Help With US Law School Exams

Why do so many first-year law students who know better revert on their exams to regurgitating all they know about issues raised by the exam fact pattern instead... of writing what is required for the 'A' grades: cogent and concise legal arguments to resolve the issues? The answer, I believe, is that our behavior, and especially in the highly pressured and time-limited law exam, is mostly driven by habit. And deeply entrenched exam habits from college and before stress so-called "knowledge dumps" to impress graders with all the student knows and understands. The soluton, I suggest, is to recognize this danger and then prevent it happening by repeatedly practicing the cogent and concise exam-argument writing that you do need and beginning this practice weeks before the exams. My Exam books details and illustrates this problem and its solution. Professor John Delaney (retired)

Some beginning law students have reported that my companion book, "Learning Legal Reasoning, Briefing, Analysis and Theory." helped them more than anything else in starting law school because it enabled them to complete the required briefing of cases in half the time that other students needed. Thus, they could also promptly start their semester-long preparation for the later exams in ways detailed in my Exam book. Professor John Delaney (retired)

Law Exams Best arguments or just getting to maybe? Don't get stuck in one exam type. Professor Delaney explains that "getting to maybe" is just one professorial exam choiceand almost never what lawyers actually do in practice. Read more and feel free to contact me, if you have questions. John Delaney http://johndelaneypub.com/getting-to-maybe-on-law-exams/

Avoid the misleading advice to always argue two or more ways on your law school exams. Professor Delaney suggests, instead, you should individualize for each professor and demonstrates why in this blog. http://johndelaneypub.com/law-exam-strategies-arguing-two-/