PART II: SKILLS YOU NEED IN LAW SCHOOL But to understand distilling, you must first understand
(Spoken Word Poetry) what you’re distilling.
Yecla, Czarina Lynne
Ajoc, Mary Joessa
“Wake up it’s time for [law] school!
Time to get dressed
And sit at your desk
Stress, and test with the rest
To see who’s the best
A [four-year] quest,
Allow us to digress”
Law school will be the death of us.
From day one we are told what is expected of us,
Read, go to school, listen, speak, repeat.
Read, digest, recite, repeat. (2x)
But don’t forget to eat.
Read, digest, recite, repeat.
Read. Digest. Recite. Repeat.
But is that all there is?
Again for you, allow us to digress.
In law school, you’ll be taught about the law.
Piled up information over information.
Facts and how to apply the legal propositions,
Laws that will create an immense confusion.
Because sometimes the law is vague,
And when it’s vague, you create.
Create an interpretation, but not just figments of your
imagination
But constructions that makes sense and relate,
To the intent of the ones who legislate.
And when the courts arrive at that conclusion,
What do you then call this proposition?
The first of the many, called the judicial interpretation.
Now, you may have notice we’ve already said a lot,
And we still haven’t come to the point we’re getting at.
Well you see, that’s actually the case,
With all this information we just gave,
Which do you think should be retained?
That is a skill you have to hone
To distill a law from its enormous form.
From the legal proposition to the black letter law,
Beyond rules or propositions of a bad law.
Now why is it a law if it’s called bad?
Don’t we need to focus on the good ones to make a
stand?
A rule is good if it applies in a given jurisdiction which
nobody has overturned.
But courts may overturn themselves so propositions
now then may already be wrong,
And now isn’t a binding law at the time you study them,
But study them precisely because they were wrong.
Sometimes we study old rules to see how the law has
changed,
That way we know which ones come up to your stage.
Now that we’ve seen how many different kinds of
proposition we can learn,
Let me start with four things you require to good
distilling through these terms.
First put the propositions into your own words.
Second, test your understanding of the proposition by
applying to new fact patterns.
Third, put the propositions into context to see how they
fit into the course as whole.
And last, disregard propositions that don’t staple.
Now you’ve learned how to distill the law: organizing
large quantities of legal information into usable form.
Let’s now move on to issue spotting: identifying relevant
legal question.
To spot an issue, you have to get the right questions
asked,
Questions that can be asked about a certain set of facts.
Three issues that law school will teach you to spot:
First issues about which propositions are relevant,
By relevant I mean all propositions that might be
relevant in a case,
And turn that might into WHICH propositions IS relevant
to the case.
Second, issues about how those propositions should be
interpreted.
The task now is identifying these interpretations,
Taking into consideration all alternate versions.
Last, issues about how they should be applied.
Apply each propositions identified,
And you’ll identify the best arguments on both sides.
The third skill you need to learn in law school is
argument: articulating the best legal answers on both
sides of the questions identified.
Law students argue about four basic things:
Legal texts, precedents, policy and facts.
Argument about texts means arguing what the legal
proposition stands for.
Ask if the earlier case is relevantly similar,
If it is, then build arguments based on this pillar,
The secret to arguing well is not to disregard your own
beliefs, but taking full account of someone else’s – an
imaginary person who believes the argument you need
to make.
Distilling. Issue Spotting. Argument Making. (2x)
These are the skills you need in lawyering.
So, tick tock (2x) it’s really time to wake up!

Arguing about the text itself means arguing about the

language of the law by its plain meaning,
If it’s not ambiguous it’s not prone to construing.

Arguing about the intent may require looking into the

legislative history,
What circumstances they were in when they enacted
the law,
What were in their minds when they created this law.

The purpose of the text focuses on the goals expressed

in the statute.
What problem was it meant to solve?
To make an argument about the purpose, figure out
what the purpose was.
Then claim that the interpretation is consistent with that
purpose compared to what argument the other has.

The principles of interpretation are the canons of

construction.
But these are not rules but mere guidelines,
Hence courts have to argue reason why these canons
should apply,
So it’s up to you to give this argument a try.

Argument about precedents is something a court

decided in a past case.
And when you argue about it, you compare the situation
in your case with the one in the earlier case.

To make an argument about whether the court should

follow a precedent,
Ask the relationship between earlier courts and yours
If it has power to bind your courts.

Ask if the proposition in the earlier case is a holding,

Else, the same won’t likewise be binding.