Law A 502, Fall-Winter 2003
Civil Procedure I

Helpful Hints for Confused Law Students

From the Prof

This page contains "handouts" designed to help you 1) master the basic skills you need to succeed in law school and 2) make sense of your law school experience. The first two sections address the basic skills of reading statutes and reading cases. You will begin working on those skills immediately. You won't need to begin outlining until later in the quarter. The "making sense of your experience" items are also assigned later on.

Reading Statutes

You're expected to absorb lots of information in Civil Procedure, and your other courses. In order to do that effectively, you need to "learn how to learn" law. One step in that process is learning how to read the materials you're assigned. We'll work on learning how to read statutes in two stages, with the help of the following handouts.

How to Read a Statute: The Cardinal Rules
How to Read a Statute: MAP It!

Reading Cases

We'll work on learning how to read cases in three stages, again with the help of handouts.

How to Brief a Civil Procedure Case: 1st Steps
How to Brief a Civil Procedure Case: Beyond the Basics
How to Brief a Civil Procedure Case: The Gold Standard

Sample Beyond the Basics Brief - Mas v. Perry
Sample Shaffer v. Heitner Brief
Sample BK Gold Standard Brief

Outlining

You won't begin outlining until you have completed the first two book chapters we study, but the handouts below provide different approaches to outlining the rules you learn, and background for our optional class on outlining. Paula Lustbader, Director of the Academic Resource Center at Seattle University Law School, and a former civil procedure student of mine, has generously shared two guides to outlining. The first is shorter and contains an example for civil procedure concerning subject matter jurisdiction. I expect that it will be sufficient for your purposes.
Outlining with civil procedure example.

If you think you need a more detailed discussion of outlining try this second, more detailed version. It is aimed at first year students who have a different course schedule from the one you are taking. Thus, criminal law is used for the examples.
Longer explanation of outlining.

Here's a handout for our optional class on outlining.

You Mean That's a Rule, Too?

Onde of the reasons law school is confusing is that many terms seem familiar but have technical meanings. In fact, some of them have multiple technical meanings. If you're not careful, as simple word like "rule" can cause major confusion.

You Mean That's a Rule, Too?

The Law School Experience

Another reason that law school is confusing is that we're trying to teach you many different things. You may avoid considerable frustration if you understand that. Here's my attempt to help you make sense of the various levels of learning in our class.

What You're Learning in Civil Procedure