1

Guide to Academic Success:

LMR

Prepared by: The Legal Academic Skills Centre, Melbourne Law School
Last revised: 2 February, 2018
 2

Contents
1. Introduction ................................................................................................................................... 5
2. What you need to know about the Legal Academic Skills Centre ................................................. 5
2.1. Booking a Consultation ........................................................................................................... 6
3. Early Academic Guidance for Legal Education (EAGLE) ................................................................. 7
4. Additional Resources...................................................................................................................... 7
5. Time Management ......................................................................................................................... 8
5.1. Planning do’s ........................................................................................................................... 9
5.2. Planning don'ts...................................................................................................................... 10
5.3. Helpful Tools for Staying on Track ........................................................................................ 10
6. Tips and Strategies for Reading in Law ........................................................................................ 11
6.1. 7 Initial Challenges ................................................................................................................ 12
6.2. Strategy #1: Read with Purpose ............................................................................................ 13
6.3. Strategy #2: Improve Your Reading Technique .................................................................... 14
6.4. Strategy #3: Ask Questions for a Close and Critical Reading ................................................ 16
7. Taking Notes ................................................................................................................................. 18
7.1. Notes on Materials................................................................................................................ 18
7.2. Notes on the Case Law .......................................................................................................... 18
7.3. Class notes ............................................................................................................................ 21
7.4. Strategy #1: Identify the Purpose of Your Notes .................................................................. 21
7.5. Strategy #2: Track the Basic Information .............................................................................. 22
7.6. Strategy #3: Record your critical engagement with the material ......................................... 22
7.7. Strategy #4: Transform the Information into Your Own Words/Format.............................. 23
7.8. Strategy #5: Non-textual forms of notes .............................................................................. 24
8. Hypothetical Problems and Answers ........................................................................................... 25
8.1. About HPAs ........................................................................................................................... 25
8.2. HPA skills ............................................................................................................................... 26
8.3. Techniques for Answering Hypothetical Problems ............................................................... 27
8.4. Techniques for Meeting Expectations .................................................................................. 32
9. Feedback Opportunities ............................................................................................................... 34
9.1. Feedback in Class .................................................................................................................. 35
9.2. Feedback on Optional Assignments ...................................................................................... 35
9.3. Feedback on Essays before you Submit ................................................................................ 35
9.4. Feedback on Practice Questions ........................................................................................... 36
9.5. Feedback on Assignments..................................................................................................... 36
3
 4

Dear Students - welcome to Melbourne Law School!

We know that law school can be exhilarating, challenging, entertaining, overwhelming,
inspiring and exhausting. You will need to develop new skills specific to the common law
legal system, and the expectations of a rigorous graduate program.
We want to ensure you have the skills and strategies to succeed because this is your degree.
Your family, friends and professional colleagues can provide you with helpful information
and, just as important, support - but only you can learn the material.
Please be reassured – developing the relevant skills to succeed in law school and in your
future careers is a process. The faculty, administration and LASC team are here to support
you through the various stages.
We hope this memo helps you transition to the new and challenging aspects of study at
Melbourne Law School.
Good luck!
Chantal, Bree, Kirsty, Aviva, and the EAGLE Facilitators
Acknowledgements:
This Guide is based first on the materials created for the Legal Academic Skills Centre
Website – special thanks to Dr Anthony McKosker, Associate Professor Wendy
Larcombe, and Professor Ian Malkin.
The Guide is also deeply informed by the work of the senior JD students who have
worked with the LASC: Tanita Northcott (graduating class of 2014); Kana Fujimori
(graduating class of 2014); Jackson MacLeod (Class of 2015); and Jacob Debets (Class
of 2017).
 5

1. Introduction
Law school will require, and is an opportunity to develop, new professional skills. No one
arrives at law school with all the skills and knowledge required for success. Whatever your
previous degree or professional experience, law school will be a challenge.
This memo includes advice that is specific to your studies and the program at Melbourne
Law School – we hope it helps you to set yourself up to succeed.
Before you start to read this chapter, we would like you to do two things.
1) Self-enrol in the LASC LMS Community. You will find the full version of the Guide to
Academic Success, PPT slides and handouts from the LASC workshops, and
annotated exams and essays. These resources will be helpful at specific moments of
your degree all the way through to graduation.
Log in to the LMS

There are tabs at the top of the screen. Click on the tab labelled
‘Communities’.
Put the word ‘legal’ in the community search field/box.
The LASC community will come up (COM 01278).
Put your cursor over COM 01278 and then click on ‘enrol’.
Click on submit (you might need to scroll down to see the submit button).
You are enrolled.

2) Bookmark the Success at Melbourne Law School blog where senior JD students
publish advice directly relevant to your studies – these posts will be helpful
throughout your degree: www.successatmls.com.

2. What you need to know about the Legal Academic Skills Centre

The Legal Academic Skills Centre (LASC) delivers workshops on a variety of skills relevant to
the study and practice of law, provides feedback on writing tasks, and runs individual
consultations on research, writing and academic skills.
Information on the workshops planned for 2018 here:
http://law.unimelb.edu.au/students/lasc/workshops/jd
 6

2.1. Booking a Consultation

Chantal, Bree, and Kirsty are available for individual consultations in their areas of expertise.

Chantal Morton: JD, MLM and RHD students - legal writing and academic skills
Bree Williams: JD – legal writing and academic skills
Kirsty Wilson: JD and MLM – legal research
Aviva Kidd: JD students – EAGLE program

We run a Writing Centre program specifically for first-year JD students. Senior JD

students are trained to provide constructive feedback on your torts and legal
theory papers, and Bree and Chantal will provide you with feedback on your PPL
assignments.
We strongly encourage you to take advantage of this service.
It means you will need to finish your best draft of the document in advance of the
formal deadline so we have time to prepare the feedback, but all the students who
participate in this program will tell you it is worth the effort.

You are welcome to drop by the Legal Academic Skills Centre on the 3rd floor of the library
and, if we are available, we are happy to chat. However, please note that we are often busy
with consultations, meetings and our own research. If you want to be sure to have a full 30
minutes - and our undivided attention - it is a good idea to book an appointment in advance.
These appointments are an opportunity for you to discuss strategies, available resources,
and the administrative processes designed to support you.
If you want an individual appointment, plan well in advance to have the paper finished
before the deadline and book an appointment with us. We may not be able to fit you in if
you leave it to the last minute.
If you want detailed feedback on your written work, please submit it to Chantal (JD, MLM
and RHD) or Bree (JD) at least one full business day in advance of the appointment. If you
are participating in the Writing Centre for first-year students, Chantal will forward the draft
to the appropriate senior JD student.
Students who are not able to attend a consultation on campus can arrange for an email,
skype, or telephone consultation.
Please note: this is NOT an editing or a proofreading service.
 7

Information to include in your request:

Your full name

The program (JD, MLM, PhD)
Whether you would like to discuss an outline, a completed draft of a research paper,
academic skills, or something else
Any time constraints (for example, the date the assignment is due if it is a review of a
draft)
Where to go for your consultation
Consultations are held in the Legal Academic Skills Centre. It is on the third floor of the Law
Building, in the Law Library.

3. Early Academic Guidance for Legal Education (EAGLE)

The LASC also organises a study support program called EAGLE (Early Academic Guidance for
Legal Education) for new JD students. Later year JD students facilitate small groups of up to
10 new JD students. The groups meet for one hour each week to discuss first semester
subjects and strategies, techniques and skills for studying law.
All first-year JD students are given a day and time to participate in a study group.
Attendance is voluntary.
Now running for several years, the EAGLE program aims to support students’ transition to
studying law and to help the participants build specific academic skills such as:

Reading cases and legislation;

Effective note taking and schematization;
Writing answers to hypothetical problems;
Working collaboratively; and
Exam preparation
Many students will also benefit equally from setting up their own study group. You might
find it helpful to use our guidelines in the Guide to Academic Success on establishing
Independent Study Groups.

4. Additional Resources
The Guide to Academic Success currently incorporates most of the written materials
developed in the LASC for law students. It is long (we know!) because it is a record of all the
advice offered by faculty, JD students, and the members of the LASC. At the moment, we
are in the midst of restructuring it to reflect the stages of your professional development.
The new and improved Guide will be published in first semester and a notice will be
circulated through the JD newsletter, the JD Facebook pages, and our website Academic
Success at Melbourne Law School.
 8

There are many additional resources you can turn to for support in your studies.
The LASC also has a website with posts and links prepared by the facilitators of the EAGLE
program at www.successatmls.com. It includes advice on many topics including:

Legal method and reasoning

Studying and learning law
Legal vocabulary and dictionaries
Communication and study skills
English Expression and Grammar

5. Time Management
Law school is challenging. The good news is that if you develop effective time management
skills now, you will minimise the stresses and frustrations of study and legal practice in your
future.
Effective time management skills have at least two core elements: 1) organisational skills
(AKA the ability to break large tasks down into smaller pieces and set deadlines for
completing each of those tasks); and b) the ability to focus so that you can work efficiently
in the amount of time you have available.
Organisation skills are crucial for success in law school and beyond. There is no getting
around the fact that you will have a lot of reading to do in preparation for class,
assignments, and exams. You will be working on multiple assignments at the same time,
even if the deadlines are staggered. In addition, you might have work, family
responsibilities, and a personal life to manage along with your studies. In order to get
everything done, and on time, you will develop methods of assessing how much time is
required for each task, and how to schedule that time in your calendar.
Focus is how you make the most of the time you set aside to complete the various tasks. It
typically takes between 10 – 15 minutes to get into the ‘groove’ for difficult cognitive work
every time you take a break. Every. Time. Whether it is for a 30 second check of Facebook,
a minute to send a text about meeting for lunch, or an hour for a visit to the gym/café/walk
around the park.
Breaks are important and we encourage you to take them whenever you feel tired,
unmotivated, frustrated, bored, or hungry. Just remember, that every time you take a break
you are losing another 15 minutes while you get refocused on the project. So try to
structure your breaks to avoid losing too much time to incidental distractions that end up
making you more tired.
Paying attention to three levels of planning will help:
1. Semester long planning to balance study and assessment work with other
commitments or events;
2. Week to week workloads and work goals; and
3. Daily tasks and time allocation.
 9

5.1. Planning do’s

Plan. Identify the hard deadlines for assignments and exams (and anything outside
the law school that you will need to do). Write out a plan and track dates and
deadlines. Use the calendar on your phone/computer and task lists. Factor all of
your responsibilities, tasks, events and activities in to your schedule (seminars, study,
assessments, paid work, volunteering, house duties, sport, social activities, etc.).
Work with your routines (not against). Consider your habits (i.e. do you prefer to
work in the morning, or at night? At the Law School, or at home? Alone, or with
others?) Use a system that works for you.
Understand workload varies over time. Plan for when you are going to be immersed
in completing a specific project, and meeting a deadline. Consider what you need to
clear from your schedule in order to put in your best effort.
Change your strategies if they are not working. If you find it difficult to keep to your
plan, it is worthwhile trying different time management strategies. For example,
your concentration and productivity might improve if you work for a set amount of
time (i.e. a one-hour block) or to accomplish a particular task (i.e. to read article X),
rather than simply sitting down to read for an afternoon without an end point in
mind to help you stay on task.
Schedule breaks. One key strategy that works for many high achievers in complex
environments is to schedule breaks and only (!) deal with emails/phone/facebook/
twitter/Instagram/etc during that break. Think about how much time you will save
yourself if you “bundle” your activities into regular breaks. Breaks also save you
time. If you are tired, having difficulty focusing on the reading, or understanding the
material, it is better to take a break and go back when you are rested. You will be
more effective AND efficient.
Make the most of your time in class. When you take a look at
Facebook/texts/browse the internet during class, you are missing out on key
information at the same time you make it harder on yourself to focus on the deep
cognitive learning required for class. Multi-tasking is a myth (!) Be strategic. Your
professor is highlighting the insights s/he wants you to identify in the assigned
readings. Often, s/he is modelling the kind of analysis that is expected on an
assignment or exam, and in practice. If you pay attention in class, you will have an
easier time reading the materials with purpose AND you will get more out of the
time you spend studying: win-win. When you are distracted by unrelated matters,
you end up making it harder on yourself to review the materials and prepare for your
assignments in the future.
Keep things in perspective. While you should put in as good an effort as possible
when you undertake your subjects, keep all your studies and assessment tasks in
perspective. Dedicate a certain, appropriate amount of time to your studies. Don’t
allow your studies to overwhelm all the other things you like to do that give you
satisfaction. Your studies are but one part of your life; we urge you to spend time
seeing friends and family, exercising, relaxing, going for walks, reflecting — catching
your breath. Learning in law and doing your best in assignments and exams is not
 10

about spending all of your time studying, but is a matter of knowing how to study
effectively and efficiently. This guide offers plenty of tips and information on ways to
do this!
Set goals and reward yourself when you reach them. Hopefully self-explanatory.
But if you need ideas for rewards, drop by the LASC for a chat with an advisor or
check out the blog entry on the FSG website.

5.2. Planning don'ts

Don’t over-commit yourself. Be realistic. This is a particularly important piece of
advice at the start of your degree when you may not be aware of the full range of
extra-curricular activities you can be a part of at MLS. Take a step back and think
meaningfully about whether you have the time and energy to commit to something
new and whether the responsibilities you take on are aligned with your interests.
You’re here for at least three years – you don’t need to do everything in the first
week
Don’t work to the point of exhaustion/confusion/frustration. This is a repeat of the
earlier comment about taking breaks because we want you to take it seriously. Most
of the time, the best thing you can do if you are struggling to understand your
material is to step away from your books and/or computer for a few minutes, an
hour, or a day, and then come back to it afresh.

5.3. Helpful Tools for Staying on Track

Every lawyer has a system for tracking what needs to be done and when it will get done.
Those who don’t, get into trouble with the regulator or their insurance at some stage of
their career. For example, missing a deadline for filing documents with the court or
submitting a tender, even by a minute, can affect the interests of your client(s). Lawyers
take project management and timelines very seriously, and will often have preferred
software systems that help them avoid disasters.
There are a lot of resources you can use to manage your priorities and activities. The team
in the Legal Academic Skills Centre regularly uses two tools that help us stay on top of our
many and varied responsibilities. They also happen to be free.
Trello (https://trello.com/) is an online tool with an app that syncs with your phone. We use
Trello to develop a checklist for each project. It is a good way of identifying all the steps and
activities that are necessary to complete a project.
Once we have a good sense of what needs to be done, we then use Todoist
(https://en.todoist.com/), which is another online tool with an app that allows you to create
‘to do’ lists and decide when you want to get those items done, and categorise by projects.
It will send you daily reminders.
Some of us also use software that blocks our access to distractions like Facebook or blogs,
and to track the amount of time we spend on the various sites that amuse us (it can be a bit
 11

of a shock to discover just how many of your waking hours you can spend reading news,
chatting with friends, or window shopping). We strongly encourage you to assess how
much time you spend on distractions from study so you can decide how and when you want
to take breaks in order to support BOTH your wellbeing, and effective study habits.
Trello and Todoist are just two options for you to consider when deciding how you are going
to organise yourself in order to meet all your social, educational and professional
obligations. There are many others, and you might have techniques you have already
developed in order to stay on top of your many tasks.
We are not advocating a particular software program or approach but we do want to
emphasise one important – one crucial – point: success in law requires focused effort and
the ability to manage multiple projects at the same time. How you do that, is entirely up to
you.
For more information on time management, check out our series of blogs at:
https://successatmls.wordpress.com/category/study-skills/time-management-and-
wellbeing/

6. Tips and Strategies for Reading in Law

The study of law entails a great deal of reading. In the JD and MLM subjects, a significant
amount of class time is spent discussing the assigned readings. Your teachers will
encourage you to think carefully and critically about the material and, at the same time,
they will model how legal experts approach similar materials. It is, therefore, worth the
time and energy to read in advance of class.
Throughout the degree you will develop increasingly sophisticated reading skills. This means
becoming an expert reader of relevant sources of law in the form of cases, statutes, and
other legal texts. It also means being competent in reading large text books or ‘casebooks’
on a field of law, law review articles and critical commentary, as well as other documents
such as governmental communication, policy documents, or evidence briefs. Sometimes this
will require surface reading to get a general understanding of a field of law or an author’s
critical argument, other times it will require close, analytical, and critical reading.
Because of the quantity and complexity of the reading in law, many students wonder how
they can improve their reading skills to read more efficiently and effectively. This guide
outlines some of the most effective practices and techniques for reading in law.
 12

6.1. 7 Initial Challenges

Students new to studying law talk about a range of concerns and challenges. For instance:
1. Quantity of reading
Consider skimming and scanning (explained below) to deal with large amounts of
material. This provides you with an overview but will not be sufficient for detailed
discussions. You will always need to go back to the materials to read them carefully
to prepare for your exams – but that careful reading will be much easier if you know
why the document was produced so that you can ‘read with purpose’.
2. Unfamiliar text types: such as statutes, cases, casebooks and other forms of legal
writing.
Review the modules on how to read statutes and cases before you start engaging
with the materials for class and exams. Once again, reading with purpose and being
able to quickly identify the significant information/analysis in a document will
minimise any confusion potentially caused by unfamiliar text types.
3. Unclear purpose: most of the material you read is not written for the purpose of
studying or learning law, but rather with professional or institutional audiences in mind.
It is important to understand the purpose for which the readings are assigned.
There are many ways to clarify purpose. The learning objectives, title, and
introduction for each module in the reading guide will alert you to why your
professor included particular documents in the materials. Often, the professors
provide questions at the end of a module in order to prompt you to think carefully
about what you read – these questions can also help you read with purpose. Read
the introduction, headings, and conclusion in order to identity the purpose for any
text or journal article. Read the headnote, key words, and final order of any
judgment in order to identify the purpose. The purpose/object clause, title, and
headings in a statute will also provide insight into the purpose of the legislation.
4. Unclear focus: it can be difficult to know exactly what to remember from the readings.
After you have read a document, put it aside and write up a quick summary that
records what you remember, and what you think of it (more on what to put in those
notes below).
5. Language: new terminology, difficult concepts, dense and complex sentence structure
can add to the challenge and slow down the reading process.
Keep a list of the new terminology with definitions so you don’t have to keep going
back to the dictionary for the same words.
6. Complexity of legal arguments.
 13

There are no quick solutions for dealing with the complexity of legal arguments. The
best advice is to relax, keep track of what confuses you and ask your professor for
clarification when you get to class. If you can’t ask the professor, find a textbook that
deals with the same area of law.
7. Intertexuality: most of the reading is heavily footnoted, which means that there are
potentially many other sources to chase up and often a lot of assumed knowledge.
You will need to adopt the same footnoting techniques in your essays. Think of all
those references as a starting point if you want to write a paper on a similar topic.
These challenges can be overcome with time and effort. However, flexible and efficient
reading practices and the development of new techniques are crucial in shifting from a
novice to an expert reader of law.
These tips are a starting point, the rest of this section provides more strategies for
developing expertise reading, and taking notes on, your materials.

6.2. Strategy #1: Read with Purpose

Understanding what you are reading, and why, gives you a basis for deciding how to read.
For example, are you reading:
1. A news report that might form the basis of class discussion about key concepts and
issues and provide a context for a topic?
2. Key cases or sections of statutes for one of the topics of the course which will be
discussed briefly in class, but might be central to exam problems later on?
3. Textbook material covering the principles and main sources of law for a topic area that
forms a major or minor part of the subject as a whole?
4. A scholarly research article useful for exploring an essay question, case note, or other
assessment task?
5. Text related to the subject but not part of the curriculum that has caught your interest
when trawling through the Internet?
The type of text and the purpose of your reading should help you focus on what you read so
you can develop the techniques of an expert.
One of the reasons for the complexity of law texts is the background knowledge they often
assume. You build on the background knowledge that you have by reading broadly, reading
newspapers, legal news websites and bulletins, blogs or magazines.
Recommended readings for a subject often contain some of the most important background
material and context. You may find it difficult to fit them into your reading load, but
consider skimming them to find out more about the topic, to contextualise the essential
readings.
 14

6.3. Strategy #2: Improve Your Reading Technique

You can improve your reading and develop a more directed and purposeful approach to
reading by applying a range of reading techniques:

Surveying, predicting and schematising

Scanning and reading dynamically
Skimming
It may take some time and practice to employ these reading techniques successfully. It is
initially very difficult, for example, to skim read a case when you are unfamiliar with the
typical structure and elements of a judgment. Be assured, though, that persistence and
practice will pay off in the long term.
The next section spends more time explaining what we mean by these terms.
Surveying, Predicting and Schematising
Unlike a mystery novel, you want to know where you are heading when reading law texts.
After you have considered your purpose for reading, a first step in reading anything in law is
to survey the text, to find out a bit about it before getting stuck into the detail. Think about
the big picture. How does this fit into the material set for a subject? How important is it? Is
it a source of law or a critique, commentary or discussion of law?
Survey:

Get a sense of the length of the text, the type of material it covers, and the level of
detail;
Notice the key terminology and phrases that indicate the conceptual material
covered in the text; and
Read the section headings to predict the content of the text as a whole.
Predict:
Surveying a text provides the basis for one of the most important skills in efficient and
effective reading: predicting. The act of predicting establishes a strong connection between
you and the text. It helps to maintain focus, attention, concentration, and encourages a
deeper understanding.
Schematise:
Once you have a sense of the topic and its scope, consider how it fits in with the knowledge
you already have, or within a field of law or scholarly debate. Develop schemas for reading
the different types of law text, especially cases and statutes. A schema is a framework that
allows us to organise and store new knowledge or information logically in relation to what
we already know.
 15

When reading a case, for example, concentrate on who was involved, what happened, what
issues went before the court, what the court decided and the core reasons. A schematic
table would note:

The complete citation for the case

The parties and their relationship
Court hierarchy and case history
Jurisdiction
Facts of the case
Legal issues in question
Main lines of judicial reasoning
Outcome and court order
Scanning and reading dynamically
Scanning is similar to surveying. It is a reading technique to use when you are looking for a
particular piece of information. You might scan:

a case to find the legal principle on which the decision was made;
an article to see if it contains information relevant to a particular topic; and
to identify connections between assigned readings.
For instance, if you are assigned a legal case in which the issues are 'duty of care' and
'foreseeability', scan the other readings for the week to see if, and where, these terms
appear. Think about how the readings relate to one another and how they fit in to the
subject as a whole.
You scan through a text by looking for the key words of your topic or question. You also
need to consider any synonyms and related words, phrases or headings. When you find
relevant words or phrases, read these sections of text more closely. Although this approach
is somewhat fragmented, it is often more effective than carefully reading every single word
of the text. This is because it allows you to focus on and absorb the most important parts of
the assigned reading without becoming caught up in less relevant content, which may only
confuse you and slow you down.
Scanning can be done both before and after a seminar. Before class, use the discussion
questions in the Subject Reading Guide as a guide for scanning the reading by trying to find
the material most relevant for answering those questions. If your seminar does not provide
discussion questions, try to formulate your own questions in terms of the course themes
(the subject Reading Guide will usually outline them).
You should also scan the readings after class in order to locate the passages that relate to
the topics of discussion. Seminar discussions will enhance and inform your understanding
and appreciation of the important issues. If you return to the readings after class in a
focused way, you will be able to consolidate your understanding of both the readings and
the material discussed in class.
 16

This strategy will allow you to read selectively, but be sure to engage with all the set reading
material in advance of assignments that draw from those materials.
Skimming
At a minimum, you should skim all the required reading before each seminar. When you
skim, you look through the material quickly without reading every word. The purpose of this
approach is to acquire an overview of all the reading and to become aware of the main
ideas and issues of the reading.
To skim read a scholarly article:

Read the introduction and conclusion to identify the author's main argument;
Look at the different section headings to get a sense of the scope and logic of the
article; and
Glance quickly through the text, perhaps reading the first sentence of each
paragraph, to locate the important ideas and issues.
To skim read a legal case:

Read the headnote to get a summary of the facts and the judgment (but remember
this is a third party’s summary and NOT ‘the law’);
Skim the judgments to find the main reasons why the case was decided in the way
that it was; and
Skim any dissenting opinions to get a sense of the opposing arguments.
Eye movement and attention: effective skimming involves a change in the level of attention
and the speed and focus of eye movements. For both, you need to look at and take in
‘chunks’ of information, groups of words and phrases that can be understood together
meaningfully.
If you skim-read all the materials before the seminar, you will be familiar with the main
ideas and arguments related to the topic and better prepared to understand, and contribute
to, the discussion.
After the seminar, go back to read the important passages more closely, and in a way that is
informed by the previous discussion.

6.4. Strategy #3: Ask Questions for a Close and Critical Reading

Deep learning begins when you are able to personally respond to a text, when you make
connections, comparisons, or contrasts with what you know or have already read.
Close reading usually involves reading an important text (a case, key article, report etc)
more than once. It requires an analytical reading process, breaking the text down into its
parts, exploring the details and even the footnotes, and evaluating the text as a whole in
light of those details.
 17

Critical reading means engaging with the author and the text, questioning the argument, its
premises, its evidence and sources of support.

Reading a scholarly article critically may also entail questioning the underlying
assumptions and the implied positions (theoretical, political, ethical or moral) taken
by the author.
For a case, critical reading involves an evaluation of: the lines of reasoning; the
authority applied and distinguished; and the weighting of strengths or weaknesses of
certain arguments. Dissenting judgments often provide a rich source of inspiration
for reading a case critically.
Most subjects provide Reading Guides which offer direction and focus for your reading of
the assigned material. In these, there are three basic types of questions that may be asked
in order to guide your reading. These are questions that ask you to:
1. explain a concept or an argument. This kind of question requires finding the relevant
passages in the reading (scanning) and then mastering the idea or argument well enough
to be able to summarise it. If you feel that you don't really understand the idea or
argument, be sure to ask a question about it in class.

2. relate one reading to other readings from the course or to broader issues that have
been raised. This requires reviewing other texts and issues and considering how the
current reading relates to them. Typically, what you are reading will either establish a
position that opposes some other reading, or it will add further support to an idea, or it
will expand on and develop an issue that has already been raised in the seminar.

3. evaluate an argument or an issue. Here again, you have to locate the relevant passages
in the reading and understand them well enough to summarise the position. But you
also have to consider whether you agree or disagree with the argument, or how you
think about the issue being raised. Here you can draw on other readings, personal
experience and your own values and ideas. For these kinds of questions, it is important
not only to state a position, but also to explain why you support that position.
In general, these three categories of question provide a good framework for effective
reading. When you read for seminars, you should be trying to:

Understand the main ideas of the reading;

Relate those ideas to broader issues of the course; and
Evaluate the ideas and the issues.
Ultimately, you will start to generate your own questions based on the purpose for which
you read. There are suggestions for the questions you might ask yourself in the section on
taking notes.
 18

Students often ask what we mean by a ‘critical engagement’ with the materials/law. The
LASC workshop on logical fallacies demonstrates just one approach to being critical about
the materials you might find in preparation for writing a research paper. The section on
taking notes provides even more examples of questions you might ask in order to prompt
your critical engagement with the law and secondary sources.

7. Taking Notes

There is no one ‘right’ way to make notes in law. How you structure your notes will depend
on your own learning preferences.

7.1. Notes on Materials

We take notes in order to record what we have learned, what we think about it, and how
we might use that new knowledge in order to contribute to discussion, answer exam
questions, or write a research paper.
You won’t always know how you might use your records in the future, so it is strategic to be
as comprehensive as possible.
You might be working with printed materials or electronic documents – if you are doing an
online subject you are likely also watching videos. Keeping track of what you think about the
materials is an important way to use the time you can devote to your course strategically
and effectively.
Whether you are working with printed materials or electronic documents, simply
underlining or highlighting text in a document is basically just a bookmark to revisit the
same material later. After you have read hundreds of pages for a specific course or research
paper, you will probably forget why you highlighted a specific passage.
This is a particular challenge for electronic documents. Studies show that we have more
difficulty focusing, paying attention to detail, and reading critically when we work with
electronic documents.
Finally, many first-year students focus on preparing final sets of notes that look good and
represent the totality of everything they have read and learned in class. However, a set of
beautiful and complete notes is only a starting point when it comes to preparing for an
exam. Instead, you will need to learn to prepare notes that represent what you have
learned, and how you might apply the new knowledge and skills to solve problems in class
discussion, on exams, and for essays.
Think of your notes as a tool – they do not need to be beautiful, they need to be functional.

7.2. Notes on the Case Law

 19

The ability to accurately and critically analyse judicial reasoning is one of the most important
skills in a law student’s skill set. It is crucial to performing well in subject assessment. But
also (and more importantly!) it is indispensable to your own understanding and appreciation
of the law.
A considerable portion of your law studies will be dedicated to reading and analysing cases.
This is because cases form a substantial part of the law in Australia.
In order to tackle the many cases you will encounter at Law School, you must be able to
extract key information from court decisions as efficiently and effectively as possible. To do
so, you will need to develop your ability to follow and critique judicial reasoning. This skill
will not only help you to critically understand the relevant law, but it will also equip you for
assignments.
Always remember, your notes are a tool, and NOT an end in themselves.
In the early stages of your studies, these notes will remind you how you might ‘use’ the case
law to make and support arguments in essays, in response to hypothetical questions on
exams, and in conversation with your colleagues at school.
By preparing notes on your assigned readings, you will develop the skills to:

Identify and summarise the material facts of a case and the legal issues it raises;
Understand and critically analyse judicial reasoning and decision-making;
Comprehend and discuss the legal and policy implications of a court decision;
Evaluate the reasoning and significance of a court decision; and
Discriminate between essential and non-essential information in a judgment
This makes your notes on the cases a very useful study tool in their own right; you can draw
on the basics of this method to learn and revise the case law you need to read for your law
classes.
Record the Important Information
Writing effective notes requires an assessment of the contentious legal issues under
consideration and an analysis of the way in which the court reached its conclusion. As a
focus, keep in mind that you are expected to evaluate the judicial reasoning and the context
in which the issues arose, and to form an opinion about the merits or limitations of the
decision.
After you carefully read the case for the first time, begin your research and plan your note.
In doing so, remember you want to:

Identify the legal issues raised by the case

Determine what the result and reasoning stands for
Identify and consider the legal and policy context in which the issues arose
Critically analyse the technical correctness of the legal reasoning
Critically consider the implications of the decision on the parties and, where
appropriate, classes of litigants and the community more generally.
 20

The first two dot points are ‘expository’ tasks. They require you to explain the case, which
records your comprehension and understanding of the case report.
The last three dot points are 'analytical' tasks. They require you to think beyond the
particular decision under scrutiny, to compare and contrast, to extrapolate and analogise,
and to identify patterns, assumptions and flaws in reasoning.
If you do this analysis consistently, it will help you enormously when you prepare for
assignments later in the semester. In particular, your case notes will come in handy when
you sit an exam. This is because the dual components of case notes – description and
analysis – will equip you to approach both hypothetical problem questions as well as exam
essays.
It is important to realise that a good case note is more than a mere summary. Its purpose is
to enable you to develop and demonstrate a sound understanding of the area of law and
the issues before the court, and to obtain a sophisticated insight into the legal and policy
implications of the decision.
Be Attentive to the Different Kinds of Judgments and Court Hierarchy
You will learn about the importance of the court hierarchy in LMR. Remember to identify
the jurisdiction and level of court for each decision so you can establish the extent to which
each decision is binding or persuasive.
Each case you read will consist of the judgment(s) of the presiding judge(s). A judgment is
essentially the opinion of a judge. To read and understand a judgment, you will need to
track the judge’s reasoning process.
Sometimes, there is a single judgment because only one judge heard the matter, or because
the judges sitting handed down a joint judgment. In other cases, one judge will deliver the
main judgment for the case and the other presiding judges will agree with it (they may also
make some minor additional comments). In these instances, your analysis will concentrate
on one judgment alone.
Often, you will read cases where there is a single judgment and a dissenting judgment of a
judge who holds a minority view. Although judicial dissents are not applicable law, they are
still highly relevant to your case analysis. Dissents offer an alternative perspective on the
law, which may help you to better understand and critique the case as a whole and the area
of law more broadly. This will, in turn, assist you to formulate arguments for research and
exam essays. In particular, the dissent of a judge of the High Court (or a state Court of
Appeal) will carry special importance in cases where the law is in a state of confusion,
contentious, or subject to change, as it may potentially be open to a later court to follow the
minority’s reasoning on a new set of closely related, but distinguishable, facts.
In a few complex High Court or Court of Appeal cases, there are multiple majority judgments
– of one judge or more than one judge jointly – leading to the same outcome. In these
cases, you will need to read each judgment very carefully, as although the judges ultimately
agree on the final result, their reasoning process may differ. This matters because all of the
 21

judgments are in the majority, and thus all of the judgments represent the current law. This
can become quite tricky to follow and make sense of, particularly when the judgments
appear to be somewhat inconsistent with one another!
For all cases, the key is to be able to distil the steps in the judicial reasoning process. How
you do this will depend on the nature of the judgment and your learning preference. In
general, you should look for and note down the important details that you will need to
advise a client on similar or different facts, or to conduct a policy or comparative analysis for
a research or exam essay.

7.3. Class notes

If you take detailed notes in class, you may save time later on. However, you should
consider whether your note taking habits during class time are inhibiting your ability to
process the information being presented, and to contribute to class discussion. Asking and
answering questions in class is a valuable way to cement your understanding of a particular
issue or topic, and receive feedback. Don’t shy away from a chance to do so!
The 5 strategies explained in this module will help you engage strategically with your
materials (whether for class discussion or an assignment), and keep a record of that
engagement.

7.4. Strategy #1: Identify the Purpose of Your Notes

Consider your purpose when taking notes. Are they:

• a record of what you have read in preparation for class?
• for a research paper?
• for an exam?
• for a memo to be submitted to an organisation as part of your internship?
Your purpose will help you decide on the amount of detail you include, the extent to which
you might want to include direct quotes, the amount of paraphrasing and summarising you
do, and the format in which you represent the information.
You always want to consider how your notes can be used as a tool – whether to answer a
research question, or predict the outcome on a hypothetical problem.
Your notes represent what you have learned by critically engaging with the materials.
Ideally, they will be in your own words.
 22

7.5. Strategy #2: Track the Basic Information

Your notes should always include (at a minimum):

the name of the author

title of the document
where you found the document (materials from class, search in databases [which
ones?], footnotes or bibliography of another source, video assigned by the professor
or found by an internet search?)
when it was published
who published it (and any other information you will need in order to provide a full
citation according to the Australian Guide to Legal Citation)
For a case, you will also track:

Important procedural information – for example: names of the parties, procedural

history, date of decision, jurisdiction and level of court
Facts
Legal issues
Decision/holding/determination
Reasoning/tests/arguments
Disposition (legal consequences of the reasoning and holding)
What you think of the decision
You will also want to write up a summary.
Do you need to follow up? (for example):

Do you need to confirm any facts or analysis?

Does the article/case/statute raise questions for your own argument?
Are there other sources mentioned that you now need to find?

Visit the LASC LMS community for examples of the kinds of notes you might take for these
different kinds of judgments.

7.6. Strategy #3: Record your critical engagement with the

material
It is not enough to record what you find – the information – you need to record your critical
engagement with the material. You will find the notes you generate through critical
engagement will prepare you for meeting the expectations of the law school. You will be
able to:
 23

Use primary sources of law to support your answers to the hypothetical questions on
exams;
Write well-reasoned answers to the essay questions on exams; and
Submit a research paper that is focused on argument, rather than description.
For secondary sources: what do you think of the author’s contentions? (for example):

Do you agree with the logical building blocks of the argument?

Do you agree with the conclusion?
Whose interests are served by the argument?
Whose interests are ignored or marginalized by the argument?
What are the implications of the author’s argument/conclusion for the development
of the law?
How is the argument/analysis of this author situated in the broader literature/case
law?
For case law: consider the following:

What do you think about the problem with which the court was presented?
What do you think of the court's legal analysis? Why?
Do you agree with the conclusion? Why/Why not?
How could the problem have best been dealt with?
What would happen if you changed the material facts and applied the same law
(when considering a case)?
What types of reform proposals, if any, are relevant to the circumstances of this case
(or this type of case)?
Have there been statutory changes that might affect this type of case?
If so, are they desirable, in your view? Why?
What are the implications of the court’s reasoning in terms of:

The interests of practitioners charged with advising and serving clients;

The interests of individual litigants or classes of litigants; and/or
The interests of a particular social group or society in general?

7.7. Strategy #4: Transform the Information into Your Own

Words/Format

Once you have the basic information, you will want to prepare a summary of what is
included in the document.
We encourage you to restate what you have learned from the text in your own words.
When you rewrite what you understand from the materials in your own words you:

consolidate your own understanding of the text;

 24

ensure it will be easier to remember the materials later; and

will have part of a draft text you can draw into your essays at a later date (but
remember you will need to provide a footnote with a pin point reference to where
you found the statement of fact, idea, or argument).

You can keep a record of your thoughts in the margins of a hard copy, or use comment
bubbles and colour coding if you are working with an electronic document. If you are
watching something like a video, take notes the way you might in a lecture.
Paraphrasing and summarising are the main ways of transforming a text into your own
words for future reference.
The important thing to remember about these methods is that you need to remain true to
the author's argument and attribute credit for the argument to the author (that is, be quite
clear about what is the author's idea and what is yours).
A paraphrase involves saying the same thing as the author, but in your own words. Much of
your essay writing will involve paraphrasing ideas from the sources you have read. (Note
that a paraphrase can be longer than the original text.)
A summary is a restatement of the main points of a text in (much) shorter form. A summary
should answer the question, “What is the author basically saying?” It should remain faithful
to the author’s emphasis and interpretation, and should not contain your own opinions or
comments.
There is more guidance on how to summarise and paraphrase, and avoid accidental
plagiarism, in the module on integrating your research in the Guide to Academic Success.

7.8. Strategy #5: Non-textual forms of notes

You might also consider representing your new knowledge in multiple formats. Because you
will need to fully understand the material in order to transform it into a different format,
this process of note preparation is also an effective way to study and prepare for exams or
writing an essay.

Mind maps are a wonderful way to represent the relationships between concepts,
ideas, and primary sources of law.
For a youtube clip on how to create a mindmap with word, click HERE.
For some open source software, click HERE.
Flow charts are a great way to represent process, legal reasoning, or the steps to
reach a specific legal goal.
Tables are a helpful way to create a summary of the relationship between legal
issues and the relevant primary law.
Excel spreadsheets might be used to keep track of your research and where you plan
to use it.
 25

For more on these techniques, and some examples, see the handout prepared by the
central Legal Academic Skills Unit at Melbourne University and visit the Success at MLS
website www.successatmls.com and go to ‘study skills’ > ‘notes’ where you will find specific
advice for taking notes for law school tasks.

8. Hypothetical Problems and Answers

Hypothetical problems are one of the most frequently used types of exam question in law;
they are used in formal, supervised exam settings, take-home exams and assignments.
You can prepare for hypothetical problems. Practise is crucial. They will likely be different
from the types of assessment used in other disciplines.
The resources in this section are designed to help you understand the features and
requirements of hypothetical problem answers (HPAs).

8.1. About HPAs

Hypothetical problems ask you to advise a client about their legal situation, given a
particular set of (hypothetical) facts.
For example:
LMR 2006 (Note that the answer is out of date re the law – this is simply an example!)
The Question
From 1 January 2005, the media was filled with stories of dirty needles found in the
sands of Victoria’s beaches. One widely-reported incident involved a beach volleyball player
who suffered a needle-stick injury while playing in a volleyball tournament at Victoria’s
popular Daisy Bay Beach. One month after this incident, Daisy Bay Beach put up a sign at the
beach entrance, which read: “Take care when enjoying our glorious beach.”
On 21 February 2005, nine year-old Pia was enjoying her school excursion, with 100
classmates from Daisy Bay Private School, searching for special sea-shells along a stretch of
beach at Daisy Bay Beach. The two teachers and two parents supervising the children told
them to wear footwear when walking along the beach. The teachers were some distance
behind the children, having an intense chat about work-related issues. The parents were
strolling 100 metres behind the children. Like all her classmates, Pia removed her shoes to
enjoy walking through the fine, soft sand. All of a sudden, Pia felt a stabbing pain - her left
toe had been pricked by a blood-filled needle barely visible in the sand. It later turned out
that Pia was infected with HIV from the needle-stick injury. Advise Pia with respect to
breach and standard of care arguments that may arise in her negligence claim against Daisy
Bay Private School.
 26

The 'problem' is in determining

The legal rules that apply to the given facts,

The issues that might prove contentious if the matter went to court, and
How a court is likely to decide those issues.
You must give ‘your client’ an answer to their legal query, but be measured in doing so.

8.2. HPA skills

One of the most important skills tested by the use of hypothetical problems is your ability to
apply legal principles and doctrine to new factual situations.
Of course, as a law student, it is important that you understand legal principles and rules,
whether they are statutory or judicial in nature. But can you apply what you have learned
about the law to solve a client’s 'real world' problems?
Your lecturers are always inventing new factual scenarios because they are interested in
whether you can apply the legal principles you have learned, rather than in whether you can
repeat a memorised set of 'rules'. Indeed, your lecturers are not particularly interested in
how well you memorise doctrine.
They want to see how you use or apply the principles when making arguments for the
parties involved in a new scenario. You then evaluate how those principles or rules solve the
legal issues, as disclosed by the facts.
Each assessment task you are asked to complete in law school will have specific assessment
criteria that you should review very carefully.
In general, however, good answers to hypothetical problems:

Recognise that the facts dictate or signal the issues requiring discussion
Attach appropriate weight to relevant issues
Support the parties' arguments by using authority carefully
Apply the gist of relevant statutory and common law legal principles to the facts,
without quoting the provisions or doctrine at length
Intertwine the legal principles with the facts, in the course of argument for both
sides
Reach mini-conclusions along the way, where possible
Have a clear structure and use informative headings for sections.
The best hypothetical problem answers demonstrate creativity and lateral thinking.
Often, good answers to hypothetical problems also add in comments that demonstrate an
ability to think across boundaries. They show a deep understanding of the legal content
under scrutiny, in the context of the scenario.
 27

Let’s return to our example of Pia at the beach and look at one first-year student’s excellent
answer:

How might you develop your skills in answering hypothetical problems?

8.3. Techniques for Answering Hypothetical Problems

There is no strict formula for answering hypothetical problems. Some people may tell you
otherwise, but experience tells us that everyone can develop (by practice) their own
technique(s) for success.
Keep in mind:

There are many ways to become comfortable with answering hypothetical problems.
Your ability to answer hypothetical problems is a matter of technique.
You can learn to develop a good hypothetical answering technique.
It can take some time – and practice – to develop the skills to write effective answers
to hypothetical problems.
The best advice from faculty and senior students: practise.
 28

It takes practice to get used to putting together an answer to a hypothetical problem. You
need to employ a clear structure and, within that structure, address each issue in a logical
order by applying the relevant legal rule to the facts of the problem. In short, you need to
develop a process for answering legal problems.
ALWAYS pay attention to the facts. The material facts are meant to tell you what issues you
should discuss. When you answer problem-based questions, one important requirement
involves correctly identifying the legal issues that are raised by the facts, and separating
significant issues from those that are peripheral or irrelevant.
Two common approaches to answering a hypothetical question are referred to by their
acronyms. At the start of your legal studies, you will often hear the term IRAC.
IRAC stands for Issues, Relevant Law, Application and Conclusion
Facts: note the material facts – these are the facts that give rise to the legal issues. You will
be given more facts than you “need” in the hypothetical – take note of all of them and as
you begin to identify the issues, highlight those facts you think are relevant

Issues arise from the facts, and are to be discussed in varying degrees of depth
Relevant Law (legal principles): the statutory or common law statements of law that
are relevant to these legal issues
Application of the legal principles to the facts, for all sides to the dispute, generally
on an issue-by-issue basis
Conclusion of the particular issue under consideration. This involves an assessment
of how the principles address and sometimes solve the issue. A brief overall
conclusion is also of value.
Whichever process you use or develop, the key to good answers involves the way in which
you intertwine the facts with the legal principles. The best answers also operate within the
shades of grey presented by the particular issues, and the shades of grey presented by the
principles being applied.
Issues: Further Discussion
The IRAC problem solving technique raises an important point: what, exactly, is meant by
‘issues’ when answering hypothetical problems? In this context, ‘issues’ are questions that
determine a person’s legal position.
Some of the questions that need to be answered to determine a person’s legal position are
obvious – that is, the answer is either ‘yes’ or ‘no’. For example: did Daisy Bay owe Pia a
duty of care? If you can answer ‘yes’ confidently, then this is a non-contentious issue.
However, sometimes the conclusions are not obvious; the answer to our question ‘did D
owe P a duty of care?’ could be ‘maybe’, ‘possibly’ or ‘arguably’. This is most likely to occur
if the area of law is evolving or unsettled, or if the facts of the case do not fit comfortably
within established legal categories or principles.
 29

The questions that do not have a clear answer, but still must be answered in order to
determine a person’s legal position, are the ‘live’ or ‘contentious’ issues. The parties
would dispute these questions if the matter went to court, with each side arguing for
a different interpretation or approach.
The contentious issues are those that pose the most significant ‘hurdles’ to the party
attempting to establish a legal cause of action or obligation. They provide the best
‘opportunity’ for the party attempting to deny liability or obligation.
One way to establish whether an issue is contentious is to see whether you have arguments
on either side. This is when I often draw the table I mentioned in LMR:

Pose the issue as a question

(back to our example): Was the harm to Pia from the needle foreseeable?

Yes No

Statute Statute
Case law Case law
Policy Policy

Giving Appropriate Weight to Issues

In a hypothetical problem, some of the legal issues raised by the particular fact situation will
be contentious, requiring a great deal of discussion. However, other legal issues raised by
the facts can be addressed - and disposed of - easily.
For example, the existence of a duty of care in a doctor/patient relationship is
straightforward, or a ‘given’. In this case, it’s generally best not to ignore the issue entirely
when it is raised by the facts: instead, note that this legal issue (or element of this tort) is
satisfied, and acknowledge its non-contentious nature given the facts. Refer briefly to the
relevant legal rule that explains why the issue/element is clear.
For our example, you might state something like:
It is already established that Daisy Bay PS owes Pia a duty of care (Trustees) and that
since she is a vulnerable school child, a higher standard of care is owed (per McHugh,
Trustees).
Then, make sure that you move on quickly to the issues that are contentious - for example,
whether the teacher has breached her duty even though she did what other professionals
would have done. This ‘breach’ issue highlights a ‘grey’ area in the law: it thus requires you
to construct interesting, in-depth arguments addressing all sides of the scenario, using
authority in a sophisticated way.
In our example, the issue of foreseeability is contentious and requires more analysis.
 30

After discussing the relevant law as applied to contentious issues, you will also need to
provide a tentative conclusion, based on the way in which the relevant statutory provisions
and common law principles help resolve those issues.
Instructions may limit issues
Read the instructions carefully as they may specifically exclude some legal issues or direct
you to discuss only limited issues: for example, damages assessment may be excluded in
one question, because it is addressed in another question and you will be required to
discuss it there.
Aside from doing what the instructions explicitly tell you to do, the facts themselves should
signal the depth to be used when addressing particular legal issues.

Good answers recognise the contentious nature of certain legal issues (as raised by
the instant facts), and spend an appropriate amount of time (or words) on them.
Excellent answers to hypothetical problems understand not only which of the legal
issues raised by the facts are contentious, they also argue the issue (in interesting
and sophisticated ways) from both sides, using the appropriate authorities.
Tips for reading a hypothetical to identify the issues and material/relevant facts:

Don't be afraid to read a problem over several times to understand the facts.
Take notes.
Draw flowcharts.
Write out timelines.
Relevant Law: the authority for your analysis
Once you have analysed the problem and identified some key legal issues, you need to
identify the law relevant to the facts. For this process, you should have developed a clear
understanding of the legal rules that operate in the subject areas under consideration.
The way in which you use authority, or the sources of legal rules and principles, is of great
importance.

When working out the relevant law, you should be aware of all the relevant
legislation, the most important High Court authority as well as other cases from
other courts that might assist you (that you studied or discussed in class).
Your arguments must be backed up by legal principles. Assertions made without
authority are just that – bare assertions. To have any real ‘legal value’ these
statements need to be underpinned by principles derived from statutes and case
law. These ought to be the most pertinent/relevant statutes and cases.
You must back up your arguments, on each issue.
Analogy: use cases as analogies where relevant.
Precision is expected when you refer to statutes: where warranted, refer to specific
section numbers.
 31

Avoid sweeping statements, such as 'courts always favour defendants in cases

involving X or Y'.
Avoid wasting and words by quoting (or even paraphrasing) large chunks of doctrine,
or writing out large sections for a statutory provision.
Try to get to the heart of what the legal principle happens to be.
The best answers succinctly use the gist of the principle.
When referring to useful cases' principles or statutory provisions a few words are
sufficient.
Application
The best answers to hypothetical problems link the legal principles to the facts at every
possible juncture. Unlike the case with essays, the primary task when answering a
hypothetical problem involves providing advice on the issues that arise from the set of facts.
Occasionally, you might be able to incorporate your critique of a principle. However, only do
so very sparingly and with caution - or not at all. This is not what is valued in an answer to a
problem-based question.
Your lecturer, like a client, is not particularly concerned with what you think of a legal
principle or statutory provision – its merit or otherwise. Rather, your lecturer, like a client, is
interested in your understanding of the law and how the parties utilise it. Your lecturer is
interested in the application of the law - for example, how it can be distinguished or perhaps
extended to cover the facts at issue.
It is essential that you apply the law to the facts, rather than merely state the relevant law.
The task of applying the law to the facts can be difficult. A common error is to identify the
law and then reach an opinion about the client’s legal position without explicitly stating how
the law applies to the facts. Use the cases and statutes you have studied in class as often
and in as much detail as possible insofar as it is relevant to your client’s legal problem.

When you make a statement, you must be careful to never leave the reader
wondering, 'WHY?'
Continuous incorporation of the facts with the legal principle will help avoid this
problem.
The facts, with the law, provide the evidence that supports your reasoning: they thus
back up your opinion.
Do not lose sight of your main objective - for example, providing an opinion as to whether X
breached her/his duty of care.
The hypothetical problem is NOT ASKING:

you to merely summarise case law without explaining how that law applies to the
facts
for a summary of the facts without an explanation of how the law applies to the facts
you to conclude, for example, that X breached its duty without justification as to why
this is so: you must form an opinion as an impartial and dispassionate lawyer.
 32

Conclusion
Following your application of the law to the facts, you should offer a conclusion as to how
you think a court would decide the client’s matter. It does not help the client to simply
explore the causes of action available to them: the client ultimately wants to know how
likely each one of those causes of action is to succeed. If their case in not particularly strong,
you must advise them of this. Your conclusion should be measured, and well-reasoned.

8.4. Techniques for Meeting Expectations

Read Instructions Carefully

Certain actors may be excluded from the discussion. This may be because your
lecturer wants you to focus on a particular issue that is best demonstrated through
some actors as parties but not others.
Sometimes the instructions exclude specific issues from discussion, because of the
emphasis your lecturer wants to place on what is assessed.
Aside from the facts themselves dictating the issues that should be discussed (and in
what depth), the instructions themselves can also limit the discussion in different
ways. In some respects, this is no different to the limits placed on essay questions,
where what you should write about is clearly determined and limited by the
question asked.
Plan your answer
PLAN, PLAN, PLAN – work through each question thoroughly with your notes.

If the hypothetical problem you are answering is on an exam, you have to use your
reading time very wisely, jotting down a plan for your answer, to structure your
answer.
Between the time spent planning an answer and actually writing your response, you
must develop a clear and coherent structure for solving the problem.
If you are writing an answer under exam conditions, try NOT to look up specific legal
issues in your reading time, rather get a broad overview of the whole paper and
ignore those annoying minor points until later. Logically, minor points are only worth
minor marks. Well organised notes should be able to provide a generic structure
which can function as a starting point for most hypotheticals.
Structure Your Response
There may be several ways in which an answer can be structured. However, there may also
be standard approaches that should be used. This depends on the nature of the subject
matter in a particular subject.
For example, if you are answering a question involving the tort of negligence, you usually
have to address a series of factors, including:
 33

Whether a duty of care is owed

Whether the duty has been breached
Whether the breach caused recognisable harm or damage
Whether there are any relevant defences.
Even within this framework in this one area of law, there may be different questions to
watch out for:

Have any of these issues been excluded by the facts?

Have any issues been excluded by the instructions?
Is there more than one breach to be considered?
In this way, how you organise your response will depend on the subject's content.
Sometimes, if a number of actors are involved in a series of law suits stemming from the
same facts, you may want to canvass the law suit that raises the most number of issues first
and then address the others later, as subsequent suits.
If you use that approach you generally should not repeat what has already been covered.
Rather, refer to your earlier discussion and simply address the divergent issues.
Weighting and Emphasis
Once you have broken the problem down into issues, try to work out, on the facts, which of
the issues are relevant (or contentious) and which are less relevant (or irrelevant).

Generally, problems will not require you to cover every issue in detail: you must
make a decision as to which issues are most contentious. It is good, however, to
think through all issues carefully before making a decision.
Whenever you answer a problem, one of the most important matters your lecturer is
interested in is how much time (how many words) you spend on a particular issue.
While it is important to identify the issues raised by the facts, the amount of time
devoted to answering that issue indicates the emphasis it warrants.
Simply listing issues is too mechanical – like a pre-written checklist. What is more
important is how you show that you know how important one issue is compared to
another. You do this by spending more time canvassing the legal principle and its
application in one area as opposed to others. Spending more time on what is
contentious as opposed to what is straightforward is an important skill.
It may be that the straightforward matter still needs to be discussed – but this must
be within reason, when compared to the issues that are more complex and perhaps
controversial.
Conventions
There are conventions when answering hypothetical problems. They include the following.

Arguing all sides to the issue, from the point of view of the different parties, even
though the question might simply say, advise one party. As is the case in real life,
when you advise someone she or he wants to know about the arguments in their
 34

favour and those that will prove difficult to respond to (the other side’s counter-
arguments). Good answers address all parties' legal positions.
Organising your answer using sections and headings. Remember, your answer is not
an essay but a series of answers to main issues which can be structured around
headings. Don't write for pages without arguing around defined points! Not only do
headings help you to maintain an organised answer, but they also help the marker to
see what you will argue in your answer (and what you have covered already). There
is no formula for the headings you should use: just be logical and clear. Try to make
them useful.
'Third person' (he, she) voice is usually used, although this is not essential. Using the
third person allows you to address the issues and problem in a dispassionate
manner. This avoids the temptation to become an advocate for one party as
opposed to another, with a vested interest in one party's legal position.
Abbreviations are accepted when answering hypothetical problems in supervised
exams. For example, you can abbreviate parties' names (D, P etc), case citations (a
shortened case name is generally enough) and obvious phrases like 'beyond
reasonable doubt' (BRD), 'grievous bodily harm' (GBH). (BUT check in with your
professor).

9. Feedback Opportunities

Feedback is crucial for you to assess whether you understand the material, and are
developing the new skills necessary for success in school and after graduation. There are
many opportunities to receive feedback at Melbourne Law School. Welcoming and then
positively responding to feedback are attributes that are not solely relevant to study: for
instance, employers expect their employees to respond maturely to feedback and criticism
for the sake of professional development.
Lecturers will provide written feedback on interim assessment tasks and, while it can be
hard to read 'criticism' of your work, the suggestions for improvement are genuinely
intended to help you understand how you can improve your performance on the next task.
Many lecturers also provide group feedback – that is, information about the performance of
the class or cohort on a particular assessment task. This may take place during class time, or
outside class time; during the semester (after an interim task) or in the following semester
(in the case of exam feedback).
The following section highlights a few opportunities for feedback at Melbourne Law School;
it is up to you to make the most of them.
 35

9.1. Feedback in Class

In most subjects, lecturers provide opportunities in class time for students to explore or
test:

Knowledge and understanding of the subject topics

Ability to use that knowledge to analyse issues or problems.
This is the purpose of small and whole group discussions, spot quizzes, short tests and
hypothetical problems. Active participation in these activities gives you a good indication of
your progress and enables you to assess your own learning against other students in the
cohort. Such awareness means you can remedy gaps early, not in the exam.
We strongly encourage you to take advantage of opportunities to receive formative
feedback in class. If you know you are going to cover a hypothetical problem, try answering
it in advance – write your answer out in full.
We mean it: write your answer out in full in advance of class. This is the only way you can
truly test whether you understand the material. You might not get individualised feedback
on your answer, but you will be able to compare your analysis to what is proposed by your
colleagues and teacher.
When your teacher asks a question of the class, consider offering your answer. Don’t
dominate the class every time a question is asked, but when there is silence in response to a
question you are all missing out on an opportunity to test your understanding and ability to
work with the law.

9.2. Feedback on Optional Assignments

You have an option to do the mid-semester assignment in some subjects. This is an

opportunity for you to receive individualised and formative feedback on your work: an
incredibly valuable opportunity. If you want to improve in your skills and knowledge, if you
want to be the best legal practitioner it is possible for you to be, you need to take advantage
of these opportunities. You will not have opportunities for this kind of feedback once you
graduate from the program.

9.3. Feedback on Essays before you Submit

The LASC runs a writing clinic program where senior JD students provide you with feedback
on the argument and structure of your DR, Torts and Legal Theory papers which you can use
to revise your paper before you submit them for the deadline. If you are interested, pay
attention to the notices in the electronic newsletter – we will circulate information about
how to request an appointment in the month before your assignments are due.
 36

In your senior years, you can have completed drafts reviewed by one of the legal writing
advisors.
You will need to get your draft done early, but students universally say it is worth the extra
effort. This is an opportunity for detailed and formative feedback that is specific to you and
your efforts – try to take advantage of it.

9.4. Feedback on Practice Questions

Some teachers will invite you to submit drafts of your responses to hypothetical problems
for feedback. This is an opportunity to find out whether your specific teacher thinks you
understand the law, and can work with it to resolve the kinds of problems that are likely to
be asked on an exam.

9.5. Feedback on Assignments

All teachers provide you with feedback on your assignments. It might involve a memo
circulated to the entire class that explains the consistent mistakes, why they were likely to
have happened, and how to avoid them in the future. The feedback might include a grading
criteria that lists the law you should have mentioned in your assignment, and assesses how
well you explained that law and applied it in a memo or exam answer. You might receive
comments in the margins of your papers along with grading criteria that explains how well
you did with respect to structure, argument, clarity of writing style, and formatting
according to the AGLC.
In short, there are many ways to provide feedback on an assignment.