LEEWS
LEEWS The Good and the Bad
We Learned About LEEWS From Planet Law School
We now rate Fleming’s and MP3 Exam Writing as far superior to LEEWS methodologies (see updates below)
Planet Law School introduced us to the LEEWS methods for the first time as we read about LEEWS in Planet Law School. We purchased the materials and sat through a lecture. Overall we rate the course as informative but lacking on many fronts and issues. We do have reservations about the usage of some of the LEEWS exam writing methods and we have serious reservations about the course because they refused to verify their results to Planet Law School, LEEWS’ main cheerleader.
First, LEEWS and Planet Law School are practically kissing cousins related to the issue of how class relates to exams. Our advice is that you need to brief the entire case and not some edited version in the casebook. While we agree with LEEWS that case briefing is not the sole way to prepare for law school exams we believe strongly that you must read and brief cases in order to understand the application of the law. LEEWS has good advice about the relevance of much of the class discussions and they have good advice relevant to preparation for class.
Second, much of the advice given begs a large number of questions and gives a lot of theory and advice but no practical examples. LEEWS assumes that each student is different and each should have a custom outline of what they think is relevant that might be on their law school exams. We disagree strongly with LEEWS on that point.
Black Letter Law is the same for everyone, either you know it or you don’t. Much of the advice given related to memorization is too tertiary to be of any good. Much of the advice on the usage of commercial outlines misses the point about using resources and materials to prepare for law school exam writing. LEEWS relies totally on class discussions to flush out the outline that you will need but supplies no other relevant sources for getting information on black letter law nor any gauge for a student to know if they do in fact know the law. It is a known fact that most of the law is not covered in class.
LEEWS has some really bad advice for taking Law School Exams
Third, Some of the advice is of no use at all. LEEWS tells you to walk into the exam room and immediately begin to write down your course outline in a skeletal fashion.
That advice is just insane and plain stupid.
If you can write it down from memory why write it down just to look at it during the exam? Case in point, if you have an open book exam any time spent looking in the book will drive your grades much lower. Either you know the law or you don’t. Writing down the law in such a fashion when the exam just starts will help freak you out more than you already are and you may lose your cool and that is the worst thing that can happen. Discipline is the number one ally you have on any exam and you get discipline from practice, practice and more practice.
LEEWS also recommends that law students outline their exam answers which we agree with but not in the fashion LEEWS recommends.
At times we seriously began to wonder if LEEWS has ever actually taken a real exam. There are some good tips for day to day advice on how to prepare for a law school exam writing. What is also significant in a bad way is we haven’t seen any major changes in the product to improve the results for students. Much of the good advice LEEWS gives is advice that the MP3 Exam Writing lecture from Study Partner gave in the late 80’s and early 90’s. We see none of the clear indicia of good feedback mechanisms to enhance the product to produce better results and better methodologies. LEEWS is a broken record.
Fourth, LEEWS does not have a large enough bank of practice exams for you to learn the skill of law school exam writing. While the few exams they present are excellent there are not enough for you to practice.
Fifth, LEEWS gives many of his exam lectures too late in the school year to really be of a significant help. While any help is always productive, taking the lecture a month or less before actual exams will produce marginal results. You must take the LEEWS course as early as you can in September if at all possible. If that is not possible it will still produce a benefit but no where near as great as you really want.
With all this being said, LEEWS gives some useful advice in some areas of law school exam writing. But we find it strange that they would not take the opportunity to verify their results with their main cheerleader, Planet Law School. See that link on the left column. This course is informative but there are more comprehensive courses. See the MP3 Exam Writing link on the left.
Updates 2010: We rate the Fleming’s course and the MP3 Exam Writing materials as far superior to LEEWS methodologies.
Nothing has changed in LEEWS and in fact their live lectures are not as good as they were is a massive bell ringer for us. If LEEWS has not learned anything over the past 30 years to improve the methodologies, and has fundamentally not changed the scope of content of his materials and course we have to begin to question the quality of the materials.
Up until 2009 we felt that the course used to be ok. With no improvement to the materials, from what we can see with higher pricing, and no change in the methodologies we now have to rate the course as ok with a lot of reservations because there are much better courses for the money.
Don’t be Influenced! The vast majority of comments about the course are from attendees who took the course and filled out a questionnaire immediately after attendance. This rates a buyer beware from us. Most people who take feel good courses give positive feedback because they subconsciously desire to justify their expense of money. That is a standard and social proof trick that is used all the time and is a common method of Influence. LEEWS said it neither solicits nor pays for any endorsement but it nonetheless hands out the questionnaires after the course. That is solicitation.
We know for a fact that the vast majority of law students cannot properly write an answer to law school exams. We have also seen evidence of students who have taken LEEWS winding up in the Flemings and MP3 Exam Writing courses as well. We know that exam writing is a skill, which takes significant effort to learn. You cannot learn that skill a few weeks before an exam or from one seminar.
2019 Update. We hold the same opinion of LEEWS as we did in 2013. No substantive changes to improve the course materials keeps it falling behind. For instance the MP3 Exam Writing lecture just added a snail mail newsletter to better focus students during the academic year. They also updated their entire lecture and added significant new parts to help students break bad study habits to greatly improve learning efficiently. They realize that part of law school exam writing also involves fundamental issues of motivation and if that is taught as part of their course overall grades for law students go up.
LEEWS is same old same old.