Study Skills7 November 2015

Diploma in Law

Purpose

Following on from yesterday’s student perspectives session, the purpose of this seminar is to give you some suggestions on how to study for this course.

Succeeding in the law is about: Time management Organization Spotting the issue/or issues

Agenda

Key Dates

The Subject guide Review of the subject guide

Summarizing IRAC Structuring your exam summaries Summarizing a case Example Summary

Organization Time table

Questions

Key Dates

1. Key Dates

Legal Institutions

Assignment 1 – Ist Assignment is due at 11.59pm on Sun 13 December 2015 Commence assignment by Sat 21 November 2015 (allow 4 weekends to prepare)

Assignment 2 - 2nd Assignment is due at 11.59pm on Sunday 17 January 2016 Commence assignment by Sat 20 December 2015 (allow 4 weekends to prepare)

Weekend School - 1st weekend school is at 5pm on Friday 27 November – 29 November 2015

Study break Saturday 18 December 2015 – 10 January 2016

Weekend School - 2nd weekend school is at 5pm on Friday 29– Sunday 31 January 2016

EXAM - Legal Institutions Exam is at 8.45am on Thursday 8 March 2015

The exam is in 18 weeks! (ie 13 weeks of lectures, 3 week study leave, plus 2 weeks)

2. Subject Guide

2. Subject Guide (the bible)

The study guide is your bible. It is the main document your lecturer gives you, how relevant do you think it is?

Print it out, bind it and refer to it all the time.

Stick to the subject guide. By all means read other material, but only AFTER you have completed the prescribed readings and read the case extracts noted in the study guide.

Lectures - Refer to it during the lecture, and use the headings and case names in your notes

Readings – Refer to the subject guide as you do your readings, so you can see what parts of the text the lecturer focuses on.

Summaries – Base the structure your summaries on the subject guide

2. Subject Guide (the bible)

Lets take a look at the guide

Turn to topic 7 Statutory Interpretation. You better know this!

The subject guide says prescribed readings Part 3. This is 130 pages. At 20 pages an hour that is 6 hours reading.

What legislation and which sections does Susan say you need to know?

Which cases does Susan say you have to know?

3. Summaries

3. Structuring your summaries - IRAC

What is IRAC?

IRAC is the way you structure your answers to problem questions. Issue – What is/are the issues Rule – What is the relevant law?

What is the relevant legislation state the section and in your own words why you are referring to that section

What is the relevant case State the principle/test succinctly in your own words and cite the case.

Apply the law – to the facts in the question Conclusion

Use the subject guide to structure your Exam Summary See my example Exam Summary for Conveyancing

3. Summarizing a case

Keep your summaries brief. Think about how you need to use your summary in the exam.

Remember in the exam you only have 45 minutes to cover a question that may have 2-3 issues. You don’t have a lot of time to do the following: Issue - Write the issue/s Rule - Write the relevant law, legislation and cases Apply the law – you need to allow time after you have done the above to

apply the facts you have been given in the question to to the law Conclusion – write out your conclusion

In the exam you need to be able to write the principle of a case succinctly - in a couple of lines or a paragraph (so summarize accordingly)

Summarizing a case.

3. Summarizing a case

Example Summary

Turn to the case Merritt v Merritt in your materials handout.

Read the case.

What are the key facts? Summarize into a couple of lines – paragraph

What is the issue?

What is the relevant law or principle this case is the authority for

What was the outcome of the case?

3. Summarizing a case

Lets look at an example summary table for Merritt v Merritt

Conveyancing subject guide

My Conveyancing summary 1st cut

3. Summarizing a case

Please turn to Thornton v Shoe Lane Parking

What are the key facts

What is the issue

What is the relevant law (ratio) this case is the authority for?

What was the outcome?

3. Summarizing throughout the semester

Throughout the Semester

Attend the lectures and actively take notes (see the recording feature in your Office Word program)

Review and tidy up your notes within 48 hours of the lecture (using headings from the subject guide). This is the best way to memorize and lock in the content

Summarize the prescribed readings (text, legislation & case extract) in accordance with the subject guide headings. Settle the first cut of your notes for that lecture.

Summarize your summary and your notes for each lecture to 1- 1.5 pages maximum. This is your final exam summary.

Re read your notes before the next lecture and in the weeks before the exam.

4. Organization

4. Organization – Study Timetable

Create a weekly study timetable

Create an 19 week study plan (13 weeks of lectures, 3 week study break, plus 3 weeks (from the final lecture to the exam). List when you are going to study What you are going to study on what dates – key milestones

See sample study timetable uploaded to Webcampus

Allow 3 hours of study for each hour of lectures

Book leave with work to prepare for your exam (most students take a week off work to study for exams).

4. Study Plan

Study timetable Example Study Plan

4. Study Tips

Reading the text: When you read the a chapter in the text or a case extract. Just read it like you would read a novel (ie make yourself comfortable and read it carefully once). Have the subject guide open, and look for key cases principles in the text, highlight

these to focus on. Highlight key sections as you read Then, go back over what you have read and summarize it.

Reading case extracts– repeat the above process for each case .Read the case, summarize the key facts, issue, relevant law (ratio) and conclusion. Ask yourself what is the issue here. Work all your summaries back from that. If you can’t say “the issue in this case is …” then you don’t know it, so read it again.

Reading legislation – read carefully a couple of times. Read with the subject guide open Read relevant sections noted in the subject guide Highlight the elements. Summarize noting the elements, and put into your own words

4. Study Tips

Keep on top of your readings and summaries every week.

Don’t procrastinate – procrastination is the thief of time

Do a little bit of study a lot of the time

Don’t fall behind. Putting off reading and summarizing the text until week 12, means you may have to read and summarize 1000 – 1200 pages of text, in 1-2 weeks before the exam! If you do that on 2 subjects you have double to trouble.

What is the biggest tip about studying? JUST SIT DOWN AND START!

Best study tip – “The 10 Minute Rule” Whenever you don’t feel like studying - Try the 10 min rule. Go to your desk and sit

down. Tell yourself “ok I will study for 10 minutes and if I can’t do it after 10 minutes I will

stop.” Then just open the book and start studying 90% of the time you end up studying for an hour or more!

Questions

What questions do you have?

You can find the material from today, on Webcampus in the notes section of LI.

You can find past exam papers and examiners comments on the LPAB website.

Thank you for your time today!