Torts can sometimes feel like an impossible memory game where failure to recall the small details of cases can derail your understanding. This is the wrong way to think about torts, and the best torts supplement or study guide allows you to practice your understanding. Every case is a mix of policy, fact, and law that is necessarily unique. On an exam, you may get bonus points for analogizing to cases you’ve read, but the important part is to be able to apply crazy facts to the law.
In this way, torts is like civil procedure in that they only way to ace your exam is through practice. But torts is also like substantive criminal law, in that you are tested on your ability to decide whether the facts meet the elements. But here’s the thing to realize: there are only four (or five) elements! And they are the same in every instance. When you realize that torts only requires you to apply the same analysis over and over, on the same elements, such that it is the same test every time, what you are required to do begins to feel less panic-inducing. Instead, it’s clear that through practice, you can become familiar with the elements and ace your test.
Like civil procedure, with enough practice, as you become familiar with the ins and outs of exam problems and can vacuum up points, you might even find that torts exams are fun. Once you are adept at applying crazy facts to the elements of a tort, you are basically a legal version of Sonic the Hedgehog, where every ring is a point.
Because torts isn’t very complicated at its core and only requires you to do repetitive analysis, professors force a curve by placing time constraints on exams. The way to beat this is intense familiarity with the law and your own outline via the iterative outline process. Like the LSAT, if you have taken 10-15 practice tests, you’ll be in Sonic the Hedgehog mode, rather than experiencing an existential crisis at exam time.
But torts is unique in that it requires you to turn pages of facts into a well-organized bucket of analyzed claims. For this reason, the absolute best torts supplement and exam study guide is the ruthlessly efficient method designed by Law Exam Companions. It’s not an outline, so bring your own understanding of the substantive law, but closely following the method described in this supplement will ensure that you have more than enough time on your exam. The Law Exam Companions system breaks down every fact pattern into a few charts which ensure that you leave no points behind on your exam. It’s reproduce-able and the perfect tool to use as your exam accompaniment.
The perfect combination is to, once you’ve outlined and become familiar with the Law Exam Companions system, grab Siegel’s Essay and Multiple Choice Questions & Answers and work your way through the essay questions. Then find a few others online or in our exam bank. Work this practice into your iterative outlining process, and you’ll be 100% confident entering exam day.
As usual, there are also a bevy of other torts study guides and resources that consist of the usual suspects. Examples and Explanations helps you grasp the basics when your professor makes things confusing, and Understanding Torts is there to fill in the gaps. Finally, while typically it isn’t recommended to rely on the commercial outlines like QuickStudy or the Acing Series as your outline, those two supplements are particularly helpful for a class like torts, which involves discrete, categorical concepts. If you are struggling to conceptualize how the pieces fit together, check out either, with Acing Torts being a stronger recommendation.
Check out the full summary of this list below:
- Law Exam Companions: Tort Law
- Understanding Torts
- Torts: Essay and Multiple-Choice Questions and Answers
- Examples & Explanations: The Law of Torts
- Acing Torts
Looking for the best supplements, practice exams, and study strategies for the res of your classes? Check out our full resource library.
Best Torts Supplement to Practice With: Law Exam Companions Tort Law Study Aid
Law Exam Companions: Tort Law is the best torts supplement for exam prep (it isn’t a material study guide). Once you have a grasp of the material, the Law Exam Companions system allows you to efficiently approach every torts fact pattern with a ready-made system to keep track of all of the claims. Professors will pack hundreds of points into many paragraphs and count on students not to have time to triage them all. This system lets you methodically cut through the issues and facts as you go, eliminating any concern that you missed points.
Understanding Torts
Understanding Torts is, like with other subjects, a very strong material study guide. Understanding torts provides a backstop to ensure that you have somewhere to turn when your class notes or the E&E don’t sufficiently explain your question.
Torts: Essay and Multiple-Choice Questions and Answers
Acing torts requires practice. This series is the best torts supplement that allows you to practice both essay and multiple choice question formats. Utilize both the essay questions in this book and the Law Exam Companions method in sync to drive home your iterative outline process.
Examples & Explanations: The Law of Torts
The old staple of study guides, there is of course a Glannon Law of Torts. This resource is not the best torts supplement (because it doesn’t provide enough practice questions), but is what you’ve come to expect from the E&E series. Some basic explanations, relaxing prose, and some examples to get you started on practicing your knowledge.
For a solid concept-map, check out Acing Torts. This series provides a canned commercial outline, which is particularly helpful to clarify how the pieces of torts fit together when constructing your torts outline, (and is probably the best torts supplement for checklists and outlines beyond Law Exam Companions) and also has a very helpful checklist, which you can use to integrate with your Law Exam Companions system.
QuickStudy Torts
Similar to the Acing series, QuickStudy provides outlines of the basic concepts of law in a given area, which is useful for cross-referencing your tort law outline. The Acing series is preferable in that it provides checklists, but take a look at this supplement for additional insight into ways to organize the necessary information in your own outline.