How I Prepared for Law School Exams
And what I'll do differently next semester
Happy new year! I missed you all and am so excited for another year of writing on here. Between exams and taking the holiday break to rest (I’ve never slept so much in my life), I’ve largely been absent on social media. I’m hoping to ramp things up this coming semester.
If you’re reading this, I successfully completed my first semester exams. They were intense, at times overwhelming, and filled every fraction of my mindshare for over a month. I just about sold my soul to Contracts, Criminal Law, Property, and Civil Procedure, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy it a little bit.
The hardest part about preparing for law school exams was just starting. Once I had a clear picture of my study strategy and established a routine, it became a lot more manageable. Still, in the beginning, the work ahead of me felt monumental and I had no idea where to begin. Each of my exams had a different format and required a unique approach; ultimately, the only tool I consistently relied on was creating “canned answers” à la the Law School Master Plan, as well as taking practice exams.
Canned answers are essentially attack outlines that are written in the same way that you write a law school exam. While they are not as comprehensive as regular outlines (if you’re truly throwing everything you’ve got into an outline, it could be well over 100 pages), they are detailed in the way they describe the legal doctrine at hand. Creating canned answers for each class helped me tremendously with writing in a law school exam style and gave me another opportunity to review the material. I can’t recommend this strategy enough. If you’re interested in learning more, visit the Law School Master Plan - I’d be lost without it! I’ll also provide an example of what my canned answers looked like below.