023.01 Master Issue Spotting

The strategies and tactics you need to learn

The one skill that it is most important to learn — the one that makes you a real law student and a real lawyer — is issue spotting.

How do you master issue spotting?

As we discussed, you master issue spotting by practicing.

By taking as many practice exams as you can.

BUT: your practice needs to be deliberate.

You do need to understand what you are trying to do.

Think of the ability to take a law school issue-spotting final exam as a muscle.

It is a muscle you almost certainly did not have before law school.

This muscle can be developed and be made strong by deliberate practice.

But you need to lift the right weights the right way over time to develop the muscles.

The muscles don’t appear overnight. They develop over time.

So let’s talk about the right way to think about issue spotting.