The Step-by-Step Guide to Criminal Law is an interactive workbook designed to effectively prepare students to pass exams. The most heavily tested legal rules are presented in a format that mirrors the way they arise as issues in typical testing fact patterns. Rule statements are set out in easy-to-memorize statements, with a breakdown of the element components and logical steps to take to apply new facts to each legal element.

Fluency with the legal terminology is also essential to exam success, so this Step-by-Step Guide includes fill-in-the-blank spaces to help you learn and memorize definitions of key terms as they are introduced, and a glossary of selected terms at the end for further reference.

In addition to learning the law and memorizing key rules and terms, success in law school also requires the hard work of deep learning, engaging with problems to test your own knowledge, and working toward gaining a strong command of all testable topics. To that end, this Guide contains short-answer Test Yourself questions. Working through these questions and then reading the answers and explanations to determine where your understanding is clear and where you must do additional work will help you master the skill of applying the relevant rules to new and different fact patterns. In addition to the short-answer questions, this Guide also includes numerous full-length essay questions with sample answers —providing further practice to test your knowledge and deepen your learning.


Imprint: West Academic Publishing
Series: Step-by-Step Guides
Publication Date: 11/02/2021

Sara J. Berman, University of Southern California Gould School of Law

Steven J. Bracci, Concord Law School

CasebookPlus™

This title is available in our CasebookPlus format. CasebookPlus provides support beyond your classroom lectures and materials by offering additional digital resources to you and your students. Anchored by faculty-authored formative self-assessments keyed to our most popular casebooks, CasebookPlus allows students to test their understanding of core concepts as they are learning them in class – on their own, outside of the classroom, with no extra work on your part. CasebookPlus combines three important elements:

  • A new print or digital casebook
  • Access to a downloadable eBook with the ability to highlight and add notes
  • 12-month access to a digital Learning Library complete with:
Multiple-choice self-assessment questions, including:
  • Chapter questions keyed to the casebook
  • Black Letter Law questions (available in select subjects)
  • Subject area review questions for end of semester use
Essay and short answer questions with sample answers and expert commentary, in 1L and select upper-level subjects

Leading digital study aids, an outline starter, and audio lectures in select subjects

Students can still utilize CasebookPlus digital resources if they’ve purchased a used book or are renting their text by purchasing the Learning Library at westacademic.com.

With CasebookPlus, you can customize your students’ learning experience and monitor their performance. The quiz editor allows you to create your own custom quiz set, suppress specific quiz questions or quiz sets, and time-release quiz questions. Additionally, the flexible, customized reporting capability helps you evaluate your students’ understanding of the material and can also help your school demonstrate compliance with the new ABA Assessment and Learning Outcomes standards.

Learn more about this series.