Getting Ready

[lawguy09]

I want to start law school with a running start...is there ANYTHING I can do to get a head start? Are there legal writing books I should check out? Is there something like 'Crim-Law' for Dummies on book shelves?

Any suggestions

[epicac]

I picked up Law School Confidential.  Love it.  Lots of people have copies of Getting to Maybe but I don't know of anyone actually reading theirs.

[UnbiasedObserver]

I want to start law school with a running start...is there ANYTHING I can do to get a head start? Are there legal writing books I should check out? Is there something like 'Crim-Law' for Dummies on book shelves?

Any suggestions

I recommend reading E&E books (Examples and Explanations books published by Aspen) to just get a "flavor" of each topic.  As I stated in another thread, you take a professor and not a subject, so often professors don't follow everything in a supplement, and sometimes they disagree with a supplement.  So it's not as important to read in-depth, as it is learn the major concepts of a certain topic. 

Most importantly, though, don't take reading ahead so seriously.  Law school will be stressful enough already.  You're going to need to be refreshed when you start.  Just some friendly advice!

[just Trev]

I picked up Law School Confidential.  Love it.  Lots of people have copies of Getting to Maybe but I don't know of anyone actually reading theirs.

...i seriously laughed out loud...

either this is the wittiest post i've seen in a while...

or you go to my dream school.

[mnewboldc]

I was you last year. Don't bother reading ahead. I know you are chomping at the bit but you don't know what kind of mule-driver your professor will be, and going forward when he's pulling back will just leave you tasting the whip. Law school is corporate zen and as such its goal is as much to crush the will as it is to learn the black letter. The more insulated you feel inside the various fonts of the black letter the more acute your disgrace will be, because the hypothetical is a vacuum which swallows even the blackest of letters, especially those typed by the unindoctrinated. It's not pretty.

Read Law School Confidential. Watch The Paper Chase. Wikipedia the major subject areas if you must, to get a "general" feel. But your goal should be to spend the summer doing all the things you enjoy, because come Fall the party comes crashing to a halt.

[,.,.,.;.,.,.]

I was you last year. Don't bother reading ahead. I know you are chomping at the bit but you don't know what kind of mule-driver your professor will be, and going forward when he's pulling back will just leave you tasting the whip. Law school is corporate zen and as such its goal is as much to crush the will as it is to learn the black letter. The more insulated you feel inside the various fonts of the black letter the more acute your disgrace will be, because the hypothetical is a vacuum which swallows even the blackest of letters, especially those typed by the unindoctrinated. It's not pretty.

Read Law School Confidential. Watch The Paper Chase. Wikipedia the major subject areas if you must, to get a "general" feel. But your goal should be to spend the summer doing all the things you enjoy, because come Fall the party comes crashing to a halt.

Wow, that was an impressive description.

I suggest looking at your old professors' practice exams so you have an idea of where you're going.  If I could do anything the summer before, I would try learning a little BLL and taking practice exams, so I would learn what you're expected to do to earn the grades.

[M_Cool]

Here's the idea of Getting to Maybe so you can just skip the book. 

On a law exam, you either apply a rule to a "fork in the facts" or recognize that there is a "fork in the laws."  So, your exam answer always ends up looking like this:

"If the court views the facts this way, then X rule is applied.  If not, then X rule is not applied." 

OR

"Courts generally hold two different views on this situation.  If this is an X court, then X rule applies.  If this is a Y court, then Y rule applies."

Generally you insert some policy at the end to both say where the court should come out and show you understand the logic behind why the rule exists in the first place.  On a real exam, there's always forks in the facts embedded in forks in the law so the analysis gets a little more complicated.

[just Trev]

I was you last year. Don't bother reading ahead. I know you are chomping at the bit but you don't know what kind of mule-driver your professor will be, and going forward when he's pulling back will just leave you tasting the whip. Law school is corporate zen and as such its goal is as much to crush the will as it is to learn the black letter. The more insulated you feel inside the various fonts of the black letter the more acute your disgrace will be, because the hypothetical is a vacuum which swallows even the blackest of letters, especially those typed by the unindoctrinated. It's not pretty.

Read Law School Confidential. Watch The Paper Chase. Wikipedia the major subject areas if you must, to get a "general" feel. But your goal should be to spend the summer doing all the things you enjoy, because come Fall the party comes crashing to a halt.

Wow, that was an impressive description.

I suggest looking at your old professors' practice exams so you have an idea of where you're going.  If I could do anything the summer before, I would try learning a little BLL and taking practice exams, so I would learn what you're expected to do to earn the grades.

how does one do this...?

[,.,.,.;.,.,.]

Here's some BLL for you to chew on:

Meeting of the minds (objective standard for mistake by the parties, though don't get this confused with mutual mistake doctrine; Raffles)

Offer and Acceptance (mailbox rule; revoking under common law and Restatement 45; Brooklyn Bridge problem; difference between negotiation and offer)

Limited and Indefinite Promises (best effort situations like Lucy, Lady Duff Gordon; court dislike for indefinite contracts; Fuller)

Parol Evidence (integration rule, WWW Associates, PG&E)

Impossibility

Great.  Now that you have a little taste of the BLL of Contracts, try to apply it to a fact pattern such as this:

Jimbo goes on vacation three times a year to Arbua.  On his last vacation, he asked his friend, Duff, whether he would be willing to mow his lawn while Jimbo was away.  Jimbo told Duff that he would happily let him have his lawnmower at the end, if he did a good job.

Being a Ks professor, Duff wanted to draft a contract for the work.  The contract read: "I, Duff, hereby promise to mow Jimbo's lawn while he is away for valid consideration of $30."  The contract made no specification of the recent parcel that Jimbo had acquired, which he had never cut.  It also didn't say anything about the lawnmower.  Jimbo actually had two lawnmowers, both of which were named "peerless."  One of them was awesome and built Ford tough, while the other was a souped up shopping cart that couldn't mow much.

Before Duff could begin cutting the lawn, Jimbo was arrested on charges of homicide for driving recklessly while drunk (he was that excited about Aruba).  Before the cops took him away, he yelled, "Jimbo, forget about mowing!!!"  Duff didn't hear him and later tried to mow his lawn, but the rains were too heavy.  He mowed it, anyway, and broke the lawnmower.  When Jimbo returned, he wanted to sue Duff.

You are Jimbo's lawyer.  Advise him on all liability, including damages.  Be sure to specify the arguments available to both of the parties.

[mnewboldc]

Officious Intermeddler's description of K's is a good illustration of my point. At my school K's is a two-semester class, and we didn't get parol evidence until the Spring. Moreover, there was a word limit on all final exam essays, forcing us to focus on only what was relevant to answering the question; we wouldn't earn any points for off-topic remarks. Your K's professor will view the course differently than either of ours did.