What law school exams are like

I never write much about law school exams, other than that they make my brains turn to mush, but it occurs to me that the whole process is rather foreign to some people and that most people don't know what they're like. Almost all law school exams are essays. Each essay usually presents a fact pattern, a story of some series of events or recently enacted legislation. A student must then identify all of the pertinent legal issues, usually focusing on the issues covered in the class, and explain what is the likely result if the issue was brought to trial. Essentially, a law school exam is like an undergraduate essay exam, but written so broadly that it is virtually impossible to adequately identify and discuss all of the relevant issues. This is complicated by the fact that virtually all fact patterns in exams are close cases or issues that have not yet been resolved in the courts, forcing every student to predict the possible result along multiple approaches or results. It is not unusual for each question to have an answer of a couple thousand words, and there are usually three or four such questions on an exam. The only thing a law student can do is know the material as well as possible so she doesn't have to waste any time and spend 3 or 4 hours madly typing.

Exams at Vanderbilt take two weeks. The result is a 3-week period, starting in the last week of class, during which almost every student in the school spends long hours in the library or study rooms. The inevitable result is an enormous amount of stress and tension -- it is almost palpable when you walk through the library. The stress isn't helped by the fact that law school grades, with few exceptions, are determined exclusively by the grade on the final exam.

The customary method of exam preparation in law school is outlining. During this process, a student takes her notes for each course and distills them down to a workable document that includes the most important elements of the class. Some students have hundreds of pages of notes for a given class, and outlines can exceed 50 pages -- long enough to require a table of contents just for the outline itself. Most professors allow students to bring casebooks, statutory supplements, notes, and outlines into the exam, although there are a few sadistic professors that have closed-book exams.

Almost everyone at law school nowadays takes exams on a computer. We download and install the exam software that, when initialized, locks the student out of any other function on the computer so as to prevent cheating. The exam software presents a very simple typing screen and not much else. (We were all thrilled a couple years ago when they introduced spell checking!) At the end of the exam the content is stored electronically on a server or on a USB drive. There are occasionally a few terrified students with technical problems, but they are usually taken care of.

Exams are usually taken in the larger classrooms. Once the exam proctor starts the exam, up to 150 students open their exam packets in a simultaneously flurry. There is a period of silence while the students read the exam, but that silence is eventually broken by the first "tak-tak-tak" sounds on a keyboard. Soon, more people join in, until the entire room is filled with the quiet but persistent drum roll of fingers on keyboards. Sometimes people finish before time is called, but most people continue typing until the bitter end. At this point there isn't much tension or stress -- just the frantic typing. Several hours fly by practically before you can blink. After time is called, the exam packets must be turned in within 60 seconds, which results in a race to the front of the room if a lot of people were typing until the end. Then the room is filled with nervous laughter and relief, and students mentally shift gears to prepare for their next exam.

Exams periods are offered each morning and afternoon for two weeks. Some slots are reserved for certain classes, while other periods are open for students to take any unscheduled exam. Each day before 8 am and 12 pm there is a cycle of nervous students cramming in the library and study areas, after which they crowd into the exam rooms and the tension subsides in the rest of the school until the next cycle begins. These cycles continue until exams are finally finished, and the students scatter to their various parents' houses or vacations or jobs until they have to return the next semester.

Law school is kind of it's own peculiar world sometimes. I'm almost done with my fifth cycle of law school exams, with only one left, and I'll be glad to move on. But since lawyers will have to deal with deadlines and trial dates for the rest of their life, there is some method to the pressure-cooker environment in law school. We've had a few emotional breakdowns at school, but not too many. Most of us will emerge tougher and wiser, and a perhaps a little more jaded, which is generally good preparation for the practice of law.