Study Skills 7 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 nd 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 - 1 st weekend school is at 5pm on Friday 27 November – 29 November 2015  Study break Saturday 18 December 2015 – 10 January 2016  Weekend School - 2 nd 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 1 st 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 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!