How to Do Your Best on Law School Exams 9780960851454, 0960851453

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HowTo Do Your Best On Law School Exams By Professor John Delaney Drawings by Anne Burgess

Copyright© 1982, 1988, 2001, 2006, 2012 by Professor John Delaney All rights reserved. No part of this book including drawings may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems without permission in writing from Professor John Delaney, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review. Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 82-90278

Second Revised Edition Third Revised Edition Fourth Revised Edition Fifth Revised Edition

November 1988 April 2001 October 2006 February 2012

Published by John Delaney Publications 119 Greenpoint Road Catskill, NY 12414 518-943-9507 www.johndelaneypub.com www.facebook.com/johndelaneypublications

A.BOUT THE AUTHOR A law professor for thirty years, John Delaney taught Criminal Law, Advanced Criminal Law, Comparative Criminal Law, International Criminal Law and other subjects to law school students and students in masters and doctoral degree programs at the New York University School of Law. He then taught Criminal Law, Advanced Criminal Law, the First Amendment, the Fourteenth Amendment, Jurisprudence, a First-Year Seminar and other subjects at the City University of New York Law School. How To Do Your Best on Law School Exams emerged from these many years of teaching and reflecting.

Now retired, Professor Delaney is also the author oflaw review articles. His First Amendment article, "Police Power Absolutism and Nullifying the Free Exercise Clause: A Critique of Oregon v. Smith," 25 Ind. L. Rev. 71 (1991), has been cited in more than thirty-five law-review articles and by thirtynine federal and state courts including the Supreme Court of California and the Supreme Court of Texas. His books additionally include Learning Legal Reasoning, Briefing, Ana!Jsis and Theory; and Learning Criminal Law as Advocary Argument: Complete with Exam Problems and Answers. He was also the General Editor of nine

other books, mostly about comparative law, in the11merican Series oj~.Foreign ])enal Codes.

Prior to teaching, Professor Delaney conducted approximately one thousand trials and he prepared more than one hundred and fifty appeals. He lives with his wife Pat and daughter Clare mostly in the beautiful Catskill region of New York and communicates with students by e-mail.

Composite Preface This latest Revision incorporates new insights from my internet-based coaching of first-year students, and perfects the Book in other ways. The coaching of students from law schools throughout the country enables me to keep current with apparent exam trends and this Fifth Revision reflects such trends. It also clarifies the three issue-spotting methods detailed in Chapter Four, and it strengthens emphasis on the holistic nature of learning, outlining, issue spotting, and diverse exam argument-making. It adds a section on multiple-choice questions and it also adds an important new problem, "Books, Books and Books," that models a popular back-and-forth pattern of exam contract issues. And it merges Chapter Six and Seven. But I have resisted the temptation to embody the "On Looking Back" comments at the end of most Chapters into the new chapter contents, believing that their current location tells the story of the Book's evolution over decades, along with our more recent website, as I have deepened my insight. While a few other law-exam books that I have seen have clear value, they also suffer from a misleading reductionism, ignoring the variety of types of exams that most law students actually confront. Despite improvements in law school pedagogy in recent years, the following quotations from the 1988 and 2001 Revisions still reflects my belief as to the need for this book. This Revision, too, is implicitly a critique of the obscurity that permeates too much of legal pedagogy. The challenge in law teaching is to empower students, not to add obscurity and mystification, a now [seemingly] waning "hide-the-ball" type of teaching often performed by a bullying professor who was hiding out from the real challenge. That real challenge is to illuminate the complex understanding, insight and method that students must learn. This multi-dimensional reality includes history, jurisprudence, doctrine and modes of legal [argument]. It also includes critical perspectives relating to the diverse realms of law, practice and public life as a lawyer. It is this understanding, insight and method - not an artificially added professorial complexity - that enables students to make sense of this form of the human enterprise. The challenge of legal culture demands that teachers be illuminators, not obfuscators [1988]. The very survival of first-year, in-class, and closed-book exams requiring hurried first-draft writing with intense time pressure as the sole basis for grading at a graduate school is indefensible. And disgraceful is the fact that [many] of these exams still concentrate on a grossly reductive, two-note theme: Slotting key facts into the right categories [and explaining the choices] while implicitly pretending that law is not deeply historical, political, cultural and valuesaturated [2001 ]. There is a better way: a first-year exam that mirrors a typical task one sees in legal practice. I refer to take-home exams where students have six, eight, or ten hours to complete the exam with full access to their notes, outlines and any other materials. In various kinds of practice, lawyers are sometimes asked by legal supervisors to produce a memorandum by the "end of the day" or asked by judges to submit a memorandum by "the next morning." Such a take-home exam eliminates the high-school-type reliance on memory 1 and instead poses a challenge to marshal core lawyerly skills and understanding in apt framing and cogent argument making. Enabling student access to all materials exactly matches what conscientious lawyers do in practice: they check and verify everything, including case-specific evidentiary rules. They do not rely on memory. Rather, they make sure everything is immediately accessible as they litigate the case. Adding a maximum word limit discourages inapt responses that simply regurgitate all that seems to be relevant. Such a take-home exam also roughly responds to the comment of a colleague at the NYULS who said to me, "I've never been asked in practice to respond to three questions in three hours - and without use of the library." The increased use of this simple change in law exams would be a major step towards fairness, legitimacy and sense. 1

Some professors have additional expectations for a standout 'A' exam argument that will be illustrated in Chapter Five. V

The scourge of elitism and the need for humility Justice Antonin Scalia consecrates "the best and the brightest" law-school graduates as coming from Harvard and Yale. Yes, indeed, they have triumphed on these predominantly reductive "two-note theme" law exams. But I wonder how Socrates, Aristotle, Aquinas, Kant, Maimonides and Einstein would perform on the LSAT or first-year, in-class, time-pressured, memory-based exams. Edmund Burke's eloquent comment is relevant: "The law sharpens the mind, by narrowing it," and Oliver Wendell Holmes echoed, "whilst it sharpens the edge it narrows the blade." We all need more modesty about law exams and legal education, their strengths and weaknesses. Success in law test taking surely involves an acute (but narrow) intelligence and a set of related skills, but is hardly the measure of the diverse intelligences, skills and qualities needed to be an outstanding lawyer - and person. Indeed, brilliant, deep thinkers who habitually reflect in a multi-perspective manner before responding can be penalized and even lost to the profession by time-pressured exams that favor quick, but not necessarily the best, thinking. A more robust emphasis on both ethical and emotional intelligence, and the role of the lawyer as counselor, is needed. Meanwhile, back at school you have to cope with what exists, and you can be comforted with the prospect that becoming a lawyer can transform your opportunities and your life. I am pleased that I did what I wanted - initially, intensive trial and appellate experience followed by public policy practice (especially analysis and writing for governmental "blue ribbon" commissions), and then decades of fulltime law teaching, studying and authoring of books and articles. I wish to acknowledge the legion of professors over the years who have helped to shape and sharpen the book. Any deficiencies in it are, of course, solely their responsibility. I especially wish to express my gratitude to former NYULS students Professors Robert Pugsley of the Southwestern University School of Law in Los Angeles and Jesse Kasowitz, formerly of the NYULS. Other NYULS Professors who aided include Oscar Chase, Eleanor Fox, Charles Knapp, Jack Slain and Harry Subin. At CUNYLS and many other law schools, they include: Jane Aiken, Dean Kristin Booth, Dean Bridget McCormack, Ellen Mosen James, the late Luis DeGraffe, Eric Lane, Dean Mary Lu Bilek, Cheryl Meyer, Liaquat Nax and Susan Stabile. Another legion of friends, former students (at both NYULS and CUNYLS) as well as lawyers, editors, artists and other accomplices over the years, include: Larry Abramson, Lea Bernstein, Anne Burgess, Edgar Campbell, Ann and Jim Chamberlain, Lewis Creekmore, Patricia Crown, Theresa Delaney, Johanna deNiet, Michael de Leeuw, Nancy Feldman, Mary Jane Graves, Howard Klumpp, Irruska Kocka, Gloria Macri, Susan Martin, Chris McAliley,Jerry McElroy, Sheryl Michaelson, Kathy Morahan, Eleanor Nigretti, Catherine Park, Mordechai Pelta, Angel Recchia, Nitin Savur, and Betty Tabor. I wish again to thank my wife, Patricia Ruck, Esq., and our sparkling twenty-two-year-old, Clare, for the continuing love and support that sustain all my writing projects. I also thank my older daughters, Jacqueline and Joan and their seven children, for their continuing love and support. Jackie's children are Devin, Michael, Jack, and Grace; Joan's children are Jack, Julia, and Liam. I thank Pat for her brilliant ideas, inspiration, insights, editing, and remarkable overall performance in accomplishing this 2012 Revision. I wish also to express my appreciation again to Christine Bush who ably and conscientiously carried out the prior Revision in 2006, and to Nina Sklansky who expertly and impressively edited this new Revision. And I appreciate the many valuable insights and suggestions of Christopher Byck, a recent law-school graduate; they have materially improved the Book in recent years. Professor John Delaney (retired) February, 2012

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SUMMARY TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface .................................................................................................................................................... v Detailed Table of Contents ............................................................................................................. viii Introduction ........................................................................................................................................ xv Chapter One:

Six Exam Tasks, Six Grading Criteria ............................................................... 1

Chapter Two:

Mastery Learning of Law for Exams and Practice .......................................... 7

Chapter Three:

Outlining Your Courses For Exams ............................................................... 29

Chapter Four:

Spotting Issues on Law Essay Exams ............................................................ 45

Chapter Five:

Outlining and Writing Lawyerly Exam Arguments ...................................... 79

Chapter Six:

Sample Exam Problems and Arguments ..................................................... 113

Chapter Seven:

A voiding Common Pitfalls ............................................................................ 155

Appendix A:

"HA'l'RI" Practice ........................................................................................... 159

Appendi," B:

Exa1n Checklists .............................................................................................. 165 Other Books by Professor John Delaney ................................................... 167

vii

DETAILED TABLE OF CONTENTS Preface ......................................................................................................................................................................... v Summary Table of Contents .................................................................................................................................. vii INTRODUCTION

The need for this book is founded on three realities .......................................................................................... xv The good news ......................................................................................................................................................... xv Failure of law schools to prepare students for exams ....................................................................................... xvi Integrated and systematic approach ..................................................................................................................... xvi Law as advocacy argument ................................................................................................................................... xvii How to use this book ........................................................................................................................................... xviii If you have not yet started law school. ........................................................................................................ xviii If you are already in law school ....................................................................................................................... xix On looking back....................................................................................................................................................... xx CHAPTER ONE-SIX EXAM TASKS, SIX GRADING CRITERIA

The objectives of this book ...................................................................................................................................... 1 Assumption ............................................................................................................................................................ 1 Caveat ..................................................................................................................................................................... 1 What is the challenge in answering law school exam problems? ........................................................................ 2 Six exam tasks ............................................................................................................................................................. 2 The centrality of spotting the issues ........................................................................................................................ 3 Six criteria for grading exams ................................................................................................................................... 4 You are graded on how well you perform your six exam tasks by six criteria............................................. 4 Grade differences result mostly from differences in skills ............................................................................. 4 Improvement possibilities-So what do I do? ................................................................................................. 5 On looking back......................................................................................................................................................... 5 CHAPTER Two-MASTERY LEARNING OF LAW FOR EXAMS AND PRACTICE

Introduction ................................................................................................................................................................ 7 Exam learning methods and techniques ................................................................................................................. 8 Skills-centered understanding and performing ................................................................................................. 8 Legal mind-set: Problem-centered and fact-centered ...................................................................................... 8 Applying problem-centered and fact-centered approach ............................................................................... 8 Identifying your professor's teaching strategy .................................................................................................. 9 Dialing into your professor's substantive frequency ....................................................................................... 9 Dialing into your professor's analytical frequency ......................................................................................... 11 Tort negligence pattern ................................................................................................................................. 11 Intentional tort pattern ................................................................................................................................. 12 Core crime pattern ......................................................................................................................................... 12 Constitutional criminal procedure-Fourth Amendment search and seizure pattern ........................ 13 Contract pattern ............................................................................................................................................. 13 Civil procedure pattern-Acquiring in personam jutisdiction ...................................................................... 14 Learning rules with legal and factual diagramming ............................................................................................. 15 Viii

Legal diagramming ............................................................................................................................................. 15 Factual diagramming .......................................................................................................................................... 16 Learning rules with iconic examples (pictures) .................................................................................................... 17 Intentional tort examples ................................................................................................................................... 18 Rule: Battery ................................................................................................................................................... 18 Rule: Assault ................................................................................................................................................... 18 Criminal Law examples ...................................................................................................................................... 19 Rule: Intentional murder .............................................................................................................................. 19 Rule: Depraved-heart murder (also called extreme recklessness or willful and wanton murder) ...... 19 Advantages and risks of learning rules with iconic and other examples .................................................... 20 Anticipating exam issues: Mastery learning of signature patterns .................................................................... 21 Verifying via old exams ........................................................................................................................................... 22 Practice by writing: Test yourself .......................................................................................................................... 22 See red-hot facts as lightning rods for issue-spotting......................................................................................... 23 Miscellaneous points about preparation ............................................................................................................... 23 Memorization ...................................................................................................................................................... 23 Legal language ..................................................................................................................................................... 24 Study groups ........................................................................................................................................................ 25 Warming up ......................................................................................................................................................... 25 Multiple-choice questions .................................................................................................................................. 25 Summary of recommendations .............................................................................................................................. 26 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................................................ 27 On looking back....................................................................................................................................................... 27 CHAPTER THREE-MASTERY OUTLINING OF YOUR COURSES FOR EXAMS

Introduction .............................................................................................................................................................. 29 Selecting materials to help you outline ............................................................................................................ 30 First approach: Outlining with rules and examples ............................................................................................ 31 From learning to outlining ................................................................................................................................ 31 Sequencing of your index cards-building from basics to complexity ...................................................... 32 A disadvantage and a remedy ............................................................................................................................ 34 Second approach: A more traditional outlining .................................................................................................. 34 Topics and subtopics .......................................................................................................................................... 34 I