TITLE INFORMATION
THE ABCS OF LAW SCHOOL
Diary of a First-Year Law Student
Teresa Anne Power
Stafford House (248 pp.)
ISBN: 978-0-9981070-7-3; May 1, 2019

BOOK REVIEW
An attorney, children’s yoga expert, and author offers a guide to law school success. Power (The ABCs of Yoga for Kids Around the World, 2017, etc.), who has received favorable media attention for her bestselling kids’ yoga books and learning materials, now presents a handy manual aimed at those who want to go to law school and wish a leg up on the competition. Framed as a diary based on her days as a law student at Pepperdine University in the 1980s, the author updates her recollections with approaches, research, and tools to suit today’s burgeoning interest in legal studies. The colorful diary portions convey the emotional challenges of law school, but these entries merely contribute to the detailed overview of the first-year courses that constitutes the book’s major emphasis. “Most classes in law school are taught using the Socratic method,” Power writes. She goes on to provide key tools, such as the IRAC (Issue, Rule of Law, Analysis, Conclusion) method, that further students’ understanding of how to assess a particular case. This methodology typifies the kind of mnemonic device that gives students a preview of the ways law school prepares attorneys to face the everyday challenges they will encounter. In addition to torts, the guide covers legal research and writing, contracts, civil procedure, evidence, and real property, criminal, and constitutional law in a plain, reader-friendly style. Power began practicing yoga to alleviate stress in her law school days. At the very end of the book, she includes a five-minute yoga routine for law students—with simple black-and-white images by debut illustrator Mundja—which could have been integrated into the useful chapter focusing on the practice. The manual also features a number of helpful course outlines in appendices.
Worthy tips, tricks, and tools for prospective law students delivered in concise prose.

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