How About an Ethics Course for the Administration?
I think most of you know I'm not the type of N&B blogger who typically rails against the administration. Actually, considering this is my first post since Lockergate, maybe I am that kind of blogger. But those who know me personally know I rarely whine. I hate whining. It's why I can't stand bands like Snow Patrol and Coldplay. But, in this case, I'll have to make an exception. Sing along, Chris Martin.
We received an e-mail from the admin last week about the "Professional Responsibility" requirement. Apparently, unbeknownst to most of us (and flat out denied by many), we have to take one of these courses by the end of 2L. The problem? Only one such course (Law 210.14 Legal Ethics: Regulation of Lawyers) is being offered next semester. Want to guess the enrollment cap on that course? I'll give you a minute.
. . .
Nope, lower.
. . .
Still lower.
. . .
Lower! Think digits on one hand.
Yep, good guessing. It's five. FIVE! Five lucky people can enroll in this course. The rest of us will have to do a clinic or submit an Academic Rules Petition. I have no idea how those petitions work or their likelihood of approval. Why? Because the administration didn't tell us that. Which really seems to be a trend.
Now I know this requirement was apparently published in the rules somewhere (as copied in the e-mail). But seriously, am I expected to know those by heart? And clearly the admin was aware that 3Ls had been telling us not to worry about it. A reminder e-mail before now would have been nice. So would a few more courses that meet the requirement. In lieu of those things, I expect a flood of "Academic Rules Petitions" will be filed shortly. Hopefully they'll be approved, but it'd be nicer if something more rational was done about this.
BHSA did such a pretty solid job with the locker situation. Maybe they can step up again on this?
I find the whole thing unnecessarily annoying. You know, "nobody said it was easy, but no one ever said it would be this hard." Well said, Chris. Whine on.
UPDATE: Since posting this, I've found this, which shows the enrollment cap as 60. I was originally going off of this, which (probably erroneously) has it at 5. 60 is still pretty low for a class that most 2Ls (and probably a lot of 3Ls) will need next semester.
We received an e-mail from the admin last week about the "Professional Responsibility" requirement. Apparently, unbeknownst to most of us (and flat out denied by many), we have to take one of these courses by the end of 2L. The problem? Only one such course (Law 210.14 Legal Ethics: Regulation of Lawyers) is being offered next semester. Want to guess the enrollment cap on that course? I'll give you a minute.
. . .
Nope, lower.
. . .
Still lower.
. . .
Lower! Think digits on one hand.
Yep, good guessing. It's five. FIVE! Five lucky people can enroll in this course. The rest of us will have to do a clinic or submit an Academic Rules Petition. I have no idea how those petitions work or their likelihood of approval. Why? Because the administration didn't tell us that. Which really seems to be a trend.
Now I know this requirement was apparently published in the rules somewhere (as copied in the e-mail). But seriously, am I expected to know those by heart? And clearly the admin was aware that 3Ls had been telling us not to worry about it. A reminder e-mail before now would have been nice. So would a few more courses that meet the requirement. In lieu of those things, I expect a flood of "Academic Rules Petitions" will be filed shortly. Hopefully they'll be approved, but it'd be nicer if something more rational was done about this.
BHSA did such a pretty solid job with the locker situation. Maybe they can step up again on this?
I find the whole thing unnecessarily annoying. You know, "nobody said it was easy, but no one ever said it would be this hard." Well said, Chris. Whine on.
UPDATE: Since posting this, I've found this, which shows the enrollment cap as 60. I was originally going off of this, which (probably erroneously) has it at 5. 60 is still pretty low for a class that most 2Ls (and probably a lot of 3Ls) will need next semester.
Labels: Classes/Professors
posted by Dan at 5:36 PM
30 Comments:
Calm your anxious little head down. The requirement that PR be taken 2L year is not enforced. You don't even have to do anything; just don't enroll in it 2L year and sign up 3L year. But it does seem kind of silly that there's only 1 5-person PR class offered. Maybe it's a mistake?
FWIW, I'd recommend avoiding Steele's class. I know everyone loved it, blah blah, but I found him annoying and thought the class was way too big and not very informative. I learned everything I needed to know for the final by studying for the MPRE and did very well.
I'm in Steele's ethics class right now. I'd say he does a pretty decent job, given what he has to work with. (Sound familiar, Dolphins fans?)
Anyway, yeah, I was told by a peer about the 2L requirement about three days before this semester started. I keep all my admin emails, and the one that came last week was the first admin email I've ever received about the requirement. Now I know we're responsible for the academic code, honor code, blah, blah, blah, but an email last spring would have been nice, no?
I would recommend "Avoiding Club Fed", though I think it's only offered in the Fall. It's only five weeks long, starts late, ends early, and satisfies the requirement. The course is discussion based. The biggest downside is how it interferes with Monday Night Football, and Wednesday Night Professional Full-Contact Ballet but you have to give some to get some, you know?
I've never been told to calm my "anxious little head" down. But I have to say, it feels nice. Very maternal. Thanks, 6:01.
I still maintain this is a really stupid system, even if that is how it's carried out in practice.
I like JS' class. YMMV, but I think, compared to most of the doughy, cocooned elite who teach around here, that his perspective is a breath of fresh air.
"Avoiding Club Fed" is wretched. It's short in weeks but for those five weeks you meet like two hours a day, three days a week. And it's so so boring. And you have to go because the class is tiny. And it's hard to stare at the computer screen the WHOLE time because there are some forced discussions. AND the class doesn't prepare you for the MPRE at all--never mentioned it once. And it was also uncomfortable because the professor kept telling stories that toed the line of racism. Maybe the worst class I ever took.
I can't believe this post. I'd like to think that as aspiring lawyers we know how to do our research and read the fine print. No, you don't have to know the rules for graduation by heart, just take a look at them--they're posted quite clearly on the school's website. Aren't we all used to completing requirements for graduation by now?
In rebuttal to 6:01, I am currently in Ste*le's class, and I think its excellent. He not only covers what you need to know to avoid being disbarred, he also covers law firm life and culture, which I find to be helpful.
Wuh? Are you a 2L? Did you receive MM's email? If not, here is a taste:
I have no doubt many of you have talked to 3Ls who said there was no need to worry about this and you can take it at any time. That is not accurate. If are not in a course that satisfies the professional responsibility requirement this semester, then you must enroll in one next semester.
Law 210.14 Legal Ethics: Regulation of Lawyers (Hanlon) will satisfy the requirement, as well as the required clinic seminars for Int'l Human Rights, Samuelson and EBCLC.
210.14 is listed with a max enrollment of five. That's absurd. That's confusing. That's anxiety-inducing. And it's sure as heck not about to be clarified by "reading the fine print," according to which all the 3L's in PR are presumably not going to graduate.
FWIW, you are correct about Professor S, though.
6:28 - Your "can't look at your computer screen" argument is silly. You just have to be SKILLED.
I'd way rather 6 hours a week for 5 weeks than 2 hours a week for 15 weeks. In fact, I'd rather 2 15-hour sessions, and then be totally done with it.
Everyone I've heard from says that the MPRE just takes a little bit of reading to prepare for, and that any class is unnecessary. Make no mistake, you only take "Avoid Club Fed" to satisfy the ethics requirement - it doesn't even pretend to prepare you for the MPRE. A professor I trust quite a bit said today "I spent a total of 6 hours preparing for the MPRE. Some people showed up drunk and passed it." And he hasn't been out of school all that long at all.
Haven't heard any racist overtones. And ethics generally is boring - you just have to accept it and do your best to immerse yourself into the hypos. Again, it's only 5 weeks!
Um, 9:06, that came out with more heat than I intended. Er, sorry.
Can anyone explain why there is a requirement to take the class during the second year? It can't be that we're going to represent clients in the summer because a lot of people already did that during 1L summer.
Seriously, what are they going to do if you don't enroll in PR 2L year? Not let you take it 3L year and not let you graduate? They sent us an email shortly before our 2L year saying that our writing requirement had to be completed by the end of 2L year or something, and I ignored it. Did they not let me do my writing requirement 3L year? Of course not.
Anyway, re: Steele, it's very big law firm oriented. Not everyone is going to work for a big law firm. As a result, a lot of the discussions are not very well suited to people going into the government, public interest firms, etc.
Also, I showed up for maybe 3 of Steeles classes and ended up with a good grade and a 128 on the MPRE through a week of studying.
- Class of '08
Off topic, but what's up with facebooks this year? Are we not getting them? Another casualty of the locker "scandal" ?
Because there are no lockers in which to put Facebooks, at 5 PM tomorrow afternoon the administration will be throwing them down from the Steinhart Courtyard directly below into the Main Courtyard (please watch out for the construction). Due to budget cuts, only 100 Facebooks are available this year. Good luck.
- Admin
Who actually wants a facebook? They are the biggest waste of money, time, and paper imaginable. Seriously, just learn people's names by meeting them.
- Proud Grizzly Bear Face
Trahison!!!! You clearly have not had to gossip about your classmates, which inevitably requires use of the facebook to identify the gossip targets to everyone in the conversation. It's also useful in certain online blog fueled witch hunts.
Not me. I forget people's names by meeting them. Not having a facebook this year has been a royal pain in the ass. Especially since I spilled a glass of water on my last one, and now the pages are all stuck together. Hint: if I have been smiling at you and mumbling, that's what is going on.
Anyway, apparently this year's facebook is a victim of absolutely typical UC ridiculousness. I was told it will take Boalt about two days to put it together, but the hang-up is that this year they are using the photos from our student ID cards, and the main campus is absolutely freaked out about "security" in sending them to Boalt. The delay has to do with setting up some kind of secure server or something.
(Wait a minute. Now that I write it down, that sounds kind of fishy. Why couldn't someone just walk over to Sproul?)
Sounds like this calls for a .... SURVEY!! I don't know about what, exactly, but that hasn't stopped us before. Someone put BHSA on the job.
Due to further budget cuts, we will no longer be taking incoming students' photos for the Facebook. Unfortunately, due to problems with "main campus," we can't use your student ID photos. Instead, Jan Vetter has generously agreed to peel himself away from his work and will be sketching everyone's photo for the Facebook.
- Admin
10:14 AM - laughed so hard I cried. Oh how sad, but oh how Boalt.
i concur with the negative review of "avoiding club fed." i thought i would appreciate the seminar format, but it just made it worse. take steele's class.
Unless the administration is cracking down, you don't have to worry and can take PR your 3L year - I did. And I'm glad I did because it was on the bar exam (the only subject guaranteed to be on the CA exam) and it was a little more fresh in my mind than if I had taken it 2L year. Also I took the MPRE before I took PR, studied for 3 days and got >100 (though I was convinced I had failed).
No Facebook??? How the hell do you gossip about people?
This happened two years ago, too. The admin messed up (Dean O admitted it) and only scheduled one class for the spring semester. Consequently, 2Ls were allowed to take PR their 3L year. Irritating, but wasn't a big deal. I'm surprised the administration made the same mistake twice, though.
I really liked Steele's class. And I took it last year when it was on a Thursday night, so the odds were waaay against me liking that class.
"I'm surprised the administration made the same mistake twice, though."
Really? How surprised?
The physical facebook is silly. They aren't needed in our digital world, and they had just as many blank spots in them as there would be people without an actual facebook.com account.
The facebook is one of many many traditions that need to get the axe around here. /~pessimism
The facebook is great. I couldn't disagree more strongly Toney.
I think they're adding another PR course for Spring. Developing . . .
9:09 - I'm happy you enjoy the facebook, but you are in the vast minority. Keeping it around makes as much sense as having a 56k modem jack at every desk.
It's time to move on!
YOu are also supposed to complete your writing requirement by the first semester of 3L year, yet most of us haven't. Everyone just relax. And JS rocks, although there is too much firm talk, which is annoying for those us who aren't going into firm life.
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