Write a Law School Exam, Not an Undergraduate Essay

In the introduction to the second edition of his concise and handy book, Writing Essay Exams to Succeed Not Just to Survive, author John C. Dernback points out that a law school essay exam is not like a standard undergraduate liberal arts essay exam.

I sure wish I would have known that myself when I took my first-year contracts exam in law school. When I stopped in to see my professor after grades were released, she commented that my exam read like an art history exam! Ironically, I had taken quite a number of art history classes in undergrad, and  unfortunately for my contracts grade I still wrote like I was taking one.

It’s not hard to avoid making this same mistake in law school if you prepare yourself to take law school exams. Writing Essay Exams to Succeed Not Just to Survive is one of the many books that the Law Library offers that can help you write a law school exam instead of an undergraduate essay. This book and many others are available for check out in room AO66 of the Law Library.