by megbutlerlawlib

Ode to Study Aids

How do I study, let me count the ways?

I review my notes, summarize, restate

My future self I picture, earning As

How long to study, I can’t estimate!

Why are civil procedure, contracts, torts

So hard to wrap my tired brain around?

I ‘m desperate, overwhelm’d, out of sorts

I’m dragging, I’m flagging, in highlights drowned.

Stumped by lecture, black letter, check my text,

Questions, no answers! Help I cannot find?

Colleagues struggle too—we are all vexed

How to embed these concepts in my mind?

Law Library’s got my back, study aids

Connect, clarify, lifting up my grades

Seriously folks, we in the Law Library realizes that study aids are a useful tool in the effort to understand material that is presented through your textbook, lectures, and other assignments in your doctrinal courses.

To that end, we have an excellent collection of study aids that you can turn to if you need assistance or clarity as you seek to understand—or check your understanding—of concepts from class. Students often ask how to choose a good study aid.

Of course, in law school, the answer is usually “It depends.” It depends on what you’re looking for—do you need just a statement of the law? Do you want something that you can quiz yourself with? Are you looking to confirm that you’re outline structure of the relationship between concepts makes sense? Different study aids have different strengths. Many are based on books, but they also may be videos or even lessons like those CALI lessons you’ve heard so much about in class!

If you want help figuring out what options exist for a class you’re in, you can check out our Study Aid Finder. It’s organized so that study aids for required courses in your 1L or 2Lyears are pulled out separately, and study aids for other bar classes are included under recommended electives.

Remember that there are a variety of formats available to assist you. Have long drives in Atlanta and prefer to listen to an audio version? You can! Want to check a study aid at 3 in the morning without leaving the comfort of your home? You can!

If you’re looking for study aids for classes that fall out of the scope of regularly recommended bar classes, you will also find some study aid recommendations on the research guides for those subjects. Check out our federal tax research guide for an example! If you have questions about how to access study aids, our Introductory Guide for First Year Students is an excellent resource.

04.21.21

by Gerard Fowke

Helpful Study Aids for Spring Courses

As finals approach, study aids are again in high demand. It’s easy to see why. Although study aids make a poor replacement for casebooks and other required materials, they can be a tremendously helpful tool for exam-prep purposes. They provide concise and highly organized reviews of topics covered in the typical law school course on the subject. The best ones also give students some valuable practice for their analytical skills. But with so many study aids out there, featuring differing formats and uses and often featuring very stark differences in quality, how can you know you’re choosing the best one?

Let’s try to answer this question while looking at a few of the best study aids for this semester’s 1L offerings. We’ll talk about what makes them worthy and how you might use them. This will also give us a nice opportunity to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the various study aid formats and series you’ll encounter.

Examples & Explanations for Property (online/physical)

The E&E series provides an accessible course overview while also foregrounding the important skill of legal analysis. It does this by structuring the entire discussion around the titular examples, a format that proves to be especially well-suited for explaining future estates and other similarly knotty concepts from Property Law. Indeed, this title’s analysis of these hypotheticals evokes the common law methods of legal analysis at the heart of this core doctrinal course. This helps to make the supplement truly feel like an extension of the classroom discussion.

The Glannon Guide to Civil Procedure (online/physical)

The author’s CivPro E&E (online/physical) is an absolute classic, but don’t sleep on this one either. Glannon Guides have a similar focus on analysis and application, but here it’s in the form of multiple-choice questions. After each one, Professor Glannon patiently explains the right (and wrong) answers in conversational prose that helps demystify this oft-convoluted area of law. The overall format works especially well for the more FRCP-driven aspects of Civil Procedure.

Principles of Contract Law (Concise Hornbook Series) (online/physical)

If you’re chiefly after a bird’s eye view of the course, there are many study aids designed with just that in mind. However, in my experience, Nutshells, Short & Happy Guides, and the like don’t provide enough detail or nuance to be truly useful. They can help you learn basic concepts and doctrines quickly, but that’s about it.

The Concise Hornbook Series provides a nice (if less concise) alternative. Like other titles in the series, Principles of Contract Law provides an overview of the major course topics. However, it keeps many of the doctrinal subtleties intact. Believe me, those subtleties will come in quite handy when asked to apply those doctrines to a novel fact pattern on an exam.

Sum & Substance: Criminal Law (online)

Audio study aids like the Sum & Substance series are a convenient resource for busy law students. It’s easy to multitask with these, to simply put them on in the background during a commute or while housekeeping, and efficiently absorb a tidy little overview of one of your law school courses.

Here, Professor Dressler endeavors to be your “tour guide” for Criminal Law, splitting the lectures into a series of audio tracks that are mostly quite short and easy to digest. His overall presentation is a bit dry but always very clear. This study aid is also a solid choice because it makes a great companion for Dressler’s well-regarded hornbook, Understanding Criminal Law (physical).

Summing It Up

My overall advice is to choose study aids that emphasize analysis and application, such as the E&E series and the Glannon Guides. This ensures that you’re practicing the skills that you will be tested on in your exams. Even if you end up opting for a hornbook-style overview, consider supplementing it with some CALI lessons since the included quizzes provide a nice opportunity to test your grasp on the material. There are high-quality lessons covering many of the topics taught in CivPro, Contracts, Criminal Law, and Property.

Thanks to your tech fee funds, Study Aids are more accessible than ever, with most of the major series available for use online through the Wolters Kluwer and West Academic platforms. These resources try to recreate the format and the feel of their print counterparts, making them a breeze to use.

What are your favorite study aids? What do you look for when you’re trying to choose one to prep for an exam? Let us know in the comments!

06.23.11

by Terrance Manion

Going Back to CALI

Today is the first day of the CALI conference for Law School Computing. The conference is being hosted at Eckstein Hall, the new home to Marquette University’s Law School (which was designed by the same architects the College of Law worked with during the pre-design phase of our new building). I imagine as I type this law school technologists, librarians, faculty and administrators from around the U.S. are discussing law school technology on the shores of Lake Michigan while drinking beer, and eating sausages.

CALI (the Center for Computer-assisted Legal Instruction) is best known by law students for their library of interactive, computer-based lessons. The CALI library of lessons is a collection of over 851 lessons covering 33 legal education subject areas. They are interactive tutorials written by law faculty to supplement traditional law school instruction. The format of the exercises varies according to the authors’ objectives. The Georgia State Law librarians have authored several legal research lessons including:

Georgia Legal Research–Primary Source Material
Georgia Legal Research – Secondary Source Materials
Copyright and Trademark Legal Research
Mastering Looseleaf Publications
Forms of Federal Statutory Publication
Researching Federal Legislative History

Information on how to access CALI these and other lessons can be found here

Students may also know CALI for the awards they give out at the end of each semester. The CALI Excellence for the Future Award is given to the highest scoring student in each law school class at many law schools including Georgia State Law. Past award winners can be found here.

In addition to the more visible lessons and awards, CALI is engaged in a number of interesting and forward-looking initiatives to better facilitate the teaching of law. eLandell is a new model for law school casebooks, namely electronic casebooks that better lend themselves to ebook and iPad users. Classcaster is a blogging and podcasting solution to help faculty supplement their lectures. Free Law Reporter publishes nearly all appellate and supreme court opinions. We recommend that you explore all of CALI’s resources.

What you may not know is how involved Georgia State College of Law has been in CALI. As mentioned above Librarians have contributed significantly to the library of lessons. Technologist and librarians presented at CALI every year for as long as I can remember. This year Librarian Pam Brannon is presenting case management technology to better support faculty research. Prof. Patrick Wiseman currently serves on the CALI Board of Directors. Finally not one, but two Georgia State Law faculty members received the CALI Excellence in Service Award: Dean Nancy Johnson and Prof. Patrick Wiseman.

If you are interested in viewing this year’s sessions you can do so online or if you are interested in exploring what all CALI has to offer you can get the Georgia State Law activation code here.