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« on: June 21, 2009, 12:21:32 PM »
"So, the fact that this guy said way above the median means 51% at best and even then I bet he is much lower than that."
Top 20 % at a T-14. What do I win?
I hope, for your sake, that you're less of a jackass in person.
"As far as the case brief book keyed to your book, these are the law students guide to Cs. They are targeted at lazy students and they will hurt you in the end. To succeed on the exams you must not only know all of the rules of law but also how to apply them and the reasoning behind them."
That's nonsense. If you're confident enough you can use the lecture and the case summaries to get all that is necessary from cases. Most of the background details in cases is not the least bit useful and is not worth your time.
Even if you aren't confident enough to do the above, I don't see what absorbing the extra material in cases gets you. Somebody needs to explain that to me. In your explanation, please be sure to include why I can be top 20 % after my first year and have, for the most part, ignored the extra bit.
"Law school is all about the details and reading the cases will not only give you a better understanding of the law but it will help you learn how to write good answers to the exams."
From my perspective, it's not really about "the details" at all. It's about understanding the law, the motivation behind the law and any subtleties that mark differences between the two. It's also about teasing out applicable paradigms, ideas and policy that apply to the salient features of a fact pattern and then making arguments based on those observations. If your argument relies too heavily on the minute details of a case or, even worse, details of precedential cases that aren't applicable even if the overall ruling might be, you're likely mucking up an important aspect of the law.
In my view, anybody who focuses on details and/or tertiary concerns is headed for mediocrity. The only reason to sweat the details is if you've already nailed the most important points. In my experience, if you've already nailed the most important points, sweating the details won't do much to improve your grade.