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How do you do well in Law?

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ben92:
How do you do well in Law? My (limited) understanding so far is to read all the cases they fire at you and have an understanding of the reasoning behind the court's decision based on the facts, and also of the legal precedent it created to influence later decisions by the court. Does this sound right? What else am I missing?

Eriny:
I've never taken any Law subjects, so I don't know first hand, but from what I gather from friends who do law, to do really well you should keep up with readings and work on your writing skills. You also need to learn how to approach cases in a law-like way (I think it's a particular logical perspective), which many students do have problems adjusting to, but once you get the hang of it it's much easier. Note that 'easier' is a relative term!

ninwa:

--- Quote from: ben92 on January 21, 2011, 09:08:52 pm ---How do you do well in Law? My (limited) understanding so far is to read all the cases they fire at you and have an understanding of the reasoning behind the court's decision based on the facts, and also of the legal precedent it created to influence later decisions by the court. Does this sound right? What else am I missing?

--- End quote ---

Yeah pretty much. Once you get used to how law works you'll realise you don't actually need to read the cases to do well - there are plenty of textbooks which explain the judgements for you. Maybe don't risk that for your first semester though.

lishan515:
That is pretty much what you need to do - understand the principle from the case and how to apply it in a different context. That involves reading textbooks and cases also. I generally do read the case extracts on a principle level - why? because if you don't know how to tackle cases and you actually become a solicitor you are disadvantaged. It is a good skill to learn early on in your law degree. And... it means that if you ever have to do an essay - it helps you do legal research as you can actually understand how cases work. Oh and cases can actually be pretty interesting. But yeah Ninwa is right - you really in terms on an exam which are predominately problem solving questions need to understand what the case 'stands for'... (read the LSS skeleton notes to understand this).

The biggest thing for law problem solving style questions is to have an 'exam structure' down pat. Those questions are very much about issue spotting - ie in the problem there might be an issue with the formation of the contract because the parties seem to have never agreed to the same terms - 'never in the same mind'. If you don't have an idea of how you approach 'agreement' issues, there is a good chance you might miss that issue and therefore lose the preliminary marks before you can even argue whether this is true on what basis, and why it might not be.

Therefore - best advice to go well in law is... stay up to date. if you don't understand something, ask some friend or email the lecturer. Attend classes. Go to the LSS tutes - really good for first sem as they teach you stuff about legal problem solving and show you what you need to know. And... come exam time develop a good set of exam notes and do practice problems before the exam...
Oh... and watch the time - law exams often require you to do so much more than the time allows and therefore you will need to be concise and quick and not waste time. Be very strict with time in exams...

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