{"id":14566,"date":"2011-08-31T10:05:52","date_gmt":"2011-08-31T15:05:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/?p=14566"},"modified":"2011-08-31T10:05:52","modified_gmt":"2011-08-31T15:05:52","slug":"learning-to-learn-the-law-becoming-legal-readers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/2011\/08\/learning-to-learn-the-law-becoming-legal-readers\/","title":{"rendered":"Learning to Learn the Law: Becoming Legal Readers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ah, the start of another academic year.\u00a0 Each fall brings a new group of incoming law students, eager to embark on the adventure called law school.\u00a0 But what is it we actually do <\/em>here in law school?<\/p>\n

Professors Tracey E. George and Suzanna Sherry<\/a> from Vanderbilt Law School have said that law school has three purposes:\u00a0 1) to teach basic legal doctrine; 2) to help students learn how to use that doctrine; and 3) to teach students how to teach themselves the law.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Although surely 1Ls do learn basic legal doctrine, it\u2019s really third purpose that takes center stage in the first year.\u00a0 The third purpose can be recast as learning \u201cto think like a lawyer,\u201d a topic I\u2019ve
\npreviously discussed<\/a>, and which may have some unintended consequences of its own.\u00a0 However, teaching students how to teach themselves the law also involves teaching students how to read legal texts and how to find and pull relevant information from those texts.<\/p>\n

Reading in law school is unlike other reading that most incoming 1Ls have done.\u00a0 As any current law student or lawyer knows, it\u2019s demanding and challenging reading that requires an active mind, ready to engage with the text.\u00a0 (It\u2019s still important to have \u201cfor fun\u201d reading even though it\u2019s difficult to squeeze in the time to do it.)\u00a0 Incoming students need to recognize that the texts they are reading contain the law itself, not (generally) any commentary about the law.\u00a0 In this way, as Christopher Columbus Langdell envisioned in the late 19th <\/sup>century, students learn the law by reading the law itself, rather than by reading about<\/em> the law.\u00a0 This is a big change from education in other fields, where the texts contain information about the subject.<\/p>\n

I suggest to 1Ls that they do not begin their first semesters with \u201cbook briefing,\u201d simply marking parts of the case in the book itself, as their sole method of case briefing.\u00a0 I think it\u2019s important in the beginning for students to take the time to craft their own briefs, making sure to put the facts, the issues, and the reasoning in their own words.\u00a0 It\u2019s good legal writing practice and helps students avoid simply parroting what the cases say without really understanding
\nwhat is written.\u00a0 Later, after a semester or a year, students are experienced enough legal readers to do book briefing.<\/p>\n

What other reading or briefing tips would you offer 1Ls?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ah, the start of another academic year.\u00a0 Each fall brings a new group of incoming law students, eager to embark on the adventure called law school.\u00a0 But what is it we actually do here in law school? Professors Tracey E. George and Suzanna Sherry from Vanderbilt Law School have said that law school has three […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[34,122],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14566","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-legal-education","category-public","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14566","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14566"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14566\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14566"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14566"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14566"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}