Letters to a law student by Nicholas J McBride

During the school term break, I read a number of books on how to study for law. One which seem particularly helpful was this book titled Letters to a Law Student by Nicholas J McBride. It advises that one should adopt a question and answer approach to studying for law. I have excerpted the list of questions that were featured in the book as being standard or example questions that should or could be asked when approaching various law materials.

General approach

Particular subject

·         What is this subject about?

·         Why is it important to know about it?

Particular area of law

·         Why does this are of law exist?

·         Who is affected by this are of law?

·         How are they affected?

·         Who benefits from this area of law?

·         How do they benefit?

·         Where does this area of law come from- the legislature? The judges? Or a mixture of both?

·         What effect has that had on this area of law?

·         Are there any basic principles or ideas that underlie this area of law?

·         Could this area of the law be profitable reformed?

Particular legal rule

·         Is this rule actually part of English/Singapore law?

·         How does this rule apply in practice

·         Are there any exceptions to it?

·         Is it inconsistent with any other rules?

Textbook

Example questions to ask for a chapter from a constitutional law textbook on the ‘rule of law’

·         What is the rule of law?

·         Why is it important?

·         What do people think is required by the rule of law?

·         Why do people disagree about this?

·         Are there any ‘core’ elements of the rule of law that everyone can agree are part of the rule of law?

·         What elements of the UK constitution can be said to be consistent with/inconsistent with the rule of law?

Example questions to ask from a tort law textbook on liability for omissions

·         What is an omission?

·         What is the general rule governing liability for omissions?

·         What are the exceptions to this rule?

·         What values underlie this area of the law?

·         Should this area of the law be reformed?

Case

·         What were the facts of this case?

·         What was the result?

·         Why was the case decided the way it was?

·         Rule-based

·         Principle-based

·         Policy-based

·         Fairness/justice

·         opaque

·         Does the case contain any interesting dicta?

·         How the law should be reformed

·         Why the law should not be reformed in a certain way

·         How the law might develop in the future

·         What the law might say in certain hypothetical situations that might become the focus of a case (or a problem question in an exam) in the future

·         Limits on the rule or principle on which the judges are basing their decision in this case

·         How another case with slightly different facts from the one at hand might have been decided

·         Useful/interesting criticisms/ justifications of the law as it stands at the moment.

·         What principles underlie the law

·         Why the law has developed in the way it has

·         Why the decision in a particular case that was decided in the past was fundamentally flawed with the result that the case should be ignored

·         Why a particular case that was decided in the past is extremely important

·         Was the case decided correctly?

·         Are there any flaws in the judges’ reasons for their decision, or arguments they simply failed to consider?

·         Is their decision, and their reasons for that decision, consistent with other judgments I’ve read?

·         Does the decision in the case, or the judges’ reasons for that decision, start us down the slippery slope to some disastrous destination?

·         Do the judges’ reasons for their decision make the law unacceptable uncertain?

Remembering cases

·         Politics

·         Libertarianism

·         Utilitarianism

·         Liberalism (right wing)

·         Liberalism(left wing)

·         Pergectionism

·         Communitarianism

·         Principle/policy

·         Line of descent

·         Form/substance

Statutes

·         Why was this section enacted?

·         How does this section apply in concrete situations?

·         Why does this section o as far as it does?

·         Why doesn’t this section go further than it does?

·         Is this section in need of reform?

Article

First run-through

·         What is this article basically saying?

·         What arguments are being made in favour of the article’s basic point?

·         What are the arguments against the article’s basic point, and how does the author dismiss them?

·         What do I think of the author’s arguments?

Second run-through

·         (good) accounts of what happened in the case and how it was decided

·         Explanations why the case was decided the way it was

·         Criticisms of the decision in that case, or the way it was decided