How to Write Law Essays and Exams

personally i found this book to be very helpful, the method of analysing law problem questions and discuss questions are exceptional. however the book does repeat itself and sometimes goes in to to much detail about irrelevant information. Would higly recommend this book to law students who are beginnng their law studies.

This is a great study guide for anyone who wants to improve their marks on their law course. I was struggling with time constraints on all my practice essays, but this system really helped. Not only am I able to write more quickly and more clearly, I find I'm able to get more information into each of my essays simply because I have an organized method of structuring my argument. In addition to the CLEO system, the book had a chapter on grammar and style that explained things that never made sense to me before. My tutor was shocked at how quickly my essays improved after reading this book. Buy this -- you won't regret it.

For undergraduate or postgraduate law students in particular, this book mainly focuses on tackling problem questions (i.e. involving advising parties or discussing the rights and liabilities of parties in a scenario) using the author's four-step formula of "CLEO" - Claim, Law, Evaluation and Outcome. Each component of the compound is explained and guides the reader on how to write out each of the four steps using a worked example of a negligence tort law problem question written by the author. Essay questions or "discuss questions" (i.e. discussion or critique questions of the law regarding development or reform) are also dealt with briefly with the same formula, but in a slightly modified version.

The use of this method is moderately useful for students, but this is usually taught by lecturers or tutors at university anyway, in my experience and from fellow students. It allows a somewhat focused approach to writing law essays through the use of "CLEO".

The author makes good use of brief summaries at the start of each chapter, as well as boxed mini-headings for many paragraphs, in addition to ample annotation for essays.

However, my main problem with the book is the exposition of the various parts of the "CLEO" method by the author, where in numerous occasions, the author seems to be off-track - particularly in the chapter on applying the formula to "discuss questions". Also, a lot of the comments on worked essays were grammar and punctuation based, without emphasis on analysis or application of "CLEO". In some instances, the explanations on the usage of the formula are unnecessarily verbose. Furthermore, the author frequently uses a number of vague terms interchangeably, such as "sub-issue", without initial clarification which is a major obstacle to understanding how the formula is used. Lastly, I thought the chapter on very basic grammar and punctuation (such as commas and apostrophes) titled as "good tips for legal writing", which covered around 50 pages, was rather unhelpful.

Despite these problems, the book serves as a fair guide to writing law essays or for some inspiration pertaining to style in such essays.

This book is published with answering both law discussion questions and problem questions, in which the law student is presented with a facts scenario and has to evaluate the merits of each claim, in mind. Naturally, it would be easy to lose focus in discussion and problem questions; I've answered many in my time and will answer many more and I speak from experience. In providing a four-part framework which is universally applicable across the wide array of questions that one may have to attempt in a law paper, this book is invaluable.

The student who adopts the method in this book is far less likely to lose focus as it helps to compartmentalise the key elements of answering a question. Moreover, such an approach is invaluable in exam conditions, for the 'Cleo' method ensures that all analysis is to the point and very little time is wasted on irrelevant material.

I've applied this method in many of my essays and exam questions. It's difficult to get used to, but it's certainly worth the effort.

The one criticism to which the book is vulnerable is that the author perhaps spends too much time criticising the grammatical errors in the worked examples. Such an attitude is understandable - after all, part of the point of this method is to make the answers more concise - but perhaps it could do with focusing a little more on the legal defects in the worked examples, as particularly in timed conditions the focus on the grammar will lessen.

Apart from this minor point, however, I recommend the book in the highest possible terms.