Your study method

Your Study Method.

How I study law all year, not just before exams. Five habits, three phases, and the tools already in your workspace.

Build your schedule

The method

Five habits.

Good legal memory does not come from re-reading. It comes from these five, in this order.

1. Retrieval

   Force yourself to recall a case before you look it up.

   In focused work: the ratio drill.

2. Spacing

   Return to Donoghue v Stevenson two weeks after you first read it, not the night before.

   In focused work: the spaced review.

3. Understanding

   Know the ratio and what it changed before you memorise the name.

   In focused work: the full story of the case.

4. Interleaving

   Study negligence next to contract, not in separate silos.

   In focused work: interleaved practice.

5. Explanation

   Say a rule aloud in plain English until it holds.

The order

Then, when.

Every module runs through the same three phases. Your schedule puts the dates on them; your modules are where the work happens.

1. Build

   Day 0

   First read plus the ratio drill.

2. Review

   Days 1, 3, 7, 21 and 35

   Spaced recall before checking notes.

3. Pressure

   The last two weeks before the exam

   Interleaved practice against another module.

Open your modules

A starting set

Where to start.

The doctrines worth knowing first. Pick one and put the five habits on it.

• Tort / England & Wales

  Duty of care (negligence)

  As the law currently stands in England and Wales, courts decide whether a duty of care is owed by following established principles and precedents. Only in a novel case, where those principles do not provide an answer, do they go further, and Caparo's three ingredients of foreseeability, proximity, and whether it is fair, just and reasonable to impose a duty then come into play.

  Read the doctrine

• Tort / England & Wales

  Negligent misstatement (pure economic loss)

  A defendant who makes a statement may owe a duty of care in respect of pure economic loss caused by reliance on it where there is an assumption of responsibility, foreseeable reliance, and reliance was reasonable in the circumstances.

  Read the doctrine

• Contract / England & Wales

  Consideration

  A promise is enforceable as a contract only if supported by consideration, something of value (a benefit to the promisor or a detriment to the promisee) given in exchange for the promise. Past consideration is no consideration; consideration must move from the promisee.

  Read the doctrine

• Contract / England & Wales

  Misrepresentation

  A pre-contractual statement of fact (or, exceptionally, opinion or intention) made by one party that induces the other to enter the contract and turns out to be untrue may give rise to rescission and damages, measured by reference to whether the misrepresentation was fraudulent, negligent, or innocent.

  Read the doctrine