5 Ways to Use Gunner Mode to Ace Cold Calls

Gunner Mode is Briefly's cold call practice tool. It simulates the Socratic method that law professors use in class by asking you a series of probing questions about a specific case. You type your answers, and the AI responds with follow-up questions, pushback, or clarifications, just like a real professor would.

The name comes from law school slang: a "gunner" is the student who always raises their hand and always has the answer. Gunner Mode helps you build that level of preparation, minus the eye-rolls from your classmates, because you are practicing privately.

The tool works with any case. Enter the case name, and Gunner Mode starts asking you questions about the facts, the issue, the holding, and the reasoning. It escalates in difficulty as you answer correctly, pushing you toward the kind of hypothetical variations professors love to throw at students.

For background on what cold calls actually look like, see our cold call examples guide with real Socratic exchanges across five core subjects.

This is the most straightforward use case and probably the most valuable. After you have read and briefed your assigned cases (ideally using the case brief generator), open Gunner Mode and run through each case. The AI will ask you the same types of questions your professor will ask in class.

The key advantage here is that you discover gaps in your understanding before class, not during it. If you cannot articulate the holding under Gunner Mode's questioning, you definitely will not be able to articulate it when your professor calls on you in front of 80 classmates.

Budget about 5-10 minutes per case. That is enough time to go through the basic Socratic sequence (facts, issue, holding, reasoning) and handle a couple of follow-up hypotheticals. If you find yourself struggling on a particular case, that is your signal to re-read the opinion more carefully before class.

Cold call anxiety is real. Studies show that the fear of being called on is one of the top stressors for 1L students. The best way to reduce that anxiety is exposure: the more you practice being questioned, the less threatening it feels.

Use Gunner Mode specifically for stress inoculation by imposing time constraints on yourself. Give yourself 30 seconds to answer each question. Do not overthink it. The goal is not to give a perfect answer; it is to get comfortable formulating a response under pressure.

This technique comes from cognitive behavioral therapy, where controlled exposure to a feared stimulus gradually reduces the fear response. After a few weeks of regular Gunner Mode sessions, most students report that cold calls feel significantly less intimidating. You have already answered harder questions than your professor is likely to ask.

For more on managing cold call anxiety, see our cold call preparation guide.

One of the most valuable things Gunner Mode does is force you to state legal rules in your own words. It is one thing to read a holding in a case brief. It is another thing entirely to explain that holding when someone is asking you pointed questions about it.

Try this exercise: close your case brief, open Gunner Mode, and see if you can state the rule from each of the cases you have been assigned. When the AI pushes back with "But what about X?" or "How does that square with Y?", you are forced to think about how the rule interacts with other rules, exceptions, and policy considerations.

This is exactly the skill you need for exams. Law school exams do not ask you to recite holdings. They give you a fact pattern and ask you to apply multiple rules. Gunner Mode builds that synthetic thinking by constantly pushing you to connect one case's rule to another's.

Combine this with flashcards to reinforce the rules you are synthesizing. The flashcards test recall; Gunner Mode tests application.

Here is something most 1Ls do not realize: the hypothetical questions professors ask during cold calls are structurally similar to the hypotheticals on law school exams. When your professor asks "What if the defendant had known about the defect?", that is basically a mini exam question. It is asking you to apply the rule to a slightly different set of facts.

Gunner Mode generates exactly these kinds of hypothetical variations. After you demonstrate that you know the basic holding, it starts asking "what if" questions that change one or two facts. This is excellent exam preparation because it trains you to do what exams require: spot issues, identify the relevant rule, and apply it to new facts.

During the last two weeks before finals, try running Gunner Mode on the five or six most important cases from each course. Focus on cases that establish the core rules you will need to apply on the exam. The hypotheticals Gunner Mode generates will help you see edge cases and exceptions you might have missed.

For more exam strategies, see our 12 law school exam tips and consider using the attack sheet generator to create a condensed reference for your open-book exams.

Study groups are more effective when they are active rather than passive. Instead of sitting around reviewing outlines together, try this: one person opens Gunner Mode and reads the questions aloud. Everyone in the group tries to answer. Discuss the answers together and debate the hypotheticals.

You can make it competitive by keeping score. Give a point for correctly stating the holding, two points for handling a hypothetical variation, and three points for identifying an issue that no one else caught. This gamification makes the study session more engaging and ensures everyone is actively participating rather than passively listening.

This approach works especially well during exam prep when you need to review a large number of cases quickly. Each study group member can take turns being the "professor" (reading Gunner Mode questions), while the rest of the group plays the role of the student being cold-called. The discussion that follows each answer is often where the deepest learning happens.

If your study group meets regularly, try running through the cases assigned for the coming week. By the time class rolls around, everyone in the group will have already been "cold called" on every case at least once. That is a significant confidence boost.

Regardless of which strategy you use, these tips will help you get more value from every Gunner Mode session: