning teachers with a wealth of classroom experience, give students an inside look at law school by explaining how, despite appearances to the contrary, classes connect to exams and exams connect to the practice of law.

Open Book introduces them to the basic structure of our legal system and to the distinctive features of legal reasoning. To prepare students for exams, the book explains in clear and careful detail what exams are designed to test. It then devotes a single, clearly written chapter to each step of the process of answering exams. It also contains a wealth of material, both in the book and digitally, on preparing for exams.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, Open Book comes with a free suite of 18 actual law school exams in Civil Procedure, Constitutional Law, Contracts, Criminal Law, Property and Torts, written and administered by law professors. These exams include not only questions, but: (1) annotations from the professors explaining what they were looking for; (2) model answers written by the professors themselves; and (3) actual student answers, with professor comments that explain why certain answers were stronger of weaker. As Open Book explains, there is no better way to prepare for exams than by practicing, and these unique materials will enable students to get the most out of their pre-exam practice.

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To meet the demands of law school, it is often helpful to have the big picture before you begin – a sense of what it is you are trying to do as you prepare for classes, participate in those classes, review and prepare for exams, take exams, and then begin the cycle once again.

Law School Materials for Success is designed to give you the essentials of that process. It is purposefully brief – most law students do not have the time for an extensive examination of the study of law school. Rather, they need a source for some basic, critical advice and some pointers on where to go for more if necessary. That is what this book and the accompanying podcasts are designed to provide.

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Drawn from interviews with students and attorneys from leading law schools and firms, Finding Your Voice in Law School delivers winning strategies for succeeding in law school and beyond. Many college graduates aren't prepared for the new challenges they will face in law school. Intense classroom discussion, mock trials and moot courts, learning the language of law, and impressing potential employers in a range of interview situations—it sounds intimidating, but it doesn't have to be. Finding Your Voice in Law School offers a step-by-step guide to the most difficult tests you will confront as a law student, from making a speech in front of a room full of lawyers to arguing before a judge and jury. Author Molly Shadel, a former Justice Department attorney and Columbia law graduate who now teaches advocacy at the University of Virginia School of Law, also explains how to lay a strong foundation for your professional reputation.

Many books give law students advice about how to navigate through their first year of law school. This book strives to be something different. The purpose of ''One L of a Year'' is to focus on the reading, studying and testing strategies used by the most successful law students. This book is more than advice — it is a learning guide based upon empirical research and statistical correlations between law student learning and their law school GPAs.

Cracking the Case Method is a concise and down-to-earth guide to the intellectual content of law school instruction, particularly in the first year. Readers will discover why and how law school instructors use appellate court cases as vehicles for teaching legal analysis. This book promotes readers' ability to apply analytical skills by: • Demonstrating how to "brief" cases in a way that captures both arguments and rules; • Explaining and illustrating common types of arguments; • Using actual law school classroom dialogues annotated by the authors to explain how instructors use classes to further law schools' goal of teaching argument skills; • Setting forth effective final examination preparation strategies and techniques for crafting answers that demonstrate analytical skills; and • Illustrating final exam strategies and techniques by providing actual law school final examination questions followed by model answers annotated by the authors.

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This book provides critical reasoning and reading strategies, as well as hands-on practice exercises. Law students are expected to read hundreds of pages each week. This book will help them learn how to approach massive reading assignments, how to master material quickly and efficiently, and how to evaluate what they have read.

This work teaches students an essential skill for lawyers: how to apply law to facts. The author explains a variety of reasoning techniques used by courts. The author also teaches students how to evaluate the opposing arguments, and ultimately how to downplay or neutralize them.

This updated version of a 1997 classic is a great introduction for law school. Just as the title indicates, Ms. Nygren focuses on “starting off right” in first year class preparation and exam taking skills. She tries to provide students the tools they need to be prepared from the very first day of law school.

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Like the Zen path to enlightenment, law school success is about balance, knowing your universe, knowing yourself, and staying focused. This book offers a comprehensive approach to succeeding in law school. It contains practical advice for doing well in the classroom and in navigating the law school environment. Exam tips and strategies using sample questions and answers are provided.

A powerful, accessible and practical book that breaks law school learning strategies into understandable, logical and practical steps that maximize the effect of students' study efforts, and explicitly ties those learning strategies to the strategies practicing lawyers use to understand, analyze and apply legal concepts in the real life representation of their clients. In other words, students will learn how to practice law while pursuing success in studying law.

Designed to help law students write and publish articles, this text provides detailed instructions for every aspect of the law school writing, research, and publication process. Topics covered include law review articles and student notes, seminar term papers, how to shift from research to writing, cite-checking others’ work, publishing, and publicizing written works. With supporting documents available on http://volokh.com/writing, the book helps law students and everyone else involved in academic legal writing: professors save time and effort communicating basic points to students; law schools satisfy the American Bar Association’s second- and third-year writing requirements; and law reviews receive better notes from their staff. The Fifth Edition, based on the author’s experience teaching his newly designed Intensive Editing Workshop and First Amendment Amicus Brief Clinic, adds material on editing, rebutting counterarguments, writing strategy, identifying and using the key assets of the article, fighting “the curse of knowledge,” and submitting articles to law reviews. It also adds extra examples of sound writing, as well as editing exercises.

Demystifying the First Year of Law School: A Guide to the 1L Experience provides law students with explicit frameworks for reading and analyzing court opinions in all first year courses. Using hypothetical classroom dialogues, the book explains how these frameworks will help student understand and participate in classroom discussions, answer questions on exams, and use the skills learned in the first year when representing clients in practice.

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This popular book helps students make the transition from their undergraduate experience to law school learning. Unlike other ''introduction to law school'' texts, Bridging the Gap offers a different approach because it: explains the ''why'' of law, providing students with the context necessary to understand why law school is taught in a certain manner; explains the ''how'' of the law, setting out a step-by-step process that will help students adapt to the law school setting; explains the ''what'' of the law, giving students the opportunity to practice the problem-solving process by providing numerous exercises in a variety of subject matter areas. Rather than giving only general advice, or black letter law and some practice problems for a specific subject, Bridging the Gap provides the context, the process, and the problems. Written by two former law school professors who used these techniques with thousands of students, Bridging the Gap is a guide to what really works in law school. --Publisher.

This book is about how to do well in law school. It covers the Socratic method, class preparation and participation, reading and briefing cases, using study aids, and preparing outlines. It is replete with practical tips for the critical skills of preparing for exams and writing exam answers.

The first part of this book is devoted to learning theory and individual learning styles and self-regulated learning. Part two addresses specific learning strategies for law students in a variety of contexts: reading and briefing cases, learning in the law school classroom, learning legal analysis, and excelling in legal research and writing courses. There are also sections on organizing strategies and memorization strategies. The guide includes tips on time management and information on the use of color as a technique for memorization.

This book is a practical guide to law school success from admission to law school to the first set of exams. It is a step-by-step guide to writing good exams. The book includes a number of examples and illustrations, as well as exercises and practice exams, with a focus on essay questions and model answers. It helps students identify their strengths and weaknesses and organize their efforts. In addition there are tips on multiple-choice tests and other objective questions.

Iijima guides students through the law school experience beginning with the summer before classes start. She covers reading and briefing cases, taking notes in class, outlining, writing exams and also gives excellent career preparation advice. She deals with practical matters like learning to organize time, take notes, and prepare for exams. She also addresses issues of non-traditional students. She even includes forms to help students develop effective techniques

This book is designed to help students navigate the intricacies of law school exams. The emphasis is practical rather than theoretical. Students learn to create a successful path from note taking to outlining to exam writing. The book helps students become familiar with the general types of law school exams through examples and detailed analyses of sample answers.

The author predicates this work on three essential legal questions: Is there a law? Has it been violated? What is the remedy? Students learn to think “like a lawyer” by looking at these three questions in different legal contexts.

The two law professor authors of this work attempt to help students make the transition from preparing for and writing undergraduate exams to preparing for and writing good law school exams. They demonstrate how to spot issues, analyze them and incorporate their work into good exams.

This short book elaborates on Whitebread’s eight secrets and concentrates on the all important exam. Special attention is given to organizing your time, spotting issues, using IRAC effectively and organizing your answer. Whitebread also deals with special issues arising in take home exams, open book exams and multiple choice or short answer exams.