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Written by Jason R. Wolfe
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Thursday, 18 October 2007 06:15 |
With a nod to Shakespeare - To supplement, or not to supplement? That is the question. It won’t be long into your legal education before you are faced with the decision of whether or not to use study aides and commercial outlines. There are scores of companies that offer the latest and greatest in law school study aides; everything from one-page quick reference guides to entire subject matter outlines that can be scores of pages long and everything in between, including books, flash cards, computer programs, and the list goes on. What you as the student must decide is how much you want to rely on these commercial outlines and how much you want to create yourself.
My quick answer to this question is this; create as much of your study material as you can yourself. Try to rely on these commercial products only for review or for reference in creating your own tools. There are few substitutions for attending class, paying attention and learning the material.
With that said if you feel you must use something additional there are some products that are in my opinion better than others. My opinion is based on my experience during law school and I will not be endorsing any one product or company here. Rather I will give my general thoughts on various types of materials that are available and how those products worked, or did not work for me.
I can say from the outset that I did not use any commercial outlines during my time in law school. My fellow students and I received advice from many professors, as I am sure you have, urging us not to give in to temptation and purchase the complete outline from an outside third party. When I did use an outline, it was of my own creation based on my notes from class and the reading that was assigned.
There are however many other types of commercial study aids and supplements that are available and quite useful. Hornbooks for example are a resource that any law student should become familier with as a tool for research and concise summaries of legal issues and theories. Hornbooks are available for just about every major category of legal study and can provide a good complement to any assigned textbook. In two of my classes in law school our textbook was a hornbook, which illustrates the many similarities between the two.
There are also several types of supplements, arranged by category, that provide condensed information on various legal issues. These can be good for additional reading and can provide clarification on difficult and complex legal doctrines. I found that using this type of resource was helpful for me in those areas where the textbook and lecture still left me scratching my head as to what exactly was being said (e.g. The Rule Against Perpetuities).
The major legal publishers also provide supplements that give the student not only additional reading on legal topics but practice in the application of those theories. These types of supplements are extraordinarily useful because of their practical nature. As any law student who has made it through the first round of exams can testify, reading cases and statutes is one thing but the application of that reading is what sets us apart from those of our friends and family who are not lawyers. These supplements that require the student to apply the materials will place the student in a position of true understanding of a subject rather than a simple regurgitation of material to answer a question.
In this brief space all of the virtues and vices of study aids and supplements cannot be addressed however this will, I hope, provide some guidance on the overall question of whether to use these resources at all. Materials used as a supplement to the reading, lecture, and taking good notes can be a tool to enhance the understanding of the law. It is important to try to keep in mind that these resources should be used as supplement to good studying habits, not a substitution for them.
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