Learning Legal Reasoning: Briefing, Analysis and Theory (Delaney Series Book 1)

I'm going into my 2nd year and bought this book because I didn't get the grades I wanted as a 1L. I was a straight-A undergrad (English major) and scored 96th percentile on the LSAT, so I had high expectations of myself. The problem was, I didn't really "get" what my professors expected of me. This book nails it. I learned of it last week by desperately reading through law student Listmanias on Amazon when the last of my grades came through and I knew I needed some help if I wanted to do better next year. I had never heard of the book and don't know anyone who has read it-- it seems to be self-published, and I ordered it directly from his company; I don't think you'll see it in your school bookstore (I didn't).I actually don't even know if his advice would resonate as well with me as a 1L as it does now, so I'd encourage other current law students looking to improve their grades to read it, especially if you're like me and struggling to understand why you didn't do better than you expected. But I definitely wish I'd read it last year-- my classes would have made a lot more sense. On the first page of Chapter 1, Delaney proposes a definition of "what law is" to explain what the first year of law school is about: "Law is a process of legal reasoning for decision-making about particular controversies." Believe it or not, I truly didn't get that my first year; I thought I just needed to "spot the issues." But there's a lot more to it than that, and I'm glad I found something that spells it all out in a way that none of my professors did. I've only just started reading so I can't report on all the content, but I wanted to encourage anyone just starting or looking to improve their grades to pick this one up before school starts. Good luck in school!

I read this book and worked through the problems the week before law school. I have to say that, after a week and a half, I feel very comfortable briefing cases. Yesterday I was crunched for time and did a complicated, short case in just 10 minutes. I hit on all of the main points, although I didn't have the wording or scope of the rule down (that takes more time than reading and highlighting the case).I didn't write in this book, but I would suggest that you copy the first couple of cases in it and practice with multiple highlighters. I use Yellow for facts and to highlight something I know will be relevant in this first pass through. Then I go back and use orange for Issue/Holding (subsequently the rule), Blue for procedural history and judgment, pink for reasoning, and green for any dicta.The things I didn't get from this book was the ability to spot dicta, this actually takes practice and I'm starting to get it.Normally I would have given it 4 stars, but since there is nothing comparable and I have people asking me for advice, I think it is worthy of the 5 star.As a side note, the professor has even sent me an email twice concerning some issues to watch (Sotomaier hearing and his free youtube videos).This, along with "Getting to Maybe" (which is pretty complicated so I would read the intro and part 3 prior to the other two sections) are sure to help you understand what you should be learning in law school.

I expected deeper one so think 139 pages are not so thick for explaining whole thing of legal reasoning. I don't know why this book is so favorable to customers here, but I hope this book help me some in near future after reading it.

I just finished reading (working through I should say) Learning Legal Reasoning, and I'm amazed at how much I got out of it. You actually get practice applying skills that are explained in a very thoughtful way. I certainly can't produce briefs as good as the examples in the book, but it seems like I am about 70% there, which gives me confidence since I have quite a while before starting school. It's a fantastic introduction.

Read this book the summer before law school. You'll understand more and more of it as you go through your first year, and it will help you tie the first year courses together.

Excellent introduction book to legal reasoning. The examples have good and bad examples to help clarify what makes a good brief. It was very helpful for me to have both examples to see where I was doing well and where I needed more work. Overall, great book and would recommend.

waste of money

In simple words, Profession Delaney teaches us how to read / listen, think and speak / write in a lawerly way. Thanks, Professor. Y.M. Cheung, Hong Kong