Ray's J.D. (Juris Doctor)

1L: Thoughts on Materials

There are REQUIRED materials for the program. There is also other material that you might want to acquire. These are my personal opinions in regard to the materials for my 1L year at NWCULaw.

Case Books:

Casebooks are large, pricey and have nearly zero value if you try to sell them back.

That said, for both 1L and 2L courses, I had purchased new books (I don't like used books). I find very little value in the Casebooks though and I like Gilbert's Law Summary's and Case Brief Books along with using the Internet to search case details.

I will not be purchasing any other casebooks for the study of law, they are a waste of money.

Black's Law Dictionary:

I like Black's Law Dictionary and I use it a lot when I am searching for terms and definitions for a variety of projects I am working on (Definition Sheets).

I use the Internet and Black's Law Dictionary a lot for this stuff. Here is the link for Blacks Law Dictionary:

Black's Law Dictionary

Commercial Outlines:

I do not like the Emanuel's Outlines, they are packed with text, do not get to the point clearly enough - or nearly fast enough - and are thus wasteful of my time.

Once I found Gilbert's Law Summary's, I decided to only buy those. In fact, I purchased them for the 1L subjects so that I can really go through the material in a effective and efficient manner.

Here are the links to the Gilbert's Law Summary's that I use.

Gilbert's Torts
Gilbert's Contracts
Gilbert's Criminal Law

Fleming Home Study Survival Kit:

I like Fleming's materials and I would recommend using them. His MCQ book is very close to the MCQ's that you will actually see on the FYLSX MCQ's. The audio courses are excellent and you should return the essays for professional review to get an idea of how you might do on the actual FYLSX.

Additional Material:

Stuff that you will find helpful.

Siegel's Books:

These have the multiple choice questions (MCQ's) that most closely match the design and logic of the MCQ's you will see on the ACTUAL First Year Law Students' Examination... there are only 299 MCQ's between the three books - you need to memorize all of them and the INSTRUCTIONS from the back of the MCQ Exam Booklet... I publish those on the FYLSX Prep Page! You ALSO need to make sure that the instructions that I publish are IDENTICAL to the ones you see on YOUR exam on exam day!!! These instructions CHANGE how you would reasonably answer the MCQ... making a normally correct answer dead wrong!

Siegel's Torts
Siegel's Contracts
Siegel's Criminal Law

Clancey's Outlaws:

The Clancey's Outlaws are included in the program!

Clancey's Outlaws give you definitions to study. I might recommend studying them - and you will be working with them, so you will go over them one time. They are not going to be good for exam ready definitions of issues though.

Honestly, they are too clunky for rapid use on the exams. They will help you in at least one of the projects though.

OK, I'll tell you... the Clancey's Outlaws ARE the Vocabulary Assignment. The school gives you a definition - good or bad, it is one, and we need to start somewhere! On the Vocabulary Assignment, we are supposed to give an EXAMPLE where we can, or an additional NEW explanation of the term... NOT a new definition! Some students have made new definitions, without giving an example or explanation, the assignment has been getting kicked back to "redo" it... you do not have that kind of time, do it right the first time.

Trust me, I have NEVER had anything kicked back to me!

California Bar Website:

When you sign up with NWCULaw, you also have to register as a first year law student with the California Bar.

On their website, they have old FYLSX (and full Bar) essay exams... these are free. This is THE LINK that takes you directly to the bottom of the page (where the FYLSX Exams are):

http://admissions.calbar.ca.gov/Examinations/PastExams.aspx#fyexqu

Above is the "cut and paste" version if the hyper link does not work for you.

Fleming gives you a LOT of old FYLSX questions and answers with scores. The California Bar does not give you the score, but the sample answers PASSED. No matter what a passing score is, passing is passing, and at the end of the day, that is all that matters!

Use the old FYLSX Exams in Fleming's Materials and the old FYLSX ones from the California Bar website if you need more.

I want to mention it here... the PASSING exams are NOT what would be called MODEL answers! This is important in that you will see errors, admissions, and just silly things in them... but they passed, and we can learn from those who went before us!