Study Guides for 2L/3L Classes

The Center for Computer-Assisted Legal Instruction (CALI) provides are computer-based, interactive tutorials that cover narrow topics of law. There are over 1,200 lessons available on 60 different topics. Current W&L Law students can click here for the Authorization Code to sign up for a free account.

The Lexis Digital Library is an e-book collection of primary and secondary legal materials, plus a range of study aids for law school subjects from LexisNexis. Contains over 700 titles on 60+ legal topics, including the Understanding, Skills & Values, and Questions & Answers study aids series. Complimentary access is provided by the W&L Law Library to current W&L Law students.

West Academic offers hundreds of study aids written by top legal scholars that are designed to help you succeed in law school, including Nutshells, Hornbooks, Black Letter Outlines, Sum and Substance Audio Lectures, and more. All are free to view online or download to your mobile device with a valid W&L Law account through the linked heading above.

Online access available through West Academic. Acing Professional Responsibility provides a dual benefit to law students who, to become licensed lawyers, have to pass both a law school exam in a Legal Ethics course as well as the Multistate Professional Responsibility Examination (MPRE). To prepare for the law school examination, there are pages of text, numerous outlines, bullet points, sample essay questions and answers, and mini-checklists to learn the basics and fine points of Professional Responsibility. In addition, this book discusses all recent ABA Formal Ethics Opinions. The Acing book also enables students to quickly recall and pass the MPRE. The materials are current through the most recent Model Rules amendments in 2018.

Online access available through West Academic. Helping law students score higher on law school tests, the Exam Pro Series offers practice questions and sample exams and corresponding answers with detailed analysis. Each Exam Pro title is authored by a leading law professor and recognized expert in an area of law and contains multiple choice and essay questions based on current court decisions. Detailed explanations for each answer describe the best possible choice as well as red herring answers, which helps increase law student understanding of a topic and build exam skills.

Examples & Explanations for Professional Responsibility, Sixth Edition, is a thorough and comprehensive text that can be used by students as a study aid and by professional responsibility teachers as a class text. It covers the whole field of professional responsibility, focusing not only on the ABA Model Rules, but on the often-complex relationship between the rules and doctrines of agency, tort, contract, evidence, and constitutional law. Beginning with the formation of the attorney-client relationship, the book proceeds through topics including attorneys' fees, malpractice and ineffective assistance of counsel, confidentiality and privilege rules, conflicts of interest, witness perjury and litigation misconduct, advertising and solicitation, admission to practice, and the organization of the legal profession.

Online access available through West Academic. Using the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct, the ABA Model Code of Judicial Conduct, and the ALI Restatement (Third): The Law Governing Lawyers as key authorities, the author puts what otherwise could be abstract rules into context in order to illuminate what led to adoption of each rule, why the rules require what they do, and where changes in lawyer regulation may be coming. Substantive issues covered include how a lawyer and a client form their relationship, what fiduciary duties are and which ones a lawyer owes to his or her clients, how a lawyer markets and gets paid for his or her services, and various ways both confidentiality obligations and conflicts of interest can arise. In addition, the author calls attention to a lawyer's obligations to a client's opponents, courts and other tribunals, and the broader public interest, as well as a final chapter on the special responsibilities of judges.

Online access available through West Academic. This eBook is designed to facilitate the introduction of modern international, transnational, and comparative law issues into a traditional course on professional responsibility and can be used as a supplement in an otherwise domestic-only course. It can also serve as the main text for a summer-abroad, a “global lawyering” type seminar or other compressed course in comparative legal ethics and profession. The eBook employs a user-friendly format, logical structure, and manageable length with its chapters designed to be used in any combination or order.

Online access available through West Academic. This title contains briefs for each major case in Giller's casebook on Professional Responsibility. These briefs will help you identify, understand, and absorb the core knowledge points from each case. They are followed by legal analysis, providing contextual background about each case, and connecting the case to the broader concepts developed throughout the casebook. This title also supplies case vocabulary, with definitions of new or unusual legal words found throughout the cases.

Online access available through West Academic. This title contains briefs for each major case in Jefferson's casebook on Professional Responsibility. These briefs will help you identify, understand, and absorb the core knowledge points from each case. They are followed by legal analysis, providing contextual background about each case, and connecting the case to the broader concepts developed throughout the casebook. This title also supplies case vocabulary, with definitions of new or unusual legal words found throughout the cases.

Online access available through West Academic. The Professional Responsibility audio lecture explains regulation of attorneys, bar admission, unauthorized practice, competency, discipline, judgment, layer-client relationship, representation, and withdrawal. It also discusses conflicts, disqualification, clients, client interests, successive and effective representation, integrity, candor, confidences, secrets, and past and future crimes. Other topics include perjury, communications, witnesses, jurors, the court, the press, trial tactics, prosecutors, market, solicitation, advertising, law firms, fees, client property, conduct, and political activity.

Online access available through West Academic. Many law professors aim to probe deep ethical issues in class. But they also need to cover the material that the Multistate Professional Responsibility Examination requires. The Rotunda Nutshell fulfils that need as it digests the Model Rules in an engaging, analytical, and often critical way. In a surprisingly pithy manner, this book places the Rules in an historic context that lets the student understand problems with prior versions of the Rules, which led to the present version. The Nutshell also analyzes the American Law Institute's Restatement of the Law Governing Lawyers, Third.

Online access available through West Academic. As a multi-dimensional work by scholarly experts in several fields, the Hornbook (1) begins with the changing environment in which legal services are provided in the modern economy; (2) continues with a theoretical grounding of legal ethics in moral philosophy; (3) offers empirical evidence and discussion about professional formation and moral development; (4) provides a comprehensive analysis of the law of lawyer ethics; (5) includes a rich discussion of the modern law of legal malpractice, and (6) concludes with exploration of the rules of judicial ethics.

Online access available through West Academic. Legal Malpractice Law in a Nutshell charts the dynamic field of lawyer professional liability. With reference to recent cases and statutory developments, the book covers prominent causes of action (including professional negligence, breach of fiduciary duty, and fraud), the role of experts in malpractice litigation, theories of liability to nonclients, affirmative defenses, damages, and fee forfeiture. The book also explores the vicarious liability of lawyers and law firms, conflicts of interest, strategies for reducing errors and claims, and the role of malpractice insurance.

Online access available through West Academic. Introduction (0:31) -- What constitutes unauthorized practice of law? Why isn't it defined by the American Bar Association Model Rules? (4:15) -- Why isn't it automatically ineffective assistance of counsel if a lawyer violates the duty of competence? (6:09) -- Are the duty of confidentiality and attorney-client privilege the same thing? (6:40) -- Is a lawyer allowed to represent a party and also serve as a witness in the same trial? (4:32) -- Why is a lawyer required to let a criminal defendant testify if the lawyer believes the testimony will be false? (5:39) -- Why can a client hire a lawyer on a contingency fee basis in a personal injury case, but not a criminal matter or a divorce? (5:46) -- Why are judges allowed to rule on their own disqualification motions? (6:28) -- What should a prosecutor do if she recieves evidence after a conviction that the convicted defendant is innocent? (4:50) -- What should a lawyer do if she learns that a client lied during trial testimony and the client refuses to tell the judge? (6:10) -- Is a junior lawyer protected if a senior lawyer directs her to engage in behavior that seems unethical? (4:24)

Online access available through West Academic. Why doesn't screening always work to cure a conflict when a laywer within a firm has a conflict of interest? (5:00) -- Why isn't a lawyer allowed to withdraw from representing a client any time the client fails to pay her bills? (4:42) -- If a lawyer wants to withdraw, but court permission requires disclosing client confidences, what should the lawyer do? (4:20) -- Why aren't lawyers allowed to provide financial assistance to their clients, even for essentials, like food or rent? (3:37) -- Why must a lawyer adhere to the client's goals, even if the lawyer does not agree they are in the client's best interests? (4:02) -- Can you help me make sense of the vast body of Rules that govern what lawyers can, cannot, and must do? (4:40) -- Why, and when, are lawyers permitted to take stock in their clients? (6:30) -- What are "unearned fees" and why must the lawyer keep them in the lawyer's trust account? (4:44) -- Why are lawyers required to disclose opposing authorities to the court, even when they may harm the client? (3:05) -- Are lawyers ever permitted to represent a client when a spouse or family member of the lawyer is on the opposing side? (4:42).

Online access available through the Lexis Digital Library. This book is a comprehensive tool for students to test their understanding of the Model Rules of Professional Conduct, the Model Code of Judicial Conduct, and other doctrines of the Law of Lawyering such as malpractice, breach of fiduciary duty, and disqualification. Its 208 questions are organized to track the topics and the emphasis of the Multistate Professional Responsibility Exam (MPRE) and thus can be used productively for bar exam preparation as well as for review of material covered in a student's required professional responsibility course.

Online access available through West Academic. This Short & Happy Guide explains PR so that the Rules are remembered, not memorized. Key PR concepts are taught by grouping the Rules into 21 easily digestible concepts labeled "Anchors," reinforced with numerous true to life examples in the "Tell and Shows," and then summed up through actionable take home points in "Anchors Aweigh." The illustrations employ visual learning in spotlighting core PR ideas. Whether studying for a PR final, or preparing for the MPRE, or simply needing a PR refresher, the Short & Happy Guide provides an enjoyable, engaging, and fulfilling read.

Online access available through West Academic. This Short and Happy Guide provides students with the essential concepts and overarching themes that are most frequently tested on the MPRE. The Guide covers the rules of professional responsibility giving students the best introduction they can have as they begin their exam preparation.

Online access available through West Academic. This audio lecture allows you to assimilate the essentials of the professional responsibility course at your convenience - listen while working, commuting, exercising or just relaxing. The information and ideas you struggled with previously are now brought to life simply and succinctly. The audio also provides exam tips to maximize your performance. This audio lecture is time saving, convenient and effective.

Online access available through the Lexis Digital Library. This Understanding treatise analyzes the fundamental issues of lawyers' ethics and the ABA's Model Rules. It is designed to facilitate a real understanding of legal rules as distinguished from a superficial familiarity with them by challenging the reader to test their understanding of the legal rules against the reader's own moral standards and reasoned judgment. The sixth edition has substantial new material on cross-examination in sexual assault cases; prosecution in the context of race and policing; the rise of the "progressive prosecutor movement"; the renewed call for the U.S. Supreme Court to abide by the Code of Judicial Ethics; and the ethics of lawyers engaged in former president Donald Trump's scheme to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

Online access available through West Academic. The Weekend MPRE book and video course is designed to prepare users for the MPRE in a single weekend, primarily through thoughtful explanations of the most tested aspects of the rules of professional responsibility. This package includes either a softcover print book or an eBook, along with digital access to 14 videos, two practice exams and quizzes. This package gives you everything you need to prepare for the MPRE and pass the first time!