Dear Student,
Welcome to The Law School Playbook! I’m Halle Hara, a professor of academic success and personal skills coach to law students and attorneys. I’m glad you’re here! I was lucky enough to work in the federal trial court for a collective fifteen years. During that time, and in private practice, I saw countless jury trials. Whether civil or criminal, the trials always had one thing in common: the judge instructed the jury to exercise their common sense in deliberations. For example, the jury instruction about weighing the evidence would sound something like this: “Don’t leave your common sense at the courthouse door. It is up to you to decide what evidence is reliable. You should use your common sense in deciding which evidence is the best evidence and which evidence should not be relied upon in reaching your verdict.”
The same is true concerning your reading. Expert readers do not approach the cases they read with a clean slate. To the contrary, expert readers bring their common sense, life experiences, and prior knowledge to the task. Reading expert Ruth Ann McKinney explains that separating the experiences you’ve had in life from the study of law unnecessarily hinders you as a reader. She urges readers instead to allow their common sense, life experiences, and prior knowledge to trigger associations that give rise to visual images.
To state it simply, the more you know prior to engaging with the text, the more efficient and effective your reading will be. That does not mean that you must have suffered a personal injury to understand a torts case. After all, you have the power to gain knowledge just prior to doing your reading. Let’s think about how you can do that.
You can easily gain knowledge to make your reading more effective and efficient. For example, you can consult your syllabus, the book’s table of contents, or the notes and questions following the case. You can look to the case itself to find clues as to why the decision is significant. Unlike reading a mystery novel, you can read the ending first. You can examine the headings in the decision or read the first sentence of every paragraph. Taking even just a few minutes to build your knowledge before reading a case places it context and informs you about which parts require strict attention.
You may be rolling your eyes and thinking that this advice itself is nothing more than common sense. That may be true, but I’d be willing to bet that many students don’t take the advice of Law Professors Andrew McClurg, Herb Ramy, and countless other authors who tell you that discovering the context before you read helps you to be a better learner. Regardless of where you are in your law school journey, try to remember that just getting through a case just to finish it is not what you’ll do as a lawyer. In practice, you’ll read a case to see how you can use it. Why not become better at that skill now, especially when it will save you some time?
If would you like to read this episode, get suggestions for further reading, or to request individual coaching with me, please visit my website at www.lawschoolplaybook.com.
As always, do your best, and I’ll be rooting for you!
References and Further Reading
Leah M. Christensen, The Paradox of Legal Expertise: A Study of Experts and Novices Reading the Law, 2008 B.Y.U. Educ. & L.J. 53, 58 (2008).
Leah M. Christensen, Legal Reading and Success in Law School: The Reading Strategies of Law Students with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD), 12 Scholar 173, 209 (2010).
Elizabeth Fajans & Mary R. Falk, Against the Tyranny of Paraphrase: Talking Back to Texts, 78 Cornell L. Rev. 163, 193 (1993).
E. Scott Fruehwald, How to Help Students from Disadvantaged Backgrounds Succeed in Law School, 1 Tex. A&M L. Rev. 83, 112 (2013).
Andrew J. McClurg, 1L of a Ride: A Well-Traveled Professor’s Roadmap to Success in the First Year of Law School 169 (3d ed. 2017).
Ruth Ann McKinney, Reading Like a Lawyer: Time-Saving Strategies for Reading Law Like an Expert 71–78 (2d ed. 2012).
Herbert N. Ramy, Succeeding in Law School 113 (2d ed. 2010).
Michael Hunter Schwartz, Expert Learning for Law Students 88–91, 103 (2d ed. 2008).
Christine M. Venter, Analyze This: Using Taxonomies to “Scaffold” Students’ Legal Thinking and Writing Skills, 57 Mercer L. Rev. 621, 632 (2006).