Your Weekly Dose of S.O.U.N.D. Advice, 8.25.09

As you practice law school essays, diagram your issues by:

1. deconstructing the question and reading it one sentence at a time;

2. spotting all of the issues within each sentence;

3. spotting the facts or “buzz words” that go to each issue you’ve spotted;

4. and then reconstructing the question based on the issues—diagramming each issue, and including under it the facts that dealt with that issue in the question.

Remember that your professors won’t necessarily present each fact in chronological order; they won’t necessarily present each issue in the order on which they’d like you to discuss them. By deconstructing and then reconstructing the question and paying attention to which facts and “buzz words” go with each issue, you can draw up an organized diagram to help you better organize your thoughts and points.

S.O.U.N.D. Advice for Law School, 7.6.09

S.O.U.N.D. Advice on Law School Essay Exams:

Recognize that analysis is perhaps the most important component of each paragraph on each essay that you'll write in law school. Though reaching the correct conclusion on an issue may help you pick up points, so will stating and thoroughly analyzing the correct issue and the applicable principles of law—even if you didn’t reach the right answer.

S.O.U.N.D. Advice for Law School, 6.22.09

S.O.U.N.D. Advice on Practicing Law School Essay Exams:

As you practice essays and continue honing your writing skills, developing reverse outlines can serve as a helpful exercise. Put simply, a reverse outline is prepared after the fact: after you’ve written an essay, you go back and outline the essay you’ve written, focusing on your writing one sentence and one paragraph at a time. Reverse outlines allow you deconstruct and then re-engineer your answers, and they help you pinpoint where your essays are disorganized or unclear. For example, you may see places where you repeat yourself unnecessarily; places where you leave out pertinent information; and places where a sentence or even an entire paragraph appear to be out-of-place.

S.O.U.N.D. Advice for Law School, 6.15.09

S.O.U.N.D. Advice on Civil Procedure Questions:

Remember the five-part test for injunctions. When analyzing whether an injunction should be granted, the court looks at the following five factors:
(1) whether there is an adequate remedy at law (meaning whether money damages would be sufficient to make the plaintiff “whole”);
(2) whether the plaintiff is likely to succeed on the merits of the case;
(3) whether there is an immediate and irreparable injury being suffered;
(4) whether the balance of the harms tip in favor of granting the injunction; and
(5) whether public policy considerations favor granting the injunction.

S.O.U.N.D. Advice for Law School, 5.25.09

S.O.U.N.D. Advice on Addressing a Respondeat Superior Issue on a Torts Exam:

When you’re addressing a respondeat superior issue, remember that the employer’s potential liability does not mean that there isn’t a potential cause of action against the employee in negligence—there is. An agent is always liable his or her own actions, and any potential respondeat superior claims spring from those actions. So, you should discuss both potential claims in your essay answer:

· begin by addressing the employee’s underlying negligence,
· then address the employer’s potential liability under the respondeat superior doctrine.

Note, of course, that if there is no negligence by the employee, then there is no claim under respondeat superior against the employer.

Do you need to repeat yourself by listing the elements of negligence when discussing both potential issues? Probably not. If you’ve already addressed all four elements of negligence in detail in your discussion of the employee’s liability, there is no need to do the same when discussing the employer’s liability in the same essay; rather, quickly apply the law to the facts as it applies to the employer, and then conclude. Note, though, that you shouldn’t move on to an entirely new essay question and refer to your discussion of negligence in an earlier question— your knowledge of the law must come across on all applicable principles of law in every single essay you write.

S.O.U.N.D. Advice for Law School, 4.27.09

S.O.U.N.D. Advice on Legal Writing:


Avoid “legalese” and strive to use shorter words and phrases in place of unnecessarily long ones. Also use action verbs and the active voice, which will make your writing appear stronger and more concise. In many cases, one precise word can express your meaning just as well as a lengthy term. For example:

“because” means the same as “due to the fact that;”
“except” is the same as “with the exception that;”
“determined” means the same as “made a determination that;”
“until such time as” is the same as “until.”

Simpler legal writing not only makes you sound more sophisticated, but also helps you save precious seconds when writing law school exams.