1L - First Year Lesson Topics

This lesson will familiarize you with secondary sources covering Alabama law. This lesson supplements the lesson on Alabama primary sources. You will learn about finding aids for researching secondary sources and explore both online and print tools available to access those materials.

This lesson shows how to research Alaskan state law. Topics include statutes and codes, administrative law, ethics rules, the court system, secondary sources, and cases.

Using a hypothetical research problem, the lesson walks through efficient ways to find answers.

This is the second in a series of lessons on culpability requirements under the Model Penal Code (MPC). This lesson, which assumes students are familiar with the basic requirement that every material element have a state of mind, addresses the state of mind that applies to each element when one or more states of mind are contained in an MPC criminal statute. The lesson introduces students to the various types of elements in MPC statutes and to the general rule, found in § 2.02(4), that where a state of mind is specified, it applies to all material elements unless a contrary purpose plainly appears. The lesson affords students the opportunity to practice the default rules relating to states of mind on mock statutes and to learn how the legislature expresses a contrary purpose.

This lesson will teach you how to locate treaties between Indian tribes and the United States government. It will also show you how to determine whether a particular treaty provision is still in effect and how to interpret ambiguous treaty provisions.

This lesson is an introduction to the American Law Reports (ALR) and is intended for use by students in introductory legal research classes. The goal is to give you an understanding of the features of the resource, the best methods for using it, and an understanding of when to use it. The lesson covers both print and electronic formats of ALR.

This lesson explores one of the fundamental lawyering skills, which is to think like a lawyer, or analyze. Students will go through basic analysis exercises, so they can master this technique prior to writing exams.

This lesson also includes video commentary from the author that expands on the material in the lesson.

First-year law students often understand the law and know the right conclusion, but struggle to apply the law thoroughly in order to maximize their scores. This lesson is designed to help law students who may have received feedback that their analysis is conclusory.

Have you ever compared your essay to a sample answer, or one with a higher grade, and wondered what was different about yours? Especially if you seemed to use all the correct law? It's likely that you aren't using your facts enough!

This lesson will explain why it's important that you use your facts, as well as help you to do just that!

This brief lesson will familiarize the student with the basic parts of a case (i.e., the written decision of a court) published in print and on Westlaw.

This lesson explores the contours of anticipatory repudiation, including the repudiating promisor's ability to retract his repudiation, the nonrepudiating promisee's right to demand adequate assurances of performance, and the effect of the promisor's repudiation on the promisee's obligation to perform.

This is a game to test your memory of where decisions from district courts in each state would be appealed.

This CALI lesson will introduce you to the ethical considerations associated with writing appellate briefs. The lesson is intended for a first year law student currently taking a legal writing course. No previous knowledge of ethics is presumed.

This lesson is designed to familiarize students with Arizona's primary legal sources. It will also provide a basic understanding of how to use these sources in conducting legal research. No prerequisite knowledge is required to use this lesson.

This lesson introduces students to secondary resources for Arizona legal researchers.

This lesson covers the Arkansas constitution, statutes, legislative history, cases, courts and court rules, and administrative materials. It was designed for those who have a general knowledge of researching primary legal sources.

This lesson identifies the law of the intentional tort of assault, and challenges the student to apply unusual fact situations to that law. The exercise explores the tort of assault as it has developed to cover modern settings.

Throughout law school, students will be asked to assess their own essays by comparing them to a model or sample student answer provided by their professor. It can often be difficult to distinguish one’s work from the model. Sometimes it is hard to distinguish what a student knows, from what they wrote down. Experienced legal writers understand that subtle differentiation in language changes the meaning of what was written. This lesson will provide students with strategies for self-assessment, so that they can become critical judges of their work, and consequently precise legal writers.

This lesson covers assignment of contract rights and delegation of contract duties. You can run it either as an introduction to the topic or as a review after you have studied it.

A plaintiff who voluntarily assumes a risk of harm cannot recover for the negligent or reckless conduct that causes the harm: that is known as assumption of risk. It is a complete defense. This lesson explores the defense, which together with contributory negligence has been part of negligence law for more than a century-and-a-half. The border between the two classic negligence defenses is sometimes confusing, so questions navigate the differences. Also, the lesson considers the continuing vitality of the defense of assumption of risk when contributory negligence is rapidly being replaced by comparative negligence.

This lesson will teach you the best ways to prepare for exams, and the best ways to organize your response on the day of your exam.

This is an introduction to federal and state attorney general materials.

This lesson teaches about the law of bailments, i.e., the law that controls the rights and duties of a possessor of tangible personal property (goods) who is not the owner.

Basic Future Interests is a follow-up tutorial exercise to The Estate System. It deals with the two major classes of future interests, those retained by transferors and those created in third persons. Emphasis is given to distinguishing among the various kinds of vested remainders and contingent remainders, as well as to distinguishing between remainders and executory interests. The lesson also provides the primary treatment of the defeasible fee simple estates, with emphasis on the future interests that tailor them.

This lesson is part of a series of exercises covering Basic Future Interests. While the 10 lessons comprising this series can be worked in any sequence, the lessons do to some degree build on each other. Thus, it is suggested that students work them in order.