Product Detail

Open Book: Succeeding on Exams From the First Day of Law School is accompanied by the Web site www.openbooklaw.com

Wolters Kluwer Law & Business adds an outstanding volume to its list of practical tools for law school success – a contemporary, accessible and complete guide to exam preparation by two leading scholars and teachers

Wolters Kluwer Law and Business is known for its essential guides for law school success. Now Open Book: Succeeding on Exams from the First Day of Law School offers today’s law students more than simple exam preparation. The authors, both award-winning teachers with a wealth of classroom experience, reveal what professors really look for in exam answers. By linking exam-taking to the actual practice of law, they explain what it means to “think like a lawyer” in an exam setting, and how to get the most out of classes. Open Book also showcases a distinctive central pedagogy, “the pinball method of exam-taking,” and provides detailed examples and a wealth of concrete exam-taking techniques. Initial reviewers―including professors teaching core 1L classes, writing instructors and law school administrators―have been unanimous and enthusiastic in their praise. Numerous student reviewers have likewise remarked that it changed their study habits and their entire outlook on law school. With straightforward prose, memorable, and often humorous illustrations, and a unique insider’s perspective, Open Book: Succeeding on Exams from the First Day of Law School opens a clear path to law school success.

Open Book is available both in print and e-book formats. An accompanying Web site provides all print book and e-book purchasers with access to free sample outlines, class notes, and class briefs. In addition, the Web site offers, as paid content, actual law school exams in all of the standard 1L subjects (Civil Procedure, Constitutional Law, Contracts, Criminal Law, Property, and Torts) along with feedback memos prepared by the professors who wrote and administered these exams, and actual student answers annotated by the same professors.

Features of Open Book: Succeeding on Exams from the First Day of Law School

• High-profile, experienced authors
• Advice derived from years of hands-on experience teaching almost every standard 1L course
• Distinctive central pedagogy: “the pinball method” of exam-taking
• Explains not just the “how” but the “why” of law school exams— what makes law school exams unique
• Numerous detailed examples provide concrete demonstrations of exam-taking techniques
• Straightforward, often humorous style encourages engagement
• Key points accented with memorable illustrations
• Not just an exam prep book; guidance on getting the most out of classes and law school
• Extensive developmental reviews from 1L professors, writing instructors, and law school administrators, unanimously stellar
• Current law students reported the manuscript changed study habits and outlook on law schoo
• Free content: sample outlines, class notes, case briefs
• Paid content: actual exams, real student answers annotated, feedback memos from professors

Testimonial:

Open book is a helpful resource for every law student. I received the book as a 1L and it provided an overview of what to expect in the first year and beyond. it focuses on how to succeed in law school as well as how to relax and actually enjoy learning. I think that we all come to law school for the same fundamental reason: to learn the law. However, sometimes we get so bogged down in the class competition and studying for the exams that we forget to enjoy the whole experience. This book has a definite calming effect and is a short, concise and an interesting read. I recommend it to all 1Ls as a good jump on the first semester.

- Whitney C., IUPUI

Preface

How to Use This Book

Part I: Understanding the Law School Essay Exam

Chapter 1: The What and Why of Exams

Chapter 2: The Pinball Method of Exam-Taking

Chapter 3: IRAC – A Framework for Analysis

Chapter 4: Issue-Spotting and Issue-Sorting

Chapter 5: Rules

Chapter 6: Application

Chapter 7: Conclusions

Part II: Beyond IRAC – How to Take Exams

Chapter 8: Make Your Lists; Check Them Twice: Scoring on IRAC Exams

Chapter 9: Strategies for Tackling Other Exam Formats

Chapter 10: Practice (Exams) Makes Perfect

Chapter 11: Exam Trouble – How to Avoid It, What to Do About It

Part III: Succeeding on Exams by Succeeding at Law School

Chapter 12: Outlining for Exam Success

Chapter 13: What’s Class Got to Do With It?

Afterword: The Zen of Law School

Barry Friedman

Education

J.D., Georgetown University Law Center, 1982
B.A., University of Chicago, 1978

Professor Friedman is one of the country's leading authorities on constitutional law and the federal courts. He is a prolific scholar, working at the intersections of law, politics and history. Friedman teaches a wide variety of courses including Constitutional Law, Federal Courts, and Criminal Procedure. He writes extensively about judicial review, constitutional law and theory, federal jurisdiction and judicial behavior. His scholarship appears regularly in the nation's top law and peer-edited reviews. He is the author of widely recognized The Will of the People: How Public Opinion Has Influenced the Supreme Court and Shaped the Meaning of the Constitution (Farrar, Strauss & Giroux, 2009), which examines the history of the relationship between popular opinion and the Supreme Court, from 1776 to the present. Professor Friedman is a frequent contributor to the nation's leading journals, both on-line and print. His work has appeared in The New York Times, Salon, The Los Angeles Times, Politico and The New Republic, among others. Professor Friedman is a frequent speaker at events of all sorts. Given the interdisciplinary nature of his work, Professor Friedman regularly appears at conferences in law, political science and history. He is a founder and co-convener of the “roughly biennial” Constitutional Theory Conference. He organizes many multi-disciplinary conferences, including one on Modeling Law, and another – done under the auspices of the American Constitution Society – on Reconstruction: America's Second Founding. He presents papers regularly at home and abroad. He has been a visiting scholar and lecturer at the Rockefeller Foundation Study and Conference Center in Bellagio, Italy, the Groupe d’Etudes et de Recherches sur law Justice Constitutionnelle Aix-en-Provence, Sciences-Po in Aix-en-Provence, and Hong Kong University. Professor Friedman regularly serves as a litigator or litigation consultant in a variety of matters in the federal and state courts. He has represented a wide range of clients, both public and private. Notably, he represents both civil liberties claimants and state and local governments. He has been active in the areas of reproductive rights, the jurisdictional allocation of cases between the federal and state courts, and the proper scope of the federal government's commerce power. He has filed a number of amicus briefs with the U.S. Supreme Court. Actively engaged in a range of important service activities, at NYU Professor Friedman created the Academic Careers Program and founded and is now co-director of the Furman Academic Program. Both programs are dedicated to preparing young scholars for academic careers. He recently completed a term as Vice Dean of New York University School of Law.

Publications

The Will of the People: How Public Opinion Has Influenced the Supreme Court and Shaped the Meaning of the Constitution (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2009

"Reconstructing Reconstruction: Some Problems for Originalists (and Everyone Else, Too)," 11 Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law 1201 (2009)

"Pulling Punches: Congressional Constraints on the Supreme Court's Constitutional Rulings, 1987-2000," 31 Legislative Studies Quarterly 533 (2006) (with Anna Harvey

"The Politics of Judicial Review," 84 Texas Law Review 257 (2005)

"Under the Law of Federal Jurisdiction: Allocating Cases between Federal and State Courts," 104 Columbia Law Review 1211 (2004)

Education
J.D. New York University
M.A. Princeton University
M. Phil. (Politics) Oxford University
B.A. Wesleyan University

Biography

John C.P. Goldberg, an expert in tort law, tort theory, and political philosophy, joined the Harvard Law School faculty in 2008. From 1995 until then, he was a faculty member of Vanderbilt Law School, where he served as Associate Dean for Research (2006-08). He is co-author of The Oxford Introductions to U.S. Law: Torts (2010) and Tort Law: Responsibilities and Redress (2d ed. 2008). He has also published dozens of articles and essays in scholarly journals. Goldberg has taught an unusually broad array of first-year and upper-level courses, and has received multiple teaching prizes. A member of the editorial board of Legal Theory and a senior editor of the Journal of Tort Law, he served in 2009 as Chair of the Torts and Compensation Systems Section of the Association of American Law Schools. After receiving his J.D. in 1991 from New York University School of Law, Goldberg clerked for Judge Jack Weinstein of the Eastern District of New York and for Justice Byron White. He earned his B.A. with high honors from the College of Social Studies, Wesleyan University. He also holds an M. Phil. in Politics from Oxford University and an M.A. in Politics from Princeton University. Before joining the Vanderbilt faculty, he briefly practiced law in Boston.

Representative Publications

Books

Tort Law: Responsibilities and Redress (Aspen Publishers, 2004) (with A. Sebok & B. Zipursky)

Articles
"Tort Law and Moral Luck," 92 Cornell L. Review (forthcoming 2007) (with Benjamin Zipursky)

"Two Conceptions of Tort Damages: Fair v. Full Compensation," 55 DePaul Law Review 435 (2006)

"What Nobody Knows," 104 Michigan Law Review 1461 (2006)

"Accidents of the Great Society," 64 Maryland Law Review 364 (2005) (with Benjamin Zipursky)

"The Constitutional Status of Tort Law: Due Process and the Right to a Law for the Redress of Wrongs," 115 Yale Law Journal 527 (2005)

"Tort Law for Federalists (and the Rest of Us): Private Law in Disguise," 28 Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy 3 (2004) (essay)

"Twentieth-Century Tort Theory," 91 Georgetown Law Journal 514 (2003)

"Unrealized Torts," 88 Virginia Law Review 1625 (2002) (with Benjamin Zipursky)
Presentations

"Ten Half-Truths About Tort Law," Monsanto Lecture (endowed lecture series addressing topics in tort law) to be delivered at Valparaiso University School of Law March 29, 2007 (forthcoming, Valparaiso Law Review)

View Professor Goldberg's SSRN page.

Author Biography (pdf)