Moran Leaves the Village
Leiter is reporting that our very own Prof. Moran is leaving for the new law school at UCI. She's a great scholar and a ummm quirky teacher. Clearly, she has an above average sense of humor and a quick-wit. At the same time, she still has the old-school, completely Socratic, closed-book finals mind-set. Shug better pick up the slack for the incoming 1Ls.
Labels: Law School, Professor Ratings, Shiny Gold Stars
posted by Armen Adzhemyan at 10:18 AM
28 Comments:
Moran is the closent thing Boalt had to Kingsfield in The Paper Chase. She scared the hell out of me, but she is very, very good.
Speaking of professors, as if I didn't already worship the gound Sw*ft walks on, she just went higher up in her awesomeness factor. I just saw her riding a moped down College. And of course, she was dressed very nicely.
How could you not know about her moped? It is truly a sign of divinity that she rides to school on a moped, wearing a helmet, and gets off with PERFECT, I mean granite-chiseled hair.
I worship Moran. Best professor I have ever had hands down (and that includes college). She will be sorely missed.
Great scholar? What's your basis for that Armen?
As for class, she definitely taught me to prepare. I thank her for that. But really - we learned a sliver of torts. We never learned about: strict liability; products liability; intentional torts; tort system alternatives, and maybe more. Maybe she needed to take that time to teach us to be careful students, but she ended up leaving out swaths of tort law that I now wish I knew.
Honestly, I'm not that sad to see her go. I'm not pleased -- from what I've heard, she's better than Schw___ -- but I'm not sad.
Well um, considering her book on Regulating Interracial Intimacy is pretty much authoritative in that field, yeah I'd say she's a great scholar.
3:30: learning torts in Bar/Bri. Come on 3:30 - it's like this in all the subjects. Did you learn assault or battery or false imprisonment or kidnapping or mayhem in criminal law? Or first amendment in Constitutional?
Amen, 3:30. While I do think Boalt could stand to teach a bit more to the bar, thank God that all classes are not superficial mega-surveys, a la Bar/Bri.
And Moran is a great prof. She managed to be comprehensive *and* scrupulously detail-oriented. Plus, something she's not given enough credit for: she's really quite funny. A bit scary, in many ways, but devilishly funny.
OK, yet another Sw*ft shout out. Today when I got home I had a letter in the mail where she gave feedback on the final ("very good pass"). No other professor has ever done that and I really appreciated it. She is truly a rock star.
Give me a break 3:30. I learned all that torts crap in Barbri in a couple days. Negligence is one of the biggest issues anyway, and I got that down.
Moran was hands down one of the best teachers I ever had. She is brilliant, and truly a scholar. Can't believe anyone would even question that. Damn UCI for snagging another one of our best and brightest people.
Well, maybe you can believe this 11:55. We briefly touched on business torts like negligent misrepresentation, but otherwise we covered no commercial torts. We covered no intentional torts (aside from IIED). And, we never covered the most significant and doctrinally complex field of tort law (products liability).
What was covered was well-taught. But she substantially failed to cover the torts curriculum, especially if you one day want to work in torts. I would one day like to work in torts. Unfortunately, I never learned anything about the field at Boalt. (Yes, I also took the Cabraser class. Don't get me started.)
As to Armen, I'm sorry I missed that book. Anything else? Maybe something related to tort law?
-Anon., 3:30.
Hey 7:49--legal academia doesn't work the way you apparently think it should. Just because a prof teaches a class does not mean she is expected to be a scholar in the topic. It's called a service class. Moran has always been a race/language scholar. She teaches torts to 1Ls as a favor to the school, i.e., a service. That she doesn't write in the area means nothing about the quality of her scholarship, which is, as armen says, acclaimed.
3:30/7:49 would have been happier at SFU.
I have so many fond memories from Moran's torts class...mainly b/c I got called on pretty early so I didn't fear coming to class for the rest of the semester. She is an incredibly gifted educator, and her sense of humor is unparalleled. Any of my other Fall '04 Torts classmates remember when the lights went out during the discussion of the NYC blackout case? Classic.
For real, future torts litigator--if you can't learn the basics of products liability in Barbri, I really don't think you should be practicing it. Moran's class was to teach you HOW to think and memorize rules, not WHAT to think and memorize. If all you wanted was to learn black letter rules, you really should not have gone to Boalt.
swift sent letters? i didn't get one.
I didn't get one either!? Under what circumstances do you get one...
I got a swift letter last year for evidence. She indicated that my grade was a P, but the work was very good and would have gotten an H but for the curve. I've gotten this letter in two other classes from two other profs. I would have preferred the higher grade, but at least I knew I did OK.
She sent them to our entire Civ Pro class I'm pretty sure. We got them the semester following. At least I think she sends them to everyone. She sent me one for an HH with a "Congratulations." So it's not for any particular letter grade. She's just classy like that.
Oh yeah. And I heard that she said in one guy's letter (who got a P) that she was surprised at his performance on the exam given his comments in class or something like that.
For a fall class, professor letters end up in your locker (are they even going to have lockers in fall?). For a spring class, professor letters get sent to the permanent address on file with the registrar. If you aren't living at that address, then it's not a surprise you didn't get it.
I've heard W. Fletcher has sent letters previous years, but I took his Fed Courts class this past fall and didn't receive any letter. Did anyone else?
Off topic, but where are people putting the odds on us having an actual school to attend in August given the recent construction pics? I'm guessing we have 60% classroom space and no journal rooms.
The classroom space isn't true. All the big lecture halls other than 145 are open. There's also still plenty of small classrooms.
Journal space might be an issue. They are making good progress on the basement level, but it seems really up in the air whether it will finish in time for fall.
Let's just hope all that asbestos has died down.
When will Shelanski get back to us re: the final exam?
All I know is that I will graduate on time in May '09, come hell, high water, or no school to learn in.
Maybe they can hold classes in the Oak Grove.
The journal space isn't scheduled to be completed until October, so it would be a minor miracle if that were ready in August.
... or October.
LOVED Moran (I too was called on early in the semester so that took a little bit of pressure off). You need at least one Paper-Chase-style professor during law school, and she was a mostly innocuous incarnation. And while she may not have covered all the torts subject matter, having at least one fact-intensive closed book exam is great preparation for the bar exam.
I definitely remember her teaching through the blackout, in the scant illumination provided by our battery powered laptops.
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