Legal Concepts and Skills

This lesson reviews the material covered in the first part of Chapter 1 of the CALI eLangdell casebook, Statutory Law: A Course Source.

This lesson explores the concepts of notice and knowledge. These are important concepts in many areas of law, e.g., contracts, property, constitutional law, criminal procedure and civil procedure.

Creating Study Aids is part of the Academic Support series of CALI Lessons. This lesson introduces you to law school study aids. It begins with a brief overview of self-regulated learning and Bloom's learning taxonomy. Then, the lesson introduces law school study aids by pairing them with learning objectives at each level of the taxonomy. Finally, the lesson concludes with an activity designed to help you reflect on your learning. It can be used as an introduction, supplement, or as review.

This lesson introduces strategies and resources for researching state and federal judges. After completing this lesson, you will feel comfortable researching a judge's educational and professional history, scholarship, prior opinions, and other courts and judges they most frequently cite. It will be useful for prospective and current judicial clerks, law firm summer associates, paralegals, and practicing attorneys.

This is the second component of a lesson on probability theory. The lesson discusses distributions, the Bayes theorem, and the central limit theorem. It also roughly corresponds to the second probability theory chapter of Prof. Georgakopoulos' book Principles and Methods of Law and Economics.

This is the first part of a two part lesson on probability theory. The lesson covers the basics of averages, deviations, conditional probability, and probability models. It roughly corresponds to the first probability theory chapter of Prof.

This lesson examines the ethical issues associated with, and tools available for, researching parties, witnesses, and jurors on social media sites.

This is one in a series of lessons directed at the ethical and professional considerations associated with the production of particular lawyering documents. This lesson is intended to introduce first year law students to the ethical and professional considerations associated with the preparation of predictive, interoffice memoranda. It is assumed that students are familiar with predictive, interoffice memoranda. No prior instruction in professional responsibility is required.

This lesson provides an overview of the branches of the U.S. government and how each branch makes law.

This lesson introduces the student to the doctrine and processes involved in interpreting state and federal statutes. Statutes are a critical part of every substantive area of the law, so this is important background for every student, legal professional, lawyer and judge.

This is an exercise designed to introduce first-semester law and graduate students to the basic elements of a typical case "brief" and to teach them general methodology for writing their own briefs. The exercise consists of three parts: (1) an introduction to the purposes and uses of a case brief; (2) a detailed examination of each of the ten components of a typical case brief (with examples); and (3) two actual cases that students are asked to read and then to brief, using the methodology described in this exercise. A sample brief for each of the two cases is also provided, thereby allowing students to correct and modify their briefs by way of comparison.

This lesson tries to explain Coasean irrelevance (which is often known as the "Coase Theorem").