Lecture 12 LR

Law School and Assignment Advice

General Advice for Law School Assignments

  • Key Skills: Foundational skills are crucial for law school and professional practice.
  • General vs. Specific Advice: Advice provided is overarching, pay close attention to specific guidance for individual assessments.

Planning Your Assessment

  • Three Essential Steps:
    • Plan what to say.
    • Manage your time effectively.
    • Reflect on feedback to improve future work.
  • Time Management:
    • Start early to allow ample time for research, drafting, and revisions.
    • Aim to finish a solid draft well before the due date.
    • Use a semester planner to schedule assessment tasks; some planners can work backward from due dates.
    • Block out specific time slots for each assessment.
  • Benefits of Unit Restructuring:
    • The consolidation of units aims to reduce student stress by spacing out assessments and dealing with content more efficiently.
  • Importance of Downtime:
    • Rest is essential for the nervous system and mental well-being.
    • Taking breaks freshens your mind and improves work quality.
    • Avoid grinding for extended periods, as it leads to diminishing returns.
    • Incorporate rewards into your study schedule.
  • Personal Biorhythms: Identify when you are most productive and structure your study schedule accordingly.
  • Reflection on Feedback:
    • Use feedback to identify areas for improvement in future assessments.
    • Create a checklist of common errors to avoid, such as citation issues or statute formatting.
    • Maintain a document of past feedback to track recurring issues.

Types of Assignments and Critical Thinking

  • Common Assignment Types: Problem-based and essay-style assignments are common, however, there can be others.
  • Core Skills Tested: All assignments test critical thinking, planning, and writing skills.
  • Key Considerations:
    • What to say.
    • In what order to present the information.
    • How to structure the assignment.
    • Level of detail needed.
    • How to weigh different aspects of the argument.
  • Learning as a Process: Recognize that mastering these skills takes time and practice; expect an initial period of discomfort.
  • Active Engagement: Engage with the material actively rather than passively watching or reading.

Getting Started: Planning and Structure

  • Read the Question Carefully: Ensure you fully understand the question and respond directly to what it asks.
  • Start with a Plan: Develop a plan by putting thoughts on paper and organizing them.
  • Mind Mapping: Use mind mapping to brainstorm concepts.
  • Identifying Controversies: Focus on controversial areas and sub-issues.
  • Contentious Aspects: Determine primary issues requiring attention and analyze different viewpoints.
  • Argument Creation: Use resources to support your arguments around the controversies.
  • Resource Tracking: Keep track of resources for citations.

Mind Mapping Techniques

  • Various Methods: Apps, Post-it notes, color-coding.
  • Post-it Notes: Easy to move around, color-coding benefits.
  • Color-Coding: Organize information visually (e.g., main issues in yellow, sub-issues in other colors).
  • Content Organization: Use techniques like "pizza paragraph, and "crossword definitions with the names".

Organizing Thoughts and Resources

  • Word Document Approach: Use basic headings and subheadings to organize thoughts.
  • Iterative Process: Start with dot points and develop them into paragraphs.
  • Folder System: Use folders to store resources for different sections or chapters.

Research Essay Answer Plans

  • Turning Questions into Headings: Convert assessment questions into headings to structure your answer.
  • Resource Explanation: Explain how each resource supports your argument.
  • Detailed Planning: Create detailed plans to streamline the writing process.
  • Non-Linear Writing: Start with easier sections or questions to build momentum.

Drafting a First Draft

  • Revisit the Question: Read the assessment question again to ensure you stay on track.
  • Core Elements: Introduce, explain, argue, and conclude in a logical manner.
  • Word Count Allocation: Answer the question succinctly and avoid over-explaining simple aspects.
  • Focus on Controversy: Spend the most time and word count on the controversial aspects of the question.
  • Learning from Feedback: Use feedback to identify areas where you need to provide more or less detail.
  • Exemplars: Review exemplars of good student work to understand how better answers addressed specific issues.

Key Elements of the First Draft

  • Clarity and Logic: Focus on clear expression and logical organization.
  • Succinctness: Concisely answer the question without unnecessary detail.
  • Professionalism: Present a professional and well-organized paper.
  • Formatting Requirements: Pay close attention to specific formatting requirements for each unit.
  • Active Voice: Use active voice and short sentences for clarity.
  • Addressing Gaps: Identify and research any gaps in your knowledge as you write.
  • Iterative Process: Recognize that drafting involves continuous research and refinement.

Starting the Writing Process

  • Various Methods: Super planner, writer and rewriter, beginners and closers, outline first.
  • Avoid Procrastination: The most dangerous approach is not to begin at all.
  • Draft Management: Keep multiple versions of your work to preserve different ideas and protect against data loss.

Structuring Assessments and Avoiding Common Mistakes

  • Simple Structures: First-year assessments often have simple structures with unpacked questions.
  • Cascade Approach: Follow a logical progression in research questions (law, cases, reforms).
  • Word Count Restrictions: Avoid long quotes and repeating the question to save space.
  • Summarizing Relevant Law: Summarize the law by citing statutes, sections, and cases.
  • Applying to Facts: Tie the law back to the specific facts of the scenario.
  • Checking Completeness: Ensure every part of the question is answered.
  • Review Resources: Use books such as Goldstein and Lieberman Lawyer's Guide to Writing Well for help.

Critical Legal Thinking and Strong Arguments

  • Universal Expectations: Critical legal thinking, supporting arguments with authority, and logical organization are universally required.

Post-Draft Review: Addressing Gaps and Citations

  • Double Checking: Identify and address any gaps in your knowledge discovered during drafting.
  • Citation Verification: Ensure all arguments are supported by authorities where required.
  • Quote Accuracy: Use quotation marks and precise footnotes for word-for-word quotes.
  • Summarizing Ideas: Summarize others' ideas, cite the original source.
  • Law Source: Where is the law, statute, three requirements?
  • Fact Statistics: Cite facts, statistics, and scientific results.
  • AGLC Chapter 1: Chapter 1 of the AGLC helps with general writing with the cases.
  • Primary Sources: Use primary sources and official versions of those sources, official government website.

Case Reporting and Official Sources

  • Case Reporting: Determine if a case has been reported and if an authorized version exists.
  • Authorized Reports: Use authorized reports because the court has checked and approved them.
  • Court Verification: Check the specific requirements.

Key Resources and Abbreviations

  • Library Guide: Library website offer guides on official and non-official resources.
  • Legislative Publishers: Legislative publishers in each state provide official versions of legislation (Federal Register of Legislation for federal laws).
  • Abbreviating Names: Abbreviating cases and statute helps make writing easier.

Common Mistakes of First-Year Students

  • Question Conflation: Conflating questions rather than answering it directly.
  • Detail Omission: Missing that Section 52 is what you need rather than the details.
  • Sweeping Generalization: No emotional words in this field or industry is preferred.
  • Language and Sentence Structure: Double check the sentence. Clear is preferred.

Revising and Refining

  • Editing as a Separate Stage: Separate editing for a dedicated time.
  • Mental Break: Put it aside for a day or two and come back refreshed.
  • New Version: Save New version and edit it.
  • Segment Review: intro/body/segments all should be working.
  • Word Count Assessment: Word count needs to be happy to be approved.
  • Prioritization: It is good to remove things of lower priority.
  • Complete Sentences: Keep note of things that would have liked to include.
  • Sentence Scrutiny: Check the sentences for appropriate meaning.
  • Reference Check: Check and double-check the reference.

Clear Writing Techniques

  • Checklist Usage: Be confident doing the sentence-by-sentence usage following your rules.
  • Gender-Neutral Language: Don't assume gender, the judge is the correct terms.
  • Grammarly and CoPilot: Tools only used if the particular academic allows.

Grammar check

  • Spell Check: You can use spell check in order to review; however, make sure it is not the US spelling for the sentence.
  • Apostrophes: Apostrophes in writing is common, be careful to check the right location.
  • Full Stop: Put complete stops as needed.

Working with Word Count

  • Word Restrictions: Is a fact of lawyer life, follow the restriction!
  • Chopping Sentences: Keep in mind to keep the idea of that sentence if removing. Clear, direct way is the goal.
  • Word Count Too Low: Need to think or do more research! Discounted resources is preferred to re check.
  • Don't Panic: If it doesn't wake up in the time given, relax.

Checking Layout and Formatting

  • Font Check: Double check the font.
  • Citation Check: Check for the period at the end of every footnote.
  • Header Item: In the header needs to be enough information.

Before You Submit- Proof Reading

  • Proof Read for Last Errors: Make sure that everything checks correctly.
  • Hard Copy is Important: Having a printed version helps find more mistakes.
  • Get a Family Member to Assist: Family members who don't have law background will see the more straight forward errors in language.

Final Thoughts

  • Significant Difference: By taking the time and steps, you should see a real difference in your work.
  • Eye for Detail: Must be clearly communicative.
  • Clearly Communicate and Keep Detail: If instructions appear absurd, keep eye on detail.
  • Following Instructions: If it is not laid out properly, there is a possibly of not accepting it for filing.
  • Keep Sloppy Words Away: Mistakes distract the eye and the line of thought comes away from understanding the true meaning!
  • Do NOT Waste Time Redrafting: Create more time in the plan.
  • Use All of the Resource Available: All books available read much the same.