Introduction to law school exams

Here’s the difference between a college exam and a law school exam. Imagine a college class called Property. (There wouldn’t be such a thing, but ignore that.) One week, your reading and classes would be about adverse possession. You would learn what adverse possession is. You would learn that it has five elements and the definitions of each. Your class might talk about the doctrine of adverse possession developed over the years, and the policy reasons for and against a doctrine of adverse possession. At the end of the semester, one question on your final exam might be:

Define adverse possession and each of its elements.

And an “A” answer could be something like this:

Adverse possession is a doctrine under which a trespasser, in physical possession of land owned by someone else may acquire valid title to the property. Adverse possession requires five elements: actual possession, exclusive possession, open and notorious possession, adverse/hostile possession, continuous possession, for the statutory period.

In law school, your Property class might cover adverse possession in a very similar way. You would read some cases involving adverse possession and talk about them in class. Maybe talk about some policy rationales and compare the approaches in different states.

But then the question on your final exam looks something like this:

Polly bought a 150-acre ranch in Wyoming in 2013. In the summer, she lets her cattle graze on the land. She rotates the cattle through different fields in order not to let any one field become “over grazed” and harm the grass. In the winter, the snow is too deep and there is no grass, so she doesn’t use the land each year between September and early June.

In 2025, Donald, who owns the ranch next to Polly’s, said that Polly had been grazing her cattle on a two-acre narrow strip of land that actually belongs to him, not to Polly. Polly has now come to you to ask what she should do. When asked, she says she has never seen Donald or anyone graze cattle on this strip of land.

The statute of limitations for adverse possession in Wyoming is 10 years, and there is no state of mind requirement for the person claiming adverse possession.

WTF?

This is a very different kind of exam. You still need to know what “adverse possession” means. You still need to know what the five elements are and need to be able to define each of them. But that’s the bare minimum. If that’s all you wrote for this question, you would likely receive a failing grade. In law school, it’s assumed that you have learned the rules. What you will be tested on is how you apply the rules.

This is the "A" in IRAC. Watch this video for an introduction to writing good analysis on law school exams.