Cracking the Case Method, Legal Analysis for Law School Success

For about 150 years, law schools have relied on the Case Method to teach the skills and art of legal analysis to first-year law students. Yet many students struggle academically, not due to lack of intellectual ability but because they are suddenly immersed in a unique and seemingly opaque educational process without receiving any explanation of what they should be trying to learn, much less how to learn it. Why do reading assignments consist of appellate court opinions? Why do professors rely o…