Maps without the pictures!

Law exams are strange creatures. I'll be writing my first set of them next week (is December really upon us already?) and I'm right in the thick of preparing for them. Between my undergraduate and grad degrees, I've written a lot of tests and exams over the years but I must say that studying for law exams is an entirely different experience. The lion's share of the study time isn't actually spent on cramming knowledge into your brain (everything's open book) but rather on preparing intricate overview documents called "maps," which despite their lack of anything pictorial are so named because they take you step-by-step through how to address various legal problems that could come up on the exam. For example, a section of my Torts map on whether a defendant breached their standard of care looks something like this:

2. Did def breach standard of care?

General standard is Balance of Probabilities – must prove both that def breached standard of care and was negligent to this level of proof

1.      What if not enough evidence to establish guilty def on a balance of probabilities?

a.       Idea of “res ipsa loquitor” helps pl establish a prima facie case of negligence even in absence of direct evidence (Fontaine case removes the Latin term)

                                                               i.      Allows jury to be “permitted to infer” def was negligent if they choose to do so (tactical burden on def to introduce an explanation) Byrne v. Boadle (Barrel of flour falls out; no way of pl to get evidence from def; but generally act would be negligent)

1.      Limited to where accident would not normally occur without negligence

2.      Limited to where def has control over “instrumentality of harm” (Escola)

a.       Even if def not directly handling item, if pl proves that item didn’t change by “reasonable inference” they can still be held liable

b.      If defect originates before def gets a hand on it, not liable unless def could have reasonably detected/remediated it

3.      Limited to cases of a blameless Plaintiff 

So this gives you the general idea - if I get a question on whether a defendant may have breached their standard of care, but the evidence to support the plaintiff's case is shaky, I'll apply the above reasoning drawn from the various cases we studied to determine whether the plaintiff still has a decent shot of winning, despite their lack of direct evidence. And of course, I'll also go through several other pages of these types of tests, organize my reasoning in a manner that has some internal logic to it, and do my best to sound convincing, all in the course of an hour! (and repeat it 5 times for all my other classes). Now you can see why I'm thankful these exams do not count the first time around!

Other than finals, I've had a lot on the go on other fronts as well - went to Barrie two weeks ago and visited my friend Bill and his wife Becca - they treated me to a lovely escape from all of the above, as well as some great food and even better company. I've also been starting to plan for the holidays - will be flying back to Nova Scotia on the 16th, the day after my last final, and spending a couple weeks there before making a brief visit to Ottawa on the 29th-31st-ish (still haven't finalized my departure date from there, will likely head back to TO on the 31st or New Years Day). I'm looking forward to seeing family, friends, and colleagues, and generally just celebrating the end of my first term of this adventure.

Well, I should get back to mapping. At present, I have 3/6 maps drafted, but the goal is to have most of them finalized before the weekend so that I can spend most of Saturday/Sunday just reviewing them and feeling as comfortable as possible going into the exams themselves. I'll leave you with a little photo I just took of the leaf-covered window I'm looking out of right now - it's amazing that for the first time in 162 years, Toronto managed a snow-free November, though I suspect we will be seeing frozen precipitation of some kind over the course of the next few weeks. Thanks for reading and remember, it's always darkest just before the dawn!