---
title: Law School
description: How to get through law school: reading and briefing cases, the Socratic method, outlining, writing IRAC exam answers, and surviving 1L. For admitted students and anyone curious how lawyers are trained.
category: business-entrepreneurship
subcategory: legal-career-skills
difficulty: beginner, intermediate
url: /subject/law-school
---

# Law School

How to get through law school: reading and briefing cases, the Socratic method, outlining, writing IRAC exam answers, and surviving 1L. For admitted students and anyone curious how lawyers are trained.

## Available Resources

2 Books • 2 Papers

## Podcasts

### 1. Lawdibles: CALI Podcasts (Law School Success episodes)

**Author:** Barbara Glesner Fines and law school academic support faculty

Free podcast from CALI, the nonprofit law-school consortium. Short episodes by law professors and academic support faculty cover briefing cases, outlining as synthesis, IRAC, essay exam technique, law school myths, falling behind, and first-generation student experiences.

**Difficulty:** Beginner | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free

**Link:** https://lawdibles.classcaster.net/

## Books

### 1. 1L of a Ride: A Well-Traveled Professor's Roadmap to Success in the First Year of Law School (5th ed.)

**Author:** Andrew J. McClurg

First-person guide to the whole first year: the 1L curriculum, the case and Socratic methods, class participation, briefing and note-taking, outlining, exam strategy, legal writing, and well-being. Includes sample briefs, outlines, and exam answers. Fifth edition, 2025.

**Difficulty:** Beginner | **Language:** English | **Price:** Paid

**Link:** https://subscription.westacademic.com/Book/Detail/28877

### 2. Getting to Maybe: How to Excel on Law School Exams (2nd ed.)

**Author:** Richard Michael Fischl, Jeremy R. Paul

Two law professors explain why law exams reward argument over memorized rules, showing how to spot issues, argue rule and fact ambiguity on both sides, prepare outlines, draft answers under time pressure, and handle multiple-choice questions. Second edition, 2023.

**Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Paid

**Link:** https://www.amazon.com/dp/1594607346?tag=edmonddante07-20

## Papers

### 1. Writing Law Examinations

**Author:** John H. Langbein

Seven-page guide written by a Yale Law School professor for his own students on answering issue-spotting exams: organizing the answer, analyzing facts against rules, arguing both sides, and why exam writing uses the same skills as briefs and memos.

**Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free

**Link:** https://law.yale.edu/sites/default/files/documents/pdf/Faculty/Langbein-WritingLawExaminations.pdf

### 2. How to Read a Legal Opinion: A Guide for New Law Students

**Author:** Orin S. Kerr

The standard free primer on the very first skill of law school, reading cases. Sixteen-page essay from the Green Bag (2007) walking a first-year student through a judicial opinion: caption, citation, author, facts, procedural posture, holding and reasoning, concurrences and dissents, plus common terms such as affirm, reverse, and remand.

**Difficulty:** Beginner | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free

**Link:** https://www.law.berkeley.edu/archive/files/How_to_Read_A_Legal_Opinion.pdf

---

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