Planet Law School II, by Atticus Falcon (Book Review)

Larry Law Law on April 8, 2022

The Best Book on Law School Success

To me, Planet Law School II (affiliate link) is the gold standard of a law school book on, well, law school success.

If someone pointed a gun to my head and said ”only one book on law school success,” this would be it.

(Don’t just buy one book for your law school prep by the way. Buy everything you need!)

I recommend this book to every law student I tutor.

I have mostly praise for PLS, and only a few criticisms, as I set out below.

But honestly, no other book currently on the market comes close to being honest about the law school game and how to beat it.

Planet Law School: The Good

The author, Atticus Falcon (obviously not his real name), provides a clear-eyed, thorough, and well-articulated critique of the entire law school system. 

No one describes in more rich and convincing detail the pathology of law school. Like, all of it: the dumb use of the Socratic method in class, and the bait and switch of it all (that you spend all your time out of class reading cases, all your class time watching your professor make the law much more complicated than it is, and then you’re tested on things you were supposed to have figured out on your own from this mess.)

Only Planet Law School, of all of the books I’ve read, puts together such a readable retelling of an ancient history (how over 100 years ago, Christopher Langdell came up with the method used to teach law school everywhere in the U.S.) that has such relevance to the lives of law students and that so few in the legal academy wants to revisit.

Why is it important to know the history of law school? 

If you know, before going to law school, how arbitrary and insane the curriculum actually is, and how far removed it is from actual legal practice, you will approach law school with the proper perspective.

You can detach emotionally from your instinctive and unthinking sense of obedience to do what the professor wants, and do the opposite–that is, do exactly what you need to in order to ace law school.

To do well in law school, you need to be at least a little bit cynical about law school. Once you have read Mr. Falcon’s history of legal education, you will never be the same again.

Just as you never want to sausage again after reading The Jungle, you will never again trust another law professor after reading PLS.

Planet Law School isn’t just full of history, however.

Most of it is extremely practical, actionable advice, most of which I agree with. For instance: 

  • Atticus Falcon recommends pre-studying, using commercial outlines, because the Socratic method/case study method does not make any sense in terms of mastering the black letter law which you are actually tested on law school.
  • Planet Law School also recommends not briefing cases because it is a giant waste of time.
  • PLS also emphasizes taking as many practice law school exams as possible.

Planet Law School: The Bad

I have a couple criticisms of this book. None of them prevent me from recommending this to law students, but you should be aware. Here they are in no particular order:

  • Disorganized. The book is refreshingly quirky in tone and in substance. But I wish it were not so quirky as to form. The chapters are not named in a straightforward way. I appreciate the literate and clever references (the chapter on the law school bait and switch is titled “The Walrus and the Carpenter”). But it is annoying to navigate this book to find the advice you want fast.
  • WAAAAY too long. Planet Law School weighs in at 800 pages, almost doubling the size of the original book, Planet Law School I. Many chapters should have been cut from the hard copy of the book. They could have been put in an online supplement for people who want to read more.
    • For instance, there is a whole chapter addressing criticisms of the first addition of his book. Why? Who, other than Atticus Falcon, cares? Certainly, the arguments are convincing. They become arcane and presume the knowledge that the student seeks to obtain. Too much detail that aimed at defending the methods set out in the book, but they quickly add to the student’s information overload.
    • In short, there is too much of a good thing. But while the book could be more reader-friendly, you might better view the book as a heavy reference volume (like a dictionary or encyclopedia) instead of a handy, quick start, “how to do law school” action guide.
  • Not a one stop shop. At 800 pages you would think that Planet Law School II would include everything you need to succeed in law school. It doesn’t. Atticus Falcon specifically tells you to buy other books so you can do well in law school. I’m fine with this, though, because I think you should buy everything you need. He recommends law school primers. Cool. You really should, as he said, buy them because they are important to your success in law school.
  • But you would think that PLS itself would contain enough methodology–concrete steps on how to do well on a law school exam. He recommends that you buy LEEWS, as well as books by John Delaney. Those are great resources, but he could have offered help with this.
  • In short, it would have been nice if Mr. Falcon had provided more specific, usable tactics on how to write a good issue-spotting law school exam. This would have been nice. He does, however, go through an exam in detail, which is nice.

Overall assessment

Despite my criticisms, and they are minor, I highly recommend this great book if you are about to start law school, or even after you start. If you find yourself at all lost or alienated by law school, but still want to do well, please get this book.

I have asked that most of my tutoring students purchase this book.

Most of them have found this idiosyncratic book eye-opening and helpful.

Law School Success Tips, Part 1 of 10: Why Is Law School So Confusing?

Larry Law Law on October 5, 2016

Here is an important question:  Why is law school so confusing?

It seems easy in concept:

  • Read case book.
  • Go to class.
  • Study hard!
  • Take the exam.

But in practice it makes very little sense.  It’s more like this:

  • You read a bunch of stuff.  It is terribly written and makes no sense.
  • You go to class and hope that your prof will talk about this stuff that makes no sense.
  • Instead, your professor asks questions of students who make no sense in trying to make sense of the stuff that makes no sense.
  • You then take an exam that makes no sense and appears to have nothing in common with the stuff you read that makes no sense or that your professor asked questions about that made no sense.

Got it?

So why is law school like this?

Understanding the mystery of law school — and why it is confusing — will help you understand how to make it un-confusing.

Law school used to be simpler.

Years ago — like over 100 years ago — there were a number of ways to become a lawyer.

You could go to law school, apprentice with a lawyer, or even study yourself (looking at you, Abe Lincoln).

Everyone studied books called treatises that collected bodies of law and clearly described the law. (Lincoln studied Blackstone’s Commentaries.)

All that changed in 1895.

A jackass named Christopher Langdell, who became dean at Harvard Law School despite being a totally unremarkable lawyer, decided law school was too easy.

Langdell thought students should learn how to think about the law, whatever that means.

So he scrapped the old method (actually teaching students the law) for a new one: make them figure it out for themselves.

More specifically, under Langdell’s new method:

  • Students read real court cases (from a case book, not a treatise) in which the law is applied but not explained.
  • Professors ask questions about the cases.
  • Students magically learn the “legal reasoning,” supposedly learning general principles of law by reading specific cases.

Under this method, the professor should not tell students what the law is.

Nor do professors teach students how to apply the law to new situations, even though that skill is exactly what final exams test.

If Langdell’s method sounds crazy, it is.

For more than 100 years to this day, every law school in the U.S. has taught Langdell’s way.

When students take bar review courses (like BarBRI), they are going back to the pre-Langdell way of studying law.

These prep courses do two things:

  • They actually teach you the law, rather than make you figure it out from cases (. In bar prep, law school professors (the same ones who spend the school year not teaching you the law) actually teach you the law (i.e., “the elements of murder are A, B & C”). Insanity! CHAOS AND INSANITY!!!!!
  • They also (kind of) teach you how to apply the law. Not a lot. But they try. UNLIKE in law school, bar prep courses give you some instruction on exam writing (maybe a lecture on IRAC, see my videos on here and here), and some feedback on exam writing. That’s it. (And it costs about $5,000, which your employer often pays for.)

To top it off, the bar exam is much harder than law school exams.

A law school contracts exam calls for contracts issue spotting.

On the bar exam, anything goes: contracts, torts, evidence, civ pro, your mother, anything.

So, a recap: law school exams and the bar exam both involve applying black letter law to an issue spotting fact-pattern essay exam.

But law school takes the annoying scenic route to your destination by making you figure out the law yourself by reading cases.

Bar prep courses take you straight to the same destination. No detours.

Now, isn’t that interesting?

Do you see what I see?

The Solution: 3 Shortcuts Inspired By Bar Review Courses

By comparing law school with bar prep, we can see a potential “hack” or shortcut to studying in law school.

Treat law school like the bar exam.

You can strip away the unnecessary and get a simple recipe to law school success (simple in concept, anyway):

Avoid case-related busy work.

Study the law directly. Practice issue spotting daily.

That’s it!

Do three things – follow just 13 words! — and you will get better grades and feel more relaxed than 90% of your classmates!

This is simple in concept but harder to execute.

You have to be willing to do things that other students aren’t doing, and that maybe your professors won’t like (if you told them).

Next time we’ll look at each short cut in detail.

Law School Exam Tips: What Is Issue Spotting? What Is An Issue?

Larry Law Law on May 19, 2016

I am stuck in a mantra-rut if you haven’t noticed. It goes like this:

  • Getting a good job requires getting good grades in law school.
  • Getting good grades in law school requires killing it on your final exams.
  • Killing on your law school exams requires you to master the skill of issue spotting.

But wait, Larry Law Law, what the hell is issue spotting?

What the hell is an “issue,” for that matter?

Lucky, I will show you instead of telling you.  Two videos for you today.

The first video concretely describes what an “issue” may look like on a law school exam (including my own drawings of Smurfette and Papa Smurf with beer and a shotgun.)

The second video explains the subtle threshold for identifying an issue. Before law school, the law seems like a black and white thing, like a science. But in law school, you recognize shades of grey (ha ha), and that law is more of an art. (Certainly, on law school exams this is true.)

The key word — almost guaranteed to be new to you if you have not gone to law school, and absolutely guaranteed to be important — is colorable:

In short:  welcome to the mind of a law student.

One word to prepare for law school success

Larry Law Law on May 11, 2016

To prepare for law school success, easy-to-remember advice is best.

Like Jon Snow’s sword-fighting advice to Arya when he gifts her Needle:

“First lesson:  stick ’em with the pointy end.”

That’s it.

That is the essence of sword-fighting.

Of course, sword fighting is nuanced. But if you panic in a fight and can’t remember the nuanced stuff, what can you do? Stick ’em.

Ned Stark, no sword-slouch, agrees that “stick ’em with the pointy end” is the essence of sword fighting.

Good gravy does Arya follow Jon’s advice.

So, what is the law school equivalent of “stick ’em with the pointy end”?

If I could reduce law school success to a single word, it’s this:

TAPEAD.

I cheated. This is an acronym made up of 6 words:

Take A Practice Exam A Day.

That is it.

TAPEAD.

Say it out loud.

TAPEAD.

Silly right?

It sounds like “tapenade”, or maybe a portmanteau for “a tapestry that you see at the French business school INSEAD” (Tap-EAD?).

If it helps (for those of you who think visually), imagine — to lock this in your head — yourself naked, covered in olive TAPEAD, while speaking business French and casually leaning on a tapestry that you are totally ruining because of the tapenade.

I won’t draw that for you.

So, TAPEAD: Take A Practice Exam A Day.

Simple advice.  Easy-to-remember advice.

Why will this lead to law school success?

If you take a practice exam every day, you are actively exercising your issue-spotting muscle, the one skill upon which your grades depend (but that law school does not teach you directly).

If you follow this simple, easy-to-remember advice, you will survive law school.  (Meaning:  everyone passes, but you will do well.)

Now, TAPEAD does not contain every nuance on law school success.

When to start?  When is “every day”?

Well, as soon as you can. Maybe starting the summer before law school.

In any case, no later than September or early October of your first year — do it every day.

I set out “the essence of it” in the video embedded below (I don’t call it “TAPEAD”, but you get the point):

Remember:  even Jon Snow (who knows nothing) says “you have to work at it every day.”

Which is why the daily practice — to take a practice exam a day — is the essence of your law school success.

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