The reading assignment says forty pages. What the class actually tests is whether you can state, in front of other people, what each case holds and why — which is a different task from having read forty pages, and needs a different preparation.
This article is the preparation: thirty minutes, the evening before, that turns reading into answers.
What the Socratic method is doing
The professor's questions are not random. They follow a structure, and once you see it, preparation becomes obvious:
- Facts. What happened?
- Issue. What legal question did that raise?
- Holding. What did the court decide?
- Reasoning. Why?
- Hypothetical. Change one fact — what now?
- Relation. How does this case sit with the last three?
Every session is a variation on that sequence. Prepare for those six questions and you are prepared for the class.
The thirty-minute routine
For a night's assignment of two or three cases:
Minutes 0–5: orient. Read the dispositive and the issues of each assigned case. You now know what each case is about before reading any of them properly.
Minutes 5–20: read for the answer. For each case, read the ruling and reasoning, then the facts the holding used. Skip the procedural history and the survey of earlier cases.
Minutes 20–28: brief. One page each, five fields: citation, question, holding, reasoning in steps, the rule to carry away. Written with the case closed — see how to brief cases in first year.
Minutes 28–30: rehearse aloud. For each case, say the holding in one sentence, then the reasoning in steps. Aloud. This is the single highest-value two minutes in the routine, and the one everyone skips.
The hypothetical preparation
The fifth question — change one fact, what now? — is where marks are made. Prepare for it deliberately:
For each case, change one fact and answer, aloud:
- The fact that the holding turned on (the material fact).
- A fact that would have changed the result (the limit of the rule).
- A fact that changes nothing (the irrelevant detail).
Three changes per case, ninety seconds. It is the exercise that teaches you what a rule is — the boundary, not the label — and it is exactly what a bar question tests.
Reading efficiently
- Do not read every word. Decisions are long because they survey, quote and respond. The parts you need are the issue, the ruling, and the material facts.
- Mark, don't copy. Underline in the text; write the brief afterwards, from memory.
- Do not read the cases in the order assigned if one is long and one is short. Read the short one first and bank the preparation.
- If you are behind, brief the first case properly and skim the others' holdings. A prepared answer on one case beats an unprepared silence on three.
When you have not done the reading
It will happen. Two responses that preserve a little dignity and some learning:
- Read the dispositive and the issue in the five minutes before class. You can then follow the discussion and answer the holding question.
- Say so, once, briefly, if asked directly, and offer what you do know about the topic. Professors distinguish between a student who is unprepared and a student who bluffs; the second is worse.
Why the routine is worth keeping after first year
Because it is the same routine as a study session in the review year: orient, read for the answer, write the brief, say it aloud. The Socratic method is a daily forced retrieval session, with feedback — which is more than most review years provide.
The student who treats each class as a timed retrieval exercise is, without intending it, practising for the examination every week for four years. The one who reads passively is practising reading.
For the recitation itself, see recitation technique; for the notes that should come out of it, notes that last four years.