Get Your Learnin' On
10-23-11: Bump. Registration starts Monday.
The spring class schedule is up. Per request, here's a space to offer opinions, questions, and advice.
I think people who have practiced for a few years are in the best position to offer advice on what classes are helpful for "real life" [said in booming voice]. As a humble 3L, I can only say what classes I've found most helpful and interesting, and those are evidence and constitutional litigation.
Please keep with good interwebs manners and use an aster*sk in professor names. Other than that, have at it y'all.
The spring class schedule is up. Per request, here's a space to offer opinions, questions, and advice.
I think people who have practiced for a few years are in the best position to offer advice on what classes are helpful for "real life" [said in booming voice]. As a humble 3L, I can only say what classes I've found most helpful and interesting, and those are evidence and constitutional litigation.
Please keep with good interwebs manners and use an aster*sk in professor names. Other than that, have at it y'all.
posted by Jackie O at 11:30 AM
29 Comments:
there have been some surveys recently of practicing lawyers, asking them what classes have proved useful over the years. those might prove helpful.
and boalties could do an online survey on what courses they think the school should offer and then take the results to the administration.
maybe even make a trade. offer to sign that 3L fund raising pledge, but only if the faculty and administration sign a student-written pledge about providing useful courses -- and then coming through with the courses.
what are people's thoughts on taking bar classes?
evidence, remedies, crim pro, 1st amendment?
That's sneaky, 8:22, trying to get us to sign the fund raising pledge.
I found taking Evidence as soon as I could was extremely helpful. It seems like the skills courses tend to be relevant, especially if they're writing/speaking focused.
If you plan on taking a bar exam, take Evidence.
Has anyone taken pre-trial civil lit and was it helpful?
Whether a class is helpful depends on what you want to do.
Taking the bar exam? Take Evidence and Structural Issues in Con Law, because those seem to be the most difficult subjects to master during bar prep. Corporations also can be difficult, but not as bad as those other two. Having taken the bar in two states now (ugh) I feel confident saying that those state-specific classes (like Partnerships, or Family Law, or Commercial Paper) are amenable to flash-learning in July followed by prompt forgetting in August.
Going to be a transactional attorney? Take Evidence and Structural Issues in Con Law (because you still have to pass the bar), then take Corporations, and Secured Transactions, and whatever else you need for the business law certificate. That list seems pretty good.
Want to clerk? Take Federal Courts, all the Civ Pro and Con Law you can, and get good grades while you're at it. When my judge reviewed clerkship applications he expressly looked for people who took "hard" classes rather than seminars or externships. The student with a P in Federal Courts was preferred to the student who aced a bunch of seminars. I think that's pretty typical of judges.
Want to be an academic? Take whatever you want, but be sure to latch on to and please a high-powered professor or two before you go.
Going to be a litigator? Take the above, but also find something that will teach you to write -- and I mean litigation-style writing, not academic writing. I cannot emphasize how much that will help you transition from normal person to counselor at law. Appellate Advocacy is a good one for that training. Same with being a TA in WOA. Also take Remedies and whatever other big doctrinal classes (Tax, First Amendment, Fundamental Rights, Intro to IP, etc.) grab your fancy. The key here is big doctrinal: people likely disagree with me about their worth but I continue to be amazed at how much my basic facility with various large areas of law has provided depth and context to how I think about problems at work.
That last bit brings me to a piece of advice I received from a certain highly regarded tax professor at Boalt: you're at a good law school; use the opportunity to expose yourself to those big swaths of the law while you can do it in a thorough, structured environment -- it's going to be damn hard to figure out, say, a small tax issue or federal courts issue without some prior training. It was good advice -- all those seminars are fun and great for your transcript and can make it very easy to skate by, but a big part of your objective should be to prepare yourself for a career. You're paying an arm and a leg for the opportunity, after all.
What is Con Law Structural issues? I could not find it listed this fall or upcoming spring.
Are you referring to Yoo's Separation oI Powers class?
I thought pre-trial civil lit was very helpful. In fact, I found, in general, the courses by practitioners were great (at least the litigation focused ones were... can't speak to corporate ones, if there are any). Pre-trial civil lit is important, in my view, because that is 99.9% of what you will do as an attorney. In the three years I have been practicing, I have had two trials, totalling 7 days. I have spent every single other day working on some "pre-trial" aspect of civil litigation.
If you are planning on doing lit, I would suggest: civ pro II, pre-trial civil lit, evidence, and civil trial practice.
1:10, the class names may have changed, but I'm referring to whatever class teaches those provisions of the constitution that establish and control the federal government (as opposed to the classes that teach about fundamental and individual rights). You know you have the right class if the dormant commerce clause is on the syllabus.
Also, if you are taking a class that doesn't discuss the dormant commerce clause, don't discuss it on the final, even if it is totally, 100% applicable. Turns out THAT is how to get a sub-P.
Any Con Law suggestions for 1Ls who are looking for good bar prep? The classes look so much the same.
1Ls are looking for bar prep?
Another litigator here. What Patrick says has a lot of truth to it, but it also suggests a pretty depressing view of law school (which I suspect is not Patrick's actual view). One of the best things you can do for your own happiness going forward is to develop a genuine interest in the law. So take classes that interest you, do a ton of reading and studying in those classes, and let the chips fall where they may. I personally always preferred "big doctrinal" classes to "fun" seminars, but don't get yourself bored and alienated just because you think a class is for whatever reason the right class to take.
8:04’s advice is good. If I could revise my prior comment I would the caveat that (with a few notable exceptions) I enjoyed every single class I took in law school. Actually, I enjoyed pretty much every moment of law school, and I feel fortunate for that. So for me the choice was big doctrinal classes I found enjoyable, or seminars I found enjoyable. I am glad at this later date to have gone the route of the big doctrinal classes -- I think there is a tremendous amount of training value there and as I said I am amazed at how frequently I draw from that knowledge base -- but I probably would have been just as happy no matter what I took. And I probably would draw from that knowledge base, too.
(It should also add I took some great seminars. Professor Berring’s book club style survey of seminal legal writings was one; Professor Kutz’s JSP course on the philosophy of law was another. I’m not sure they helped me with the bar exam, but they did help make me a broader thinker and a better person.)
Do they still offer Wine Law? I have been amazed at how helpful that class has been in my actual practice of law (I'm a transactional lawyer). Wine law practitioners have to know a little bit about everything, which is how the class was taught. Plus it's pretty much the only time you'll learn about 21st Amendment jurisprudence, which is a great way to further understand the Commerce Clause.
Do folks know when the first day of class sign-ups is next week? Is it Monday or Tuesday?
Can someone bump this discussion to the top of N&B?
Jackie O, registration starts on Monday, not Tuesday.
Thanks, 12:17. Good to know.
I swear I'm always registering on the 3rd day. Does this rotate? Or is it luck? Or is my paranoia right, and everyone is out to get me?
Well Dan, you see, us California folk who had previously applied to UCB as undergrads had lower student ID numbers because those numbers were assigned way back when. And it turns out, the law school assigned registration times based on lower student ID numbers. This is how I got to take B*ndy and Sw*ft classes to my heart's content. Including their seminars. Then [expletive] Patrick had to go and figure out the scam and post about it. So it should be random now. But who knows?
Those are great questions, Dan #2. Click around a bit (like, here) and you'll see that you're not the first one to ask, either.
. . . welcome to Boalt?
Ah, I see that great minds think alike.
Seriously, though, Dan #2, your unfortunate experience could be plain old bad luck, or a good old fashioned screwing by a rigged system. No one will know until someone does a good follow-up by again comparing SID numbers to registration times.
My registration number was assigned in 2003, when I applied unsuccessfully to undergrad here. I've always had one of the earliest registration times.
Waitlist for Evidence is over 20, should I be concerned?
@9:33: I don't think you should be concerned. There's a good chance you'll get into evidence, especially if you go to the first 2-3 lectures.
@12:09: What if you are #51? Time to figure out a backup plan?
By noon today the waitlist in evidence was up to over 70 people. This sucks!
Can we get a bump on this thread specifically to talk about the new evidence option? Any thoughts about waiting to take with Swift if you are miserably low on the current waitlist?
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