Most first year classes are graded based upon an examination at the end of the semester (some professors give mid-terms as well). The examination is the professor’s only method of assessment – the only way the professor can determine the extent to which each student in the class has achieved the course objectives she has set.
The exam tests law students’ skills associated with resolving hypothetical legal problems faced by hypothetical clients. If a student scores high on an exam, she has demonstrated high-end proficiency at precisely what the professor intended for her to learn. She has, for example, actively resolved (in writing, under time pressure) a complicated contractual problem by recognizing the legal issues, applying the particular legal rules that relate to those issues, persuasively arguing for a position (by explaining how the preferred resolution is consistent with the reason the law exists – the policy behind the law – and comparing or contrasting the hypothetical situation with cases studied throughout the semester), recognizing and discussing the “other side’s” position, and stating a well-supported conclusion.
If a student studies (read: practices) law throughout the semester with this in mind – doing her “personal best” on the ultimate assessment (the final exam), then the student will be practicing each week precisely what she needs to practice to be assessed at the highest level. This is assessment-targeted study. Study for the examination from the first day of each class.
One does this by attending to what I refer to as the Components of Assessment-Targeted Study (the Law CATS) in each subject, each week. In other words, by practicing law each week, a student will become as proficient as her aptitude, her time commitment, her intelligence and her passion for the law allow. Just as in the professional practice, the practice of law in law school should be broken into its many components. Those components (the Law CATS) include:
• Reading and briefing every case
• Attending every class, actively participating and taking notes
• Transforming notes
• Creating course summaries
• Developing flow charts
• Internalizing
• Practicing answering hypothetical questions in writing.
You will find quite a bit about each of those components in the text and linked material you find on the pages on this web site; the step-by-step “how to” of the Law CATS – and how to fit them into your schedule – is detailed in 1000 Days to the Bar - But the Practice of Law Begins Now.
