564: Law Every 1L Should Know -- Evidence

[music] Welcome back.

If you're new to this series, Law Everyone Else Should Know, it is designed for incoming 1Ls, students who are getting ready for law school and want a head start on the law they're about to spend the next year learning.

Each episode gives you a simplified overview of one of the core 1L subjects.

We're not trying to cover every doctrine or every exception.

We want to give you the framework so that when you walk into class on day one, you already have mental shelves to put the new material on.

And if you want to go deeper on any of the specific topics we mention today, our podcast also has a series called Listen and Learn.

These episodes take one specific legal concept, review the rules in more detail, and apply the law to a fact pattern.

We'll link to relevant Listen and Learn episodes in the show notes.

Today, we're talking about evidence.

One quick note before we start.

At many law schools, evidence is actually a second or third-year course rather than a first-year one.

We're including it in this series because it's a core, heavily tested subject.

It's tested on the bar in nearly every state, and because getting an early feel for it pays off.

So if you're a true first-semester 1L, think of this as a preview of coming attractions.

One more orienting point.

Evidence is governed in most law school courses and on the bar by a specific written code called the Federal Rules of Evidence or the FRE.

So unlike some subjects where the rules come from old cases, here you're largely learning a rule book.

We'll keep the rule numbers light, but I'll point out a few so the names are familiar when you see them.

Here's the plan for today.

First, we'll orient to what evidence law is actually doing and the one concept that everything else is built around, relevance.

Then we'll spend most of our time on the single most important, most heavily tested, and most feared topic in all of evidence, hearsay.

We'll learn what hearsay is, why the law distrusts it, and the major ways it still gets admitted.

And we'll finish with a fact pattern.

A quick reminder, especially if you're listening before law school starts, don't try to memorize everything.

Just let it wash over you.