COMMON 0L QUESTIONS books, study guides, E&Es, studying,etc Forum

[Ipsa Dixit]

What about the Emanuel for Property? I just bought it!!!

I don't use commercial outlines on account of I can get outlines for free from previous students. I only use the old outlines to fill in gaps in my own.

[bocifious]

Contracts - E&E
Civil Procedure - Friedenthal hornbook first semester, E&E second
Torts - Prosser
Criminal Law - E&E (I have the dressler book but haven't looked at it yet)
Con Law - Nowak/Rotunda hornbook
Property - Burke E&E (have the Burke casebook) + EFI nutshell (co-written by my prof)

I have most of the E&Es and hornbooks. I would say that you should check out your casebook/syllabus first. A lot of the supplements were clear winners after looking at the order we were going in and the cases we were going over.

[LawSchoolStrategies]

Without a doubt, the Gilbert's property outline was the single best study aid for any class I used all throughout law school. Maybe it just fit my professor perfectly, but it's got everything you need to do well on the exam. I know people that hardly ever went to class, but really studied the Gilbert's outline and did well in the class. Not saying that's what you should do, but I would strongly recommend this study aid for property. Just my opinion. Good luck this semester.

[crystalhawkeye]

First of all, bocifious, your avatar is amazing. And hilarious.
Second, and this may be showing my lack of experience, are there different E&E or Hornbooks that you should buy depending on what school you attend? I'm over a year away from even starting but I'm trying to get an idea of what I'll need. I know casebooks change, but do E&Es or HBs?

[LawSchoolStrategies]

Crystalhawkeye,

Sure there are differnet study aids that are more suited for particular professors, but generally they are pretty generally applicable. I would ask prior students about your professor and what study aid they used. By the end of every class I took in my first year, a consensus always seemed to emerge on what study aid people thought was the best. For example, everybody was loving on Chemerinsky for Constitutional Law. So you should look into that. It also depends on your studying style, so you also need to take that into consideration.

Good luck.

[crystalhawkeye]

Thanks a bunch!

[Mrkottonmouth]

Heh, forgive my naivety, but what does E&E stand for?

[lishi]

What does everyone recommend for Criminal Law. I see that people have stated Criminal Procedure books, but isn't that a separate course??

[TTT-LS]

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[06072010]

I really liked Dressler's Understanding Criminal Law.

[mumbling2myself]

E&E stands for examples and explanations. They are NOT the be all end all people make them out to be. Some are good (Civ Pro), others suck (Contracts, apparently). I liked the Property E&E last year, but others said they didn't (mumbling2myself). Nobody buys the conlaw E&E because Chemerinsky's treatise is 1000x better (though also considerably longer).

To be clear, I loved my property E&E. I was referring to the idea of using it a prep-reading over the summer. I don't think it offers the same kind of hand-holding as the torts/civ pro/crim books, which I think are far more accessible for that kind of thing if you really insist on doing it.

[Alexandria]

Contracts: Chirelstein (and the hornbook my prof wrote. If your professor wrote a book on the subject or part of the subject, buy the book.)
Con Law: Chemerinsky
Civ Pro: E&E
Crim: Dressler
Torts and Property: Didn't find anything earth-shattering for these. Used Gilbert's, E&E, C&I, etc.

[edmoser]

One tip I have that relates to pretty much all study guides is that it won't hurt to get an edition old version (i.e. the 2d version instead of most recent 3d). If you look on amazon, there's a little box just under the prices for the most recent versions which you can click on to bring up a list of older edition books. The type of law you learn in 1L doesn't change after a couple years; the publisher just wants to bring in more money for a slight variation of the same material. I'm sure a lot of you either worked before going to law school or have rich parents so you don't mind buying all new, but if you're like me this is a good way to pick up various study guides w/o having to pick and choose which ones will fit into your budget.

[mumbling2myself]

One tip I have that relates to pretty much all study guides is that it won't hurt to get an edition old version (i.e. the 2d version instead of most recent 3d). If you look on amazon, there's a little box just under the prices for the most recent versions which you can click on to bring up a list of older edition books. The type of law you learn in 1L doesn't change after a couple years; the publisher just wants to bring in more money for a slight variation of the same material. I'm sure a lot of you either worked before going to law school or have rich parents so you don't mind buying all new, but if you're like me this is a good way to pick up various study guides w/o having to pick and choose which ones will fit into your budget.

For the most part this is true. Though there will be some changes (Civ Pro: Twombly; Con Law: Heller, and 2nd amendment generally), these changes will be incidental to the rest of the material and can be learned without a study guide.

[lishi]

This is prolly going to sound silly, but here goes..

Do we need/should we buy our own copy of frcp rules, the ABCs of UCC, or any other books like that??

[Alexandria]

This is prolly going to sound silly, but here goes..

Do we need/should we buy our own copy of frcp rules, the ABCs of UCC, or any other books like that??

You will probably have to have FRCP for Civ Pro. You might get a free copy from your Lexis rep like we did. We had to have a copy of Section 2 of the UCC for Contracts, but ours was a very UCC-heavy class due to it being our prof's area of expertise, and I'm not sure to what degree most Contracts classes focus on it.

[Ipsa Dixit]

What does everyone recommend for Criminal Law. I see that people have stated Criminal Procedure books, but isn't that a separate course??

The Sum & Substance CDs with Dressler

[mumbling2myself]

This is prolly going to sound silly, but here goes..

Do we need/should we buy our own copy of frcp rules, the ABCs of UCC, or any other books like that??

You will probably have to have FRCP for Civ Pro. You might get a free copy from your Lexis rep like we did. We had to have a copy of Section 2 of the UCC for Contracts, but ours was a very UCC-heavy class due to it being our prof's area of expertise, and I'm not sure to what degree most Contracts classes focus on it.

Depending on your prof, and how policy based the course is, you may need a copy of the FRCP with the rules notes (the ones our wexis reps handed out didn't have this). As for the UCC, our casebook provided UCC exerpts, which was all our prof required.

The bottom line: don't bother buying either until you've been given a list of course materials.

[lishi]

Ok more questions....

What's the real difference between the Civ Pro: E&E (LinkRemoved) and the Glannon Guide for Civ Pro??? I see they are both written by the same person, so what does one have that the other doesn't??

The only difference I see is that the Glannon Guide is multiple choice, and the E&E is more reading.

[TTT-LS]

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[lishi]

I don't know wtf the "Glannon Guide" is. Everyone had the E&E, in my experience -- so I think when you hear 2Ls/3Ls casually refer to "Glannon," they mean the latter. I certainly found it useful.

Oh. Just because on the first page of this thread people talk about how the Glannon Guide is better than the EE. Maybe I was confused.

[Alexandria]

Yeah, they really are two separate books, both written by Glannnon. Everyone I know used the E&E... I have no idea how the Glannon Guide is.

[orangeswarm]

This is prolly going to sound silly, but here goes..

Do we need/should we buy our own copy of frcp rules, the ABCs of UCC, or any other books like that??
This is prolly going to sound silly, but here goes..

Do we need/should we buy our own copy of frcp rules, the ABCs of UCC, or any other books like that??

FRCP
http://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/frcp/

UCC
http://www.law.cornell.edu/ucc/ucc.table.html

[scoop]

Contracts everyone at my school had CASENOTES- which was keyed to their book. Never had to open the text book.

Property- nothing too good. I just used crunch time to study for the final and it helped a lot.

Civ Pro- E and E's and commercial outlines were good here.

Crim Law- Dressler (was okay)

Torts- Mastering Torts was great!

[lishi]

Anyone who mentioned the Glannon Guide for Civ Pro want to say why??