Damn it Karak, how can you get sick grades and not know Con Law = constitutional law!!!

E+E for CivPro is really good if you can put up with all the Myrmidon jokes. I've also heard good things about the CALI computer tests, and I think LEXIS has some good electronic test-prep kind of stuff too.
Con Law - The big fat Chimerinsky horn book is pretty good imo, but it's basically as long as a text book anyways.

The Chirelstein contracts book is indeed quite good. As for the guy himself, I can't decide if he's funny or losing his mind.

Here's a transcript of my interaction with him this morning in tax:

Prof. Chirelstein (hereinafter C): You, in the green sweater. With the thing (points)

Me: Me?

C: Yes you, I saw your hand start to move, don't be afraid. That's a different sweater than you had yesterday isn't it?

Me: Uh, yea.

C: Kids these days, so many clothes. Do you have an answer?

Me: Uhm, maybe. What was the question?

C: UGHHH. I don't need this. You're rats. All of you. See, it's much easier to just yell. Ok, do you see any way the tax commissioner could have resolved this anomaly if he had lost the case?

Me: .....No.

C: (explains something about cost basis that I don't get) You understand?

Me: ....Yeah

C: Humph. That yeah and a subway token, and you'll have...well you know the rest.

Sometimes I really wish I could be a professor.

THe Mike sheckett mentioned above if you have the Yezell Civpro book. You'll like him, he's a Michigan man [burnt out]

God that Yezell civpro book is SOO bad. Or maybe it was just our prof. I fell asleep so much in that class, she must have hated me. Then she had a review session that I swear she said was going to be 3 hrs, and started at 10am. I showed up at 11, and as soon as I sat down she says "allright, we're done".

I do have the Yeazell book, so thanks for the advice.

Just got my Torts grade back: A. So pumped, this is the exam I had to hand-write. FU Karak. I didn't brain dump at all, kept my focus pretty narrow. Just went over my exam with my prof, and she said that's what all of the profs she knows prefer (to brain dumping).

im feelin' the love ITT

My torts prof wanted total brain dump (her model sample answer included an explanation of comparative negligence in case the scenario took place in Alabama). I can't keep up with the 1L hamsters but I was able to Shecket into passing Civpro.

Thank you, grade inflation.

For basic understanding, I don't know why anybody would go with anything other than Emmanuel or Gilbert's for any subject they have available. Jump into the E&E's towards the very ending of exam studying.

Some profs at my school would actually just use the E and E as the textbook. Makes a lot of sense considering it's usually at least half the cost and probably better written/better at teaching the material than a traditional textbook. Sometimes it might have had to do with the prof having written the E and E but whatever.

EEs aren't always the lock best supplement. For Torts and CivPro for sure, but I can't speak to any other subject. However, it can't hurt to go through them if you have the time.

I used the Torts EE heavily, but the best supplement was Understanding Torts. Our prof highly recommended it (few bought it even fewer used it), and it quickly became apparent to me that he was teaching a lot of the course using examples and explanations (no pun intended) out of that book.

Supplements in general are ******ed. They're designed to just make extra monies for the people writing them. They don't offer anything that you can't get from an old outline from a professor or from even just downloading random outlines on the interwebz.

I know supplements are supposed to be "time savers," and I'm not advocating for studying even a second more. Just use the time that you would be reading a supplement thinking "thank god this thing tells me what I need to know" and instead just use your ****ing brain. A supplement is just being intellectually lazy.

Only exception is case briefs for class.

I 100 % disagree with this. While I read cases, that was pretty much the last time I touched any case books. Supplements did a much better job of laying things out than teh casebook ever could. Professors also expect you to divine certain things from casebooks on your own, and supplements spell these out for you. It is also much more convenient than asking the professor a thousand questions.

For Property I didn't even read the casebook and instead did all the CALI lessons and worked hard with a commercial outline. There were many things on the exam NEVER covered in class that I would have probably not picked up on (from minute note cases in the casebook) if it weren't for my supplement.

The CivPro EE is basically the greatest thing ever too. The professor simply taught us what the law was, not how to apply it. He guided us in a way to learn this, but expected us to figure it out on our own. I used the EE to do that.

no u

to each his own then

this is honestly the best answer. some people learn really well using the case method. others thrive with supplements. others fall in the middle. some only need classnotes.

and if you are truly brilliant all you need to know is the BLL, but those people all go to yale.

+1.

I was one of those people first semester first year who thought the same way as fds and didn't bother getting supplements because I was like "ldo it's all there in the cases and lecture." But after that I bought them and still read 95% of the cases. The supplements are crucial for helping you apply concepts with real problems. It's easy to think because you know the rule that solving problems should be easy, but it's not enough to just learn the rules for most people. Also, I actually like the case method for demonstrating rules etc but sometimes a case/situation you've never seen before has a different outcome than you might think would happen from what you've learned before.

Incidentally, fun fact Glannon literally teaches straight out of the Civ Pro book in his classes (he teaches either two or three sections). Like to the point where friends of mine who had him were like wtf, I don't go to class for you to read to me what I read last night. He's also generally full of himself is what I've been told.

I see what you guys are saying, and I don't really care since it's all over. But you both talk about supplements as a way to teach you how to apply the rule. And that is just ridiculous to me. Supplements generally give you the BLL, and classes are designed to talk about case facts and how to apply the law. I did not read all the cases (maybe not even half), but I always made sure to have a case brief (from online, commercial, whatever) so that I could understand the facts and how they could be manipulated. This is what you do on a law school exam. And this is why I'd rather study off of pre-made outlines -- because the good ones have 1-2 sentence factual discussions with the caselaw that exemplify why the rule is what it is and how the rule can be applied or modified or completely disregarded. The closest thing I can see is E&E, but why use that when the caselaw is essentially an E&E.

Like I said, I really don't care and obviously people learn differently. Just my .02.

Chermerinsky(potentially spelled wrong) writes a very good Con Law supplement. Reading the cases is invariably a waste of time. Nobody will ever ask you what animal Lujan was about or what they were going to build.

Theoretically, I'm also LOL supplements waste of time, but objectively I get better grades and have better post-class retention of the material for classes where I shelled out the $30 for an E&E.

Outlines are troublesome because you often will accept the words of some random. Just because it ended up in an outline bank doesn't mean everything in it is correct.

I think I said it a while back but Chemerinsky is just a super awesome awesome supplement for Con Law. I surfed the interwebs basically everyday of Con Law II (don't do this) and got an A in the class! [The teacher was really lax and just lectured and never called on anyone contributing to my epic lazyness.] ty Chemerinsky.

The thing is, I actually think this all can depend a lot on the prof and the class, and probably to some extent what law school you go to. My torts prof said when he was at Harvard (he's like in his 40s, but asian so I can't possibly peg his age, all I know is I managed to recognize him in a picture of HLS Law Review with Obama that was in the NYT when I was a 1L and asked him about it) his prof taught from a "everything should be strict liability" standpoint. That's gonna change EVERYTHING, except maybe products liability lol. He did not teach our class that way.

That torts class final was fairly straight forward identify as many torts as you can and tell me the arguments for and against. My civ pro final had A LOT (especially in the multiple choice) that was asking about stuff we never talked about and wasn't really lectured about. Yeah I know what she's getting at but it was very far removed from what was covered in class. Like I knew the rule, but this was asking to apply it on a very far outlier situation. Imagine for example trying to figure out jurisdiction in basically anything involving the intarweb and a corporation. So that's why E and Es are helpful, because it gives you preparation for those really hard, out there questions.

I also very rarely used commercial outlines. I generally got outlines from older students, used E and E for civ pro, and used some understanding series books. I've also heard good things about Chermirinsky. It's funny because some outlines have been passed down for so long, and everyone gets it through the magic of the internet, that the prof even knows about it and how everyone used it. Like there was a "trusts bible" (it might have been family law) that like almost everyone got by the end of the semester. Funny thing is supposedly it was partly wrong too.

Got my last grade. For manupod's benefit, I will put it in a spoiler tag:

Uh oh big law here you come. Hope your excited about mimosas/gossip/bmws and 70 hour work weeks!!

Wait, I cannot tell if you're serious or not. Your grades are good, so I would assume your reading comprehension is good enough that you're not actually misunderstanding what I said.

1. Overt bragging = awesome
2. Subtle bragging = gay

You do so much of number 2 it makes me puke. Just take your wiener out and wave it around.

Noted, and I'll (seriously) try not to do this in the future.

And yeah I understood what you meant. I'm just teasing you back.

sweet. obv i'm just giving you crap, too.

clearly i have some sort of issue spotting skills