The blessing of open book exams.

I had my first open book exam in the upper sixth. It was a history exam on historical controversies, in particular witch-hunting in early modern Europe. I had a pile of books and my notes with me, but I haven't used these much: there wasn't enough time to skim through the pages and in any case I've read everything a couple of times, so most of it stuck to my memory anyway.

Oxford knows no concept of open book exams, unless you count in a statute book and a case list. This is why I was surprise to see so many open book exams at Leiden. Labour law, children's rights, IT law, EU competition law, 4 freedoms in the EU, aerospace law- for all of these I can bring in pretty much everything I want except electronic devices (not the case, quite appropriately in IT law course when I actually typed up my exam on my very own laptop). At first I wasn't really fond of those exams, thinking that they don't really reflect what people have learnt during the course. But now I've reconsidered my opinion and I think that actually such exams make much more sense as a way of testing law students.

What I've learnt by observing lawyers in their work is that they don't have all the legal knowledge in their heads. Admittedly it comes with practice: when you deal with a specific issue on daily basis the pieces of legislation and cases become somewhat burnt into your brain, but as for things that are untypical, you have infinite resources to consult: textbooks, journals, magazines, publications, guidelines etc. Most of which is accessible online. At the end of the day lawyers are not valued for how many quirky case facts they can remember or whether they can recite all relevant statutory provisions. Lawyers are valued for how their brains work.

I find it much more useful to have an exam where I can bring printed cases and articles, because then I don't need to stress out about remembering relevant details and instead can concentrate on applying what I know to the problem I need to solve. I still need to have at least a vague idea (or sometimes a rather specific idea, since, again, there is no time to look for information if you don't know what you're looking for) where to find what I need. Which provisions of the Treaty apply. Whether there is some case or a regulation. 

And although open book exams can be ridiculously easy, they can also be rather challenging. Everything depends on the type of questions asked. Not on the fact that you have your books with you.