1L subject · Torts
Torts: the 1L exam guide.
Torts is the classic issue-spotter subject. One accident can generate negligence, multiple intentional torts, and several defenses at once. The exam rewards breadth and a clean element-by-element march through each claim.
Why Torts is hard on exams
Torts fact patterns are dense by design — a single chain of events can support a negligence claim, one or more intentional torts, and a clutch of defenses, often against several defendants. The grade tracks how many viable claims you spot and analyze, so the danger is tunnel vision: writing three paragraphs on negligence while missing the battery, the false imprisonment, and the comparative-fault defense sitting in the same facts.
Within negligence, the points concentrate in two elements: breach (the reasonable-person standard applied to specific facts) and proximate cause (foreseeability, intervening and superseding causes). Duty and damages are frequently uncontested. Knowing which element a given hypo is actually testing — and spending your words there rather than reciting the full negligence formula at length — is the core Torts exam skill.
High-frequency exam topics
The doctrines this subject tests most. In-depth guides are rolling out — start with the tools below in the meantime.
Negligence elements
Duty, breach, actual cause, proximate cause, and damages — and which element a hypo is really testing.
Proximate cause
Foreseeability, the zone of danger (Palsgraf), and intervening vs. superseding causes.
Res ipsa loquitur
When the accident itself permits an inference of breach, and what the defendant must control.
Intentional torts
Battery, assault, false imprisonment, IIED, and trespass — plus the intent and transferred-intent rules.
Defenses
Comparative vs. contributory negligence, assumption of risk, consent, and self-defense.
Practice this subject in the workspace
Case Brief Builder
Brief the assigned cases for this subject and extract the rule and reasoning a cold call will probe.
Open tool →IRAC Practice Gym
Write timed answers to fact patterns in this subject and self-grade against a rubric.
Open tool →Outline Builder
Synthesize the doctrine into an attack outline organized by rule and element.
Open tool →Rule Flashcards
Drill the elements and exceptions with spaced repetition until they come automatically.
Open tool →Free: the Torts attack-outline starter.
A one-page issue checklist for Torts plus our broader 1L study resources. Free — just tell us where to send it.
Turn this subject into exam-ready analysis.
Brief the cases, extract the rules, build your attack outline, and practice timed hypos — with feedback that helps you think, not answers that do the work for you.
Build the skills
How to write an IRAC answer
The structure every exam answer in this subject is built on.
Read the guide →Practice hypos with model answers
Worked fact patterns with model IRAC answers, then try them yourself.
Read the guide →How to build a law school outline
Turn a semester of this subject into an attack outline you can use in the exam room.
Read the guide →How law school exams actually work
Issue-spotting, time budgeting, and what graders reward.
Read the guide →