“When it’s the difference you are focused on, remember that mere identification is good, but what will really move you to the head of class is explaining why those differences should matter –why they are significant enough to justify a result different from the one reached in the precedent.”
The author offer study tips to law students on how best to approach law school and law exams thereof. They emphasize on the significance of legal analysis rather than the information at hand in order to achieve a clearer end goal. In getting better grades they stress weighing both sides by evaluating the opposing standpoints to understand the intricacies in both. Legal analysis does not end after pointing out the differences but the student has to assess and justify why they are valid enough. Consequently, the student will have enough tools to answer their examinations with relevant information.
“The rulebook devotee may see the ambiguities on the exam, but ignores them because he thinks the law requires an answer and he doesn’t have one”
The authors acknowledge that exam questions tend to give rise to uncertainty due to the ambiguities in the legal information. They address the flaws in the academic culture of relying on correct answers that do not apply to law school and its exams. Basically, law exams emphasize the culture of analyzing ambiguous information and cases that have diverse approaches. Therefore, the book highlights the faults in students with the mindset that cramming laws and information is the best approach. The best strategy in passing exams is to understand the ambiguity of legal information and the importance of legal analysis.
“In practice, recognizing the difference between the purpose of a rule and its plain meaning is something you’ll need to do all the time, but you won’t do it very well if you don’t learn to pay close attention to the ways that lawyers decode statutory purpose.”
The competitive nature of law school and the hefty amount of legal information to be studied impose a tedious revision process. However, the authors affirm that the essence of law school is not absorbing every law or fact but rather understanding real-life practice. To reduce the stressful process of studying legal information they advocate for knowing the purpose of a law and how it is applied. Thus, introduce the idea of ‘getting to maybe’ in which law students have to learn to critique their own argument and much as the opposing viewpoint.
