Cracking the Case Method, Legal Analysis for Law School Success (Academic and Career Success Series)

For about 150 years, law schools have relied on the Case Method to teach the skills and art of legal analysis to first-year law students. Yet many first-year students struggle academically. They do not struggle because they lack intellectual ability. Instead, they struggle because they are suddenly immersed in a unique and seemingly opaque educational process where nobody has concretely explained what they should try to learn, much less how to learn it. So these students are forced to try to understand their professors’ teaching methods on their own―a difficult task for many beginning students, even those who may “get it” but cannot articulate what “it” is.

So students understandably ask fundamental questions like the following. Why do reading assignments consist of appellate court opinions? Why do professors rely on the Socratic Method? Why do law school classes so often leave students with more questions than answers? Why do professors’ teaching methods differ from their assessment methods and how can students bridge that gap? What do instructors look for when they grade essay exam answers? Why can law students believe they knew “all the rules,” yet get poor grades?

Cracking the Case Method, 3d ed., provides concise and accessible instruction (more...)