Law Vibe

From FindLaw:

Suggestion Number One — Answer the Question(s) Being Posed

If the "call" of a question asks the exam-taker to assess "subject-matter jurisdiction" in a given case (that, to examine whether a litigant has filed suit in the right system or kind of court), students should not spend time talking about other concepts - like "personal jurisdiction" (that is, whether a particular court located in a particular place has power over the defendant). These additional concepts, while they may very well be implicated by the fact pattern presented, are not subsumed within the precise question being posed.

Suggestion Two: Show Your Work

How do you argue and defend legal positions? By reference to authority, which can take the form of, among other things, judicial or other precedent, textual manipulation of words enacted by a legislative body, and sometimes pure logic or old-fashioned common sense.

How do you use these materials? Much of traditional legal analysis (on exams and elsewhere) involves making analogies and distinctions - likening the situation at hand to some that have already been discussed in the real or theoretical worlds, and/or distancing the present case from others. Showing your work and supporting your results thus often takes form of using these devices of analogy and distinction. Conclusions, even "correct" ones, that lack this kind of authority or support behind them rarely do (or should) get full credit.

Suggestion Three: Anticipate and Address Likely Counterarguments

Regardless of the role(s) you are asked to assume on an exam (e.g., the role of a lawyer for one side in a dispute, a judge or a law clerk to a judge, a legislator or legislative aide, etc.), in general you will want to see and discuss all of the major sides of any issue you address. A good and well-supported argument (see Suggestion Two) is generally one that deals with its own weaknesses, and explains why those weaknesses are less problematic than those that plague any other argument or resolution that could be made.

Suggestion Four: Organize Your Response to Clue the Reader In to Your Thought Process

Many students seem to forget that a good law school exam essay, like other good non-fiction essays, should be structured so as to make the writer’s thought process as transparent as possible. This means using paragraphs that are each limited to one thought, writing topic sentences that explain what the thrust of each paragraph is, employing transitional phrases and sequencing points to make clear the relationship between what is being discussed at present and what came before (or will come later) in a response, and so on.

Suggestion Five: Use Time and Space Allotments Wisely

As a general rule of thumb, students should allocate their time in discussing issues on an exam in the same way they think someone looking at these questions in the real world would. Suppose one issue, which was either explicitly mentioned in the question, or plainly important to include in a complete answer, has an easy, wrinkle-free, resolution. Discuss that issue, and move on, especially if another issue has a lot more difficult twists and turns that need to be explored and explained before a resolution can be reached and justified.