Frequently Asked Questions
1. What should I do if I think I am way more confused than my classmates about what is going on in class?
Your best bet is to contact your individual faculty. You can discuss with them the things that are confusing you; they may recommend some different approaches that help you understand the material better. In addition, feel free to contact the Academic Support staff. You might also take a look at the information in What's Going on in Class?
Another approach is to use some of the materials on reserve in the Law Library under "Academic Support" or on reserve for Dean Saltzman. The LexisNexis series, "Questions and Answers," is good. It will give you an immediate sense of whether you are grasping the material. The Aspen series, "Examples & Explanations," is also very good.
2. My sister is a lawyer and she says that the most important thing for me to do is to buy the best commercial outline for each class--and use that outline rather than trying to figure out what is going on in class. That makes sense to my roommate and to me. What do you think?
With all due respect to your sister, you are best off spending your time focused on your own instructors' assignments and their approaches in class. In the end, that is the material that your exam will cover. Although commercial outlines can be of some assistance in helping you to organize the material, the real value of an outline is what you learn as you struggle to put it together yourself. Take a look at the information in Outlining.
3. My brother is a lawyer and he says that what you learn in law school is mostly irrelevant to the practice of law--and that most of what is tested on the Bar exams is not even taught in law schools like USC. If that's true, what difference does it make which courses we take after the first year in law school?
With all due respect to your brother, I disagree. While it is true that lawyers need to know many, many things that are not taught in law school, most of what you learn in law school is quite relevant to the practice of law. Depending on the type of practice, this fact may be more or less obvious to a young lawyer in the early stages of his or her professional career. And while it is true that the Bar exams tend to focus more on the "black letter law" than the policies and theories behind the legal rules, the fact is that our faculty and curriculum do a good job of preparing our graduates to take the Bar exam. And increasingly more, Bar exams are grading you on your ability to sort through problems, identify what is relevant or irrelevant, make arguments and counter-arguments, and apply the elements of the rules to the facts you are given. Simply "knowing the black letter law" won't be enough for most Bar exams.
Contrary to popular student belief, we strongly recommend that every student enroll in every course we offer that relates to topics tested on the Bar. For information about topics tested on the Bar exam, Subjects Tested on the Bar Examination (Section 9.2). While it is true that the bar review courses will help fill-in any gaps in what you have learned, it stands to reason that it will be easier for you (when you study for the Bar exam) to fill-in a few gaps rather than completely learning entirely new subjects for the first time. For example, when I took the Colorado Bar Exam, one of the subjects was Water Law, a subject I had not taken in law school. Given that I had to learn Water Law in a matter of days--at the same time I was reviewing all of the other topics on the Bar Exam--I was glad that I had taken all of the courses in law school that related to the standard subjects on the Bar Exam.
4. I can't decide whether I should handwrite or use my laptop for my exams. What advice to you have?
In the end, this is your decision, based on your comfort level and typing ability. Students seem to believe that using a laptop is an inherent advantage; it is not clear if that is true. Most people are able to produce more written material using a laptop vs. handwriting, but on law school exams more writing does not necessarily translate into a better answer. Most faculty are looking for a variety of things when they grade exams. One is organization; another is clarity. Neither organization nor clarity is directly related to whether you write or use your laptop. On the other hand, there is no question that, if your handwriting is very poor, your faculty will have trouble figuring out what you have written. Students sometimes think (incorrectly) that faculty will give them the benefit of the doubt in such situations. If your handwriting is poor, either improve it or learn to type now so that you can be comfortable when you use your laptop for your exams.
For more information about these issues, consider the information available at Preparing for your Exams.
5. I'm a first-year student and I read your answer #4 and I'm still confused. I originally intended to hand write the exams since I am a slow typist, but what I have learned about the grading system in the past few weeks has made me nervous. I have been told by numerous
people that professors will simply put checks next to any relevant points that are made and not take off for irrelevant arguments. At the end the checks are added up and that is what determines the grade. It seems like this style of grading will reward whoever can put more writing down on the paper. Obviously, a person hand writing an exam will not have as much down on paper as a person who is a quick typist. At this point I'm not sure if I should sacrifice study time to become a quicker typist or if I should go with my original plans to hand write the exam and risk not having as much information on the exam. To make things more confusing, each upper level student that I have talked to has given me different advice. Some say to type the exam, some say to hand write it. I would really appreciate your thoughts on this matter.
I still think my answer in #4 is good advice, but let me add a few additional points. First, I would not lose any sleep over this issue. Students are giving you their own perceptions of their own experience. Chances are their perceptions are inaccurate anyway. Even more likely, your own experience may be different from theirs.
Second, I suggest you ask your faculty. What they suggest or prefer should carry more weight than the advice you are getting from random second-year and third-year students. Then stop asking other students for their advice.
Finally, there is no one answer to whether you should type or write. Here are some things to consider:
Perhaps the most important is that you be comfortable with the method you choose. (That sounds to me like YOU should probably write.) If you are uncomfortable or unfamiliar with typing, you will likely end up worrying more about that than whatever you might have gained. This presumes that your handwriting is clear and easy to read. If it is not, you are better off typing.
I would take with a grain of salt the notion that what matters the most is the volume of what you write. While it is true that writing more is generally better than writing less, that is only true if what you are writing is worthy of credit. Much of what law students write on their exams is correct, but irrelevant to the question asked; that material does not get credit--and sometimes you lose points for making irrelevant arguments.
Much of what is going on in the exam is testing how you select the relevant materials that you have learned, and then apply it to the problems you are given. If you are asked what claims A has against B in certain circumstances, if you are able to answer the question in 400 words, the fact that someone else writes 600 words is not necessarily going to mean their answer is better. (If so, we would not spend so much effort grading; we could just count the words and be done with it.)
Many law students think that the key to exam performance is getting the most information onto the page--the longest information-dump if you will. They are wrong. Virtually every faculty member will tell you that what matters most to them is not volume; rather it is clear writing and organization in which you demonstrate that you have identified the issues, you can apply the appropriate law (rules, case law, etc.) to the specific facts in the problem, that you are able to argue more than one side of issues that warrant multiple arguments, and that you offer a conclusion (an answer to the question asked). Virtually all faculty members would prefer a shorter, clearer, better organized answer than a longer, disorganized one. If you look at past exams, you will see that many faculty explicitly state that view in the exam instructions.
If you haven't done so already, take a look at the materials on the academic support pages about exam preparation; they include some comments on these issues. See Preparing for your Exams.
6. I'm a first-year student and I was just wondering why USC Law doesn't offer 1L's a "How to Brief" Seminar? I have, over the last few weeks, taught myself (with the use of some online aides and books), but I might have benefited enormously from a brief instructional session administered by USC Law. For that matter, why doesn't USC Law provide instruction about how to outline our courses?
These are good questions, and the answers may be counter-intuitive. First, please look at the materials on this website that offer guidance on briefing, outlining, note-taking, etc. They include commercial materials that are available in the library and the bookstore, and a variety of online materials as well. We have included ones that we think are comparatively good. Second, depending on student interest, Dean Saltzman is available to sponsor these kinds of "how to" workshops for first-year students, but we have not wanted to promote those activities for several reasons. One reason is that most students would feel obligated to attend the sessions, but many of them would not benefit from attending--either because they already know the information or because they won't readily learn it in such a passive setting. Another reason is that there are many ways to brief cases, take notes in class, prepare outlines, etc. Some approaches work better for some students than others. In addition, some approaches are more appropriate for some courses or faculty than are others. There simply is no best approach for all instances.
The best way for any student to learn briefing (and these other related activities) is to follow the advice of your faculty, and to use the various guides that are available to see which methods and approaches work best for that individual. While a workshop might provide some introduction to the topics, in the end, each student must do the individual hard work of learning how to brief, outline, etc., by actually trying the various methods to see which ones work best for his or her individual situation. Like most things, you get better at briefing by doing it over and over again. Listening to someone talk to you about how to brief is not particularly helpful, and our experience is that most of our students get farther faster by doing the work on their own just as you have.
A number of the student organizations sponsor lunchtime sessions on these practical topics. You might watch for those and attend the ones that interest you.
7. I received my first few grades and I was very disappointed. I have never received grades like these in my life. And it seems like my grades bear little relationship to how hard I worked or how much I thought I understood the material. What's going on?
First, know that you are far from alone with these perceptions. Everyone admitted to USC Law has achieved great success in academics prior to enrolling in law school. Unfortunately, many law students are disappointed when they do not receive the kinds of grades they have received in the past. It is important to keep the meaning of grades in perspective. A grade does not necessarily reflect what you actually understood about the topics on the exam, because you not have successfully communicated your knowledge effectively. Particularly in the first-year, many students leave out fundamental points thinking, erroneously, that the professor will "know" that the student knew those basic points. Other first-year students often state the doctrine appropriately, but do not apply that doctrine to the facts provided in the examination.
Many students perceive that their grades do not reflect how hard they worked in the course. We all hear about students who supposedly received high grades but who didn't work as hard as you did; and students who worked night-and-day, but did not receive high grades. It is doubtful that there are many students who receive high grades without working hard. Nonetheless, there are factors in addition to hard work that determine grades. The study skills that you brought with you to law school may affect your grades. Part of the difficult process of law school is improving your analytic and communication skills so that you can demonstrate your mastery of the doctrine you are learning. By continuing to work hard to improve those skills, you are likely to become more efficient and effective in your studies.
It is worth making clear that grades do not reflect how competent, successful or satisfied you will be professionally. Nor do grades indicate how smart you are or what your future grades will be. It is common for a law student to receive significantly different grades in the Spring semester from those that he or she received in the Fall semester. If you take advantage of the materials on this Academic Support Website, you have a good chance to improve your grades in the future.
[Some of the comments in this answer were based on an article by Michael I. Swygert, Putting Law School Grades in Perspective. I suggest you read the full article. It is linked in PDF format here: Putting Law School Grades in Perspective.]
8. I am very frustrated. I attended an exam-preparation workshop at the airport and I followed their advice, but my faculty tell me my answers to the practice exam questions aren't very good. Specifically, there seem to be four issues.
(A) The exam workshop said that I should always refer to all facts in the fact pattern because they must all be relevant or why would they have been included? Some of my faculty say they agree; others say that they are testing our ability to disregard irrelevant facts presented in a realistically messy factual situation.
(B) The exam workshop said that I should always address all issues, for example, in Contracts, I should always discuss intent to be bound, consideration, offer and acceptance. Some of my faculty say they agree; others say that they are testing our ability to figure out whether there is an issue, a set of plausible arguments and counter-arguments. Some even say they take points off for discussing irrelevant issues.
(C) The exam workshop said it is always better to discuss more issues in series than to discuss fewer issues more in depth. Some of my faculty agree, but others say I should focus on the key issues.
(D) Finally, the exam workshop said to make sure to conclude an essay with a statement like, "Therefore, the contract is enforceable." Some of my faculty agree, but others say they do not want that kind of conclusion; instead they want statements like, "Jones has a good argument that the contract is enforceable, but may have difficulty showing consideration." I am very confused about which approach I should follow.
This is a good question. The answers are that (1) no single approach will work for all of your classes; and (2) follow the advice of your faculty. You have put your finger on one of the core activities going on in the first-year of law school: We are helping you learn about the ambiguities and inconsistencies in the law, how to identify them, and how to use them to argue for different conclusions. In this context, ambiguity is a good thing; the more good arguments you are able to make, the better.
Rather than spending money on workshops at the airport (or other magic cures for law school such as acupuncture, hypnosis, "the 6 most important tips," etc., I suggest you use the materials recommended on these web pages, and most of all, follow the advice of your faculty. Many students waste a lot of valuable time trying to find just the right study aid when they would be better off just studying. As President George W. Bush discovered, "It is hard work."
