LearnLeo Forum

[butterflyintraining]

I have searched and see some dated remarks and comments about LearnLeo. But I was wondering if any of you have used LearnLeo for case brief / highlighting / notes.

If you have used it or have some direct experience, I'm interested to know
- if it saves time using this for creating the case briefs
- if used in conjunction with the case book, text book, etc, if it was helpful
- do professors have any concerns with use or discourage it in any way

This is my first post so please be gentle if I am asking the wrong question or in the wrong way. Feel free to let me know if I should think about it differently. Thank you all in advance.

[cavalier1138]

I never used it, because it smelled like a scam.

Here's the deal with any service that offers you a shortcut for class prep: they don't do anything useful. The only thing those services do is prepare you to give a really surface-level answer if the professor calls on you. Unfortunately, your grade isn't going to be based on whether you were able to survive a cold call without looking like you didn't do the reading. It's going to be based on your ability to read through an unfamiliar situation, isolate the most relevant facts, and apply the law to those facts. If you don't get used to reading cases, you're not going to be well positioned to do that.

Being prepared for class is useful in that it helps you better understand what the professor is talking about and start to learn what that professor is going to be looking for on their exam. Using a service like LearnLeo doesn't help you with that.

[butterflyintraining]

Thank you Cavelier. Your experience and opinion is valuable because I can tell you've been here for several years.

I understood LearnLeo to simply be the same case in an online form where you could highlight and make your own notes and then print (if needed) the summary of your own remarks.

I wasn't thinking of the LearnLeo as providing me a summary of the case but rather an electronic tool to use just as I would a book. Perhaps I misunderstood. If the point of LearnLeo is that it provides me its own case brief or summary then I agree that isn't helpful because learning how to read and understand cases is the entire point of the course work - and quality education is my goal.

[cavalier1138]

I understood LearnLeo to simply be the same case in an online form where you could highlight and make your own notes and then print (if needed) the summary of your own remarks.

That sounds slightly different than the Quimbee-esque version I recall being marketed to 1Ls when I started.

But then it's definitely not worth it. Cases in casebooks are edited to hell and back. It's unlikely that LearnLeo is going to have a different version of each case based on the book being used. It's also not going to include any of the squib cases or follow-up notes, so I don't see any advantage to using it if you have a casebook.

And all the other features are meaningless, especially in the age of digital casebooks. You should already be briefing your cases and (if this helps you) highlighting and making notes.