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In school, law professors may give you hypotheticals or hypos, which are hypothetical situations to help explain the law in class. Your law exams will also include quizzes to test your knowledge and understanding of legal concepts.
Students may have to wait until their outlines are finished to work on the hypos, but they should consider doing one daily.
Don Young, an assistant clinical professor at the University of Idaho College of Law, said a day of hypo work can help you build a giant analytical muscle. She gives three reasons why you should do this every day.
You need experience
Young recounts the story of a student who met with her about an ungraded midterm. He appeared to be a model student, did the readings, took good notes, started his outlines early and studied hard. When he got to the midterms and was presented with a hypothetical question, he froze. He finally gathered himself and typed, satisfied with his long response. When he got his midterm grade, he was shocked to see that he had failed.
The professor commented, “Your answer makes no sense. You did not respond to the question. “
Young explained that the student was unprepared because he did not have the experience to organize his thoughts with hypothetical questions. The experience was very new to him.
You start to see patterns
The more hypos or practice exams you work on, Young said, the more prepared you will be for the exams because of the patterns you’ll find in that repetition.
““For example, your professor will probably test negligence or intentional tort,” Young said. “Once you’ve seen a few hypos/practice exams that touch on these torts, you’ll be better equipped to recognize common legal issues when they show up on the exam.”
They also say that by hypothesizing more, you can identify unusual patterns. Your professor can test you one exception after another, and if you see it on an old exam, it’s likely to come up again.
You have to train yourself
In law school, you don’t spend class time learning how to answer questions on your final exam. You will spend most of your time in class analyzing cases. So practicing yourself is important.
“It’s a new skill,” Young said. “If you just read and re-read your notes and read your outline you won’t develop it … You can’t rely on the reading period or the end of the semester to prepare for exams. Cramming doesn’t work in law school. Instead, you need the entire semester to prepare for the exams.
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