Thread by @ojsalinas

#lawstudents (@unc_law & others): Make it easy for your prof to read & understand your #finalexam answer. Don't make your prof hunt for your rules or analysis in giant paragraphs of text. Make it easy for your prof to want to award you points on your answer.

Aim for clear & concise writing. Use short sentences, paragraph breaks, and headings/subheadings.

Your prof will be reading tons of essays answering the same question. With the rigid law school curve, you want to try to stand out from the pack. Or, at least, you want to be able to clearly show your prof what you know. And you know a lot!

But, often, transferring what you know onto a high-stakes final exam essay under tight time constraints can be more challenging than what you think. That's one of the reasons why you want to practice WRITING out exam answers under conditions similar to those of your final exam.

You don't want the first time you answer an essay question for your course to be your final exam. If your prof provides old exams, work on & review them! If you don't have access to old exams, pull some questions from a study aid. Some practice is better than no practice.

Students who struggle on final exams often haven't given themselves enough time to practice doing what they will be expected to do on their final exams.

You don't need that perfect outline to do well on a final exam answer. But you do need to practice issue spotting and writing out your legal analysis.

And, remember, legal analysis is not just providing a conclusion. MAKE SURE TO SUPPORT YOUR CONCLUSIONS WITH APPLICATION. Apply the law to the facts of the hypo for every issue you spot. Conclusory answers (conclusions w/out analysis) don’t get you a lot of points (if any).

How do you go about supporting your conclusions? The facts of the hypo are your friends! The facts are there to help nudge you (sometimes quite aggressively) to your analysis.

Don't presume the reader (or grader) of your essay knows anything. If you see a fact in the hypo that you believe is something you should talk about in your answer, then talk about it! Apply law to that fact. Each of those facts--even the really obvious ones--are point-getters.

And, with the rigid law school curve, you want to accumulate as many points as possible in your buckets.

You have worked hard this semester. You have learned a lot. You know a lot. And, no matter where your bucket ends up after grades are released, you are a success. Good luck with final exams!