From the Prof

Law school exams typically look quite different than undergraduate exams. Law school exams vary, but they tend to involve some combination of (1) reading a fact pattern and identifying the potential legal issues that are raised ("issue spotting"); (2) analysis in syllogism form, setting out the applicable rules and applying them to the facts (IRAC) that requires you to memorize or quickly retrieve relevant rules and (3) identifying ambiguities in the law or in the facts to make legal arguments. Thus, organizing and learning large bodies of legal rules is a prerequisite to doing well on an exam, but it is only the first step. The second step is apply the rules. It's often very useful to practice the application aspect of exam taking by doing old exams. To assist you with that, this page contains old exams from my last two civil procedure classes.

Case file for Fall '04 Exam

Fall '04 Exam

Fall '04 Model Answer

Fall '04 Exam Comments

For the Optional Class on Exam Taking on Friday, December 3, please read the following Practice Exam. If you have time to "take the exam", do so. Otherwise, please identify the major issues and subissues that you would want to discuss in your answer.
Practice Exam

Answering a Policy Question

Fall 2003

Fall '03 Exam & Answer:  Long question broken into smaller pieces

Pikel Casefile (pp. 1-4) Pikel Casefile (pp. 5-6, The Complaint)
Exam
Model Answer
Exam Grading Sheet

Fall 2002

Exam
Model Answer
Grading Sheet

Winter 2005

Exam, including Advance Information

Exam with Model Answer

Winter 2004

Advance Information for Exam
Information Sheet
Exam with Model Answer

Winter 2003

Exam - Winter Quarter 2003  Model Answer - Winter Quarter 2003  Grading Sheet - Winter Quarter 2003