Straight From The Horse's Mouth: Spring 2009

It's time for the semi annual Professor Quotes (scroll down) thread. As you'll see when you read the comments, I have been less diligent this semester than in the past. It appears to be a developing trend.

Today, however, I did encounter the what is undoubtedly the quote of the year:

Boalt Registrar: "Is that the completion form for your writing requirement? Congratulations. That must be a real load off! Good luck with the rest of your exams."

You heard that right, folks: someone in the Registrar's office was nice to a student. Of course, it was a new guy (yes, a guy!) whom I've never seen, so they'll likely beat the cheer out of him in no time . . .   All the same, what a lovely surprise!

New Space Deathmatch: Kato v. Zeb

The third in my series examining winners and losers of the Boalt Hall space reconfiguration. Lest anyone think that I'm just going to trash journals every day, here are two non-basement entities.

Winner: Nancy Kato
Blessed, blessed isolation! Well, the Registrar Office's soon-to-be new location in the MoFo Room isn't that far off the beaten path. But unlike its old space, MoFo isn't stifling. And MoFo's rectangular layout, with an entrance solely at the narrow end, is perfect for channeling/limiting law student interaction. As in a giant hive, Queen Ant M. K-J can be housed deep in the interior, preserved from interruption by an army of drones.

Also, it's location near the building exit ensures that our union-supporting comrades can slip out at exactly 4:30 p.m., regardless of student crisis. One thing's for sure: the MoFo Room has finally reached its zenith for irony potential.

Loser: Cafe Zeb
Hey, is this table taken? Probably not anymore, now that all the cool kids are hanging out on the new basement sofas. Between the 2007 office and courtyard closures, Cafe Zeb was once the only place to relax at Boalt. Not only are there now more places, but those places are about as far away from Zeb as possible. It's easier to walk to Cafe Strada than Zeb now from a club/journal office. (Granted, Strada and Zeb are owned by the same company.)

And let's not forget the other thing: a brand new kitchen in the basement. Refrigerators, a full sink, presumably a microwave--combined with food storage in your journal or club office. Who's really going to go all the way up to Zeb for green tea and a yogurt?

Tele-F*CKED 2008, Phase II

Thanks to your diligent efforts, I have lost my unfair advantage over my fellow students. Damn you, Nuts and Boalts!
So says an anonymous survey-taker, and correctly: Tele-BEARS times have been randomized.
Specifically, students have been grouped by graduating class and then randomized within that group. Third year students (with the exception of one very unlucky Boaltie) register at least one day prior to 2L's. Second year students, however, appear to enjoy no registration benefit over 1L's. That is probably of little concern because 1L spring courses carry their own section numbers, which means that 1L's and 2L's do not vie for slots.
So, take comfort. You may be screwed this semester, but it isn't by the UC Registrar. It's now the UC Registrar, as controlled by the hand of God.

-----------------------------------------

A big thank you to Matt, for providing the imagery.  I have also provided a fairly readable sample of some of the data here. The full spreadsheet, redacted for IP addresses, is here. Note that there is no way to determine whether the times will be re-randomized each semester or if you will be locked into your 'place in line' for your tenure at Boalt, but wouldn't that be a peach?

Tele-F*CKED 2008, Phase I

First, they lied. Then they were caught. But they never apologized.

For those of you tuning in for the first time this fall, here's a brief rundown:

Boalt students have been assured for years that Tele-BEARS registration times (and the concomitant opportunity take that coveted class, or to score an early slot on the wait-list) were randomized to ensure fairness.

Not so. Students discovered last spring that registration times were in fact issued by student ID number -- the lower your ID number, the earlier you registered. Even worse, the earlier you applied to the UC system (even as an undergrad, and even if you didn't attend), the lower your ID number. The result was that some people (like Armen) enjoyed the prized seminars, classes, and professors every single semester at Boalt, while the rest of us sit through classes like Janitor Law from adjuncts.

We were promised last spring that it would be fixed by this fall. It is true that any twelve year-old with ten minutes and an Excel spreadsheet could randomize 800 numbers, but I just wonder. . ?

If you are a current Boalt student, your Tele-BEARS times are now available at Bear Facts (but not, ironically, at the Tele-BEARS page). Please take this anonymous survey and please tell your comrades to do the same, as we need several hundred responses to ensure an accurate response. We will know by later this week whether they fixed the problem.

The Resident Evil

Having finally concluded what became quite a battle of wits with the UC Berkeley Residency office, I feel I should pass on some lessons learned. If I were still an out-of-state 0L, hoping to skate through the residency petition process come spring, I would make sure I addressed the following housekeeping items, now:

Before You Matriculate This Fall

Obtain a physical California mailing address (not a PO box). Then obtain a CA driver's license, register to vote with your CA address (can be done in conjunction with the driver's license), and register your vehicle to your new CA address. Call your bank to make sure your statements reflect your new address. Make sure your employer sends your CA address to the IRS when they submit your tax information. (It took about a week to explain why my W2's were mailed to Idaho.)

Each of these things must be done one year before the date upon which you wish to be declared a resident. So, that means one year before the first day of school in the fall of 2009.

After Schools Begins

Vote in California. Pay CA income tax on any taxable earnings after school starts. Contrary to what some of the brochures say, it is okay if you want to work outside the state of CA during your 1L summer, but if so, then you must document that you were present in Berkeley during all of the academic holidays (Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Spring Break) by submitting credit/debit card receipts. Note that creative Boalties draw a distinction between documenting their presence, and being physically present -- use your imagination.

During The Residency Petition Process

Here is a copy of the this year's "Statement of Legal Residence Documentation Checklist" for law students. It is essentially the cover sheet for your application. Check every box, fill out every bubble, and do your best to follow the instructions to the letter. Any inconsistency will prompt telephone calls at inconvenient times, during which you will be aggressively asked rude and demeaning questions by someone substantially less smart than you.  It's a drag.  And it can be very awkward if you are, say, on a date. Hypothetically speaking.

My impression (after what felt like dozens of requests for further documentation) is that the best way to skate through is by going to great lengths to avoid the attention (and attendant ire) of that first little bean counter tasked with screening your application. You want to create the impression of a non-memorable, clear-cut, slam-dunk case, and you want to create that impression early on. In that respect, it's a little like a summer internship, boot camp, or law school -- the most favorable initial impression is the unremarkable one.

First Our Professors, Now Our Grades

The imagination-less automatons across the Bay have decided to copy our grading system (ht: ATL). Maybe soon they will adopt our method of assigning enrollment times, Krushchev era Communist architecture, and tree sitters to accompany their crappy mascot (which got a shout-out last night on Colbert).

Relatedly, a commenter writes below: "When are we allowed to begin bitching about the registrar, in re grades?" Answer: Under past precedent, May 31 appears to be the day. Though actual results may not appear until July. (Yep, July.)

Dude. Enough With the Eval Requests Already

If you are a Boalt student, your @berkeley inbox contains the following email:

"Please take a minute to complete your teaching evaluations. Not only are they important for feedback to faculty, but they also ensure you will have access to the online exam interface. Please do them now so you don't have to email me in a panic on Monday when you can't access your exams. Thank you! "

Anonymous in comments just asked:

Did we just get told that if we don't fill out evaluations, we won't be able to take exams? Not cool.

My first reaction was exactly the same.

My second reaction was to ask: why can't we submit evaluations AFTER we take the professor's exam? That's a rather huge part of the course . . . isn't it? And if a hypothetical professor's exam (*ahem* Torts *cough*) contains typos, confuses the gender of parties in the fact pattern, contains a deeply ambiguous set of instructions, and puts other stumbling blocks in the way of students' ability to perform, shouldn't that information make it into the evaluation process? Especially since student feedback is apparently so important, and taken so seriously? (*cough* the last five years of TeleBears *ahem*)

My third reaction was to wonder: is there some way Boalt's obsessive desire for student evaluations (today's was the fourth email I have received) can be converted to leverage for the release of the evaluations' narratives?

Tele-update[s]

[Lifted up to the top today for the update at the bottom]

So: the administration has responded to the Telebears "scandal" (see comments for full email).

Key quote: "Modifications will be made, beginning with the Spring 2009 iteration of Tele-BEARS, so that the appointments are assigned in a more randomized fashion."

First: Congrats Patrick, you've single-handedly taken down a system that has existed since 2003 within 24-hours of you wielding your sword.

Second: What does everyone think now?

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UPDATE: the school's student paper has picked up the story.  More specifics on what happened, as well as the school's [lack of] reaction, can be found here.

Breaking UCB News: "Random" = Linear

Initially I thought I would need a couple hundred responses to confidently confirm or dis-confirm the TeleBears rumors.

But after about 120, the picture is clear. Painfully clear.



(4/17/08, 16:37. Thank you, Matt, for the graphic. Click to enlarge.)

Other resources (through 4/17/08):

Excel spreadsheet with all data (IP addressed deleted)
PDF of registration dates by law class
PDF of registration dates by undergraduate application
Link to the survey. (Helpful for interpreting the spreadsheet.)

The two PDFs include data from both 2009 and 2010, so they're a little jumbled. But the Excel document tells the whole story. It's true that there were some outliers (I'm sorry, but I remain politely skeptical that anyone has an appointment time between midnight and two AM) but oddballs notwithstanding, neither I nor the spreadsheet have any big surprises to share.

TeleBears Times are Allocated First by Class:

--The class of 2009 will register on the 23/24th
--The class of 2010 will register on the 24/25th

That shouldn't rub many of you the wrong way. A large percentage of you were comfortable allocating times by credits anyway.

What you will not like is this: whether, say, a particular rising 2L's registration day is the 23rd or 24th is not random. And it almost certainly never was. In fact, it is so glaringly un-random that I am flabbergasted anyone who actually knows could try to claim otherwise. I don't know who has been lying to DO, but I hope she stops by to kick their ass before she heads to Irvine. Here is the the breakout:

TeleBears Days Within Each Class:

Students who applied to UC Berkeley for their undergraduate studies have identification numbers substantially lower than those of us who did not. Even if a person was not accepted here for undergraduate work, their current student identification numbers are in the 1500xxxx range, compared to the 1990xxxx range from the class of 2010. On reasonable explanation is that denials of undergraduate admission created a record, which was re-activated by the law school application. (Another reasonable explanation is that there is a God, and He hates the rest of us. They're equally plausible.)

These lower numbers in turn correlate to earlier registration days -- people with identification numbers in the 1500xxxx range register on the first day of their class. People in the 1990xxxx range do not.

TeleBears Times Within Each Class:

Within each class, Telebears times correlate lock step to student ID numbers. The higher your number, the later your registration time. Every time. End of story.

But . . . . you knew that all along, didn't you?

Like most of you, I'm irritated.

My ability to experience a class with any of Boalt's celebrity professors is hamstrung by an arbitrary decision I made (or rather, didn't make) in 2000, when I began my college journey--namely, the decision to submit an application to Berkeley. Eight years later, CP II with B*ndy? Forget it. Evidence with Sw*ft? Yeah, right. Crim Pro with M*rphy? Nope.

I don't know if there is anything I can do about this right now, except to give a big shout out to the pointy-headed bureaucrats who have been collectively screwing an arbitrarily defined subset of Boalties for God only knows how long.

So, Pointy-Headed Bureaucrats: I don't appreciate you right now. Which, in case you missed it, is a polite way of saying something else entirely.

*sigh*

Maybe those of us at the tail end can can make a "Mod 13" or something. Since we'll be in the same classes for the next couple years, and all.

We can iron out the details this September . . . in Janitor Law.

*************

If you have not completed the survey, please do so here. It will take only a moment, and as the commentary notes, more responses are merrier.

Well, statistically speaking, anyway.

Let's Out TeleBears!

Something about the TeleBears Phase I appointment times is fishy.

And unless you work in the Registrar's office, DO's office, or on Pluto, you know EXACTLY what I am talking about.

The truth doesn't have to be a speculative matter, and it doesn't have to be taken as an article of faith. Whether students' TeleBears appointment times correlate to their undergraduate application/enrollment at UC Berkeley is, in fact, an empirical question.

So let's find out, shall we?

If you are a current student at Boalt, please take this very short, seven question, multiple choice survey. It will take about 20 seconds of your day. 40 if you take it twice (but please don't do that). As long as there are enough participants, the results will put this question to bed.

Lastly, if you are not currently a Boaltie, feel free to look at the survey but please refrain from actually answering any questions. We like you and all, but your input on this one will screw everything up.

Registrar's Office: Brace for Constructive Criticism

Here's an informal poll: how many times have you read the BBB so far this semester?

Me: Zero. You: likely batting less than .500.

I find this a serious problem. The BBB was a very important tool my first year. I'd receive it via PDF in my email and I would read it all the way through. However, at some point during the last calendar year (I can't even tell you when - which likely reinforces my point here) the Registrar's office decided that all of those PDF attachments were clogging up mail servers and they would no longer send them. Since that point I've received more notifications regarding the deadlines for BBB submissions than actual useful information.

I know what is coming from those anonymous posters: "you're an adult now, go get the online version or the printed version by the lockers." Yes, I know those options are available to me. I'm simply saying that I don't utilize them and I really don't think I'm the only one.

Why would it be so hard to simply have a single column BBB that is in the body of an email? Should the Registrar offer such, students like me will go back to reading it. Further, the overwhelming portion of the student body with a mail program such as Gmail can set up filters, tags, and most importantly, text search their archived versions.

But I can't emphasize enough the most important point of us all going back to reading it. I can't imagine that the substance of this suggestion hasn't made its way to the office by now. So, I ask, what gives?

Secrecy for Secrecy's Sake

Ah, it's finally that time of year again. Dean O has written to at least the 3Ls asking if you'd like to know your class rank. And with this comes Boalt's own Cheney-like admonition:

Please remember that you may not disclose this information for any other purpose (except applying for a law teaching job) -- to do so would be a violation of the Honor Code.

Of course, here's the rule:

3.06 Disclosure of Class Rank Information for Limited Purposes
Information about students' class standing shall be made available solely for the purpose of aiding students applying for judicial clerkships and academic positions.
. . .
(D) Other Uses Impermissible. The Dean, Dean of Students, faculty, and students shall not disclose information about class standing provided by the Registrar under this section for any professional purpose other than obtaining a judicial clerkship or academic position. A student who reveals this information for any other professional purpose is in violation of the Honor Code.

What's never explained is why this secrecy is necessary. What good does it confer? Does it prevent law firm empoyers from screening on rank? I suppose that's the theory, but does anyone believe that works? One need only sit through the first two minutes of an interview with Irell (tip to 1Ls: they care about your grades) to know that the interviewer is determining your class rank. While no employer can know someone's rank for sure, seeing ten to twenty transcripts should let them figure things out pretty quick. By now, if they actually cared, the years and years of applications from Boalt students should allow them to have a comprehensive understanding of Boalt student grades. And if they don't care... well, what's the point?

The loser in all of this? The law firms that are not familiar with Boalt students, either because they are small or in a different part of the country. Why deny them access to information we must concede the larger law firms have? Why deny them information that every law faculty and judge can get?

I'd love to hear a coherent defense in the comments for this policy. I can't think of one that makes any sense. Instead, it seems like ornery secrecy for secrecy's sake alone. And for the same reason I don't like it in presidential administrations, I don't like it in academic administrations either.

One last jab at the Registrar

DS received this email yesterday.

Dear Student,

As the semester draws to a close, I noticed that you have not submitted an address to have your diploma mailed. Please download the Diploma Request Form today at http://registrar.berkeley.edu/elecforms/DiplomaRequest.pdf to ensure
prompt delivery once your diploma is available four months after graduation.

The mailing fee is $12 domestic; $40 international. Drop off or mail your request to Office of the Registrar, 128 Sproul Hall, Berkeley, CA 94720-5404. Our hours are 9AM to 4PM, Monday through Friday. Make your check or money order payable to the UC Regents.

If you have recently submitted the Diploma Request Form and fee, please disregard this notice.

You've earned it! Now have it delivered.

Congratulations!!


Never mind that $100K over three years doesn't get you a free mailed diploma. No, the best part is" . . . to ensure prompt delivery once your diploma is available four months after graduation." Ohhhhh. Okay. It would be a shame not to get *prompt* delivery of something FOUR MONTHS LATE. It's a piece of paper with some sparkly letters on it. Four months? Really? Maybe that's why grades are always so late. They have to punch all those letters into a computer in addition to printing diplomas for graduating 3Ls. Who knew?

That is all.

Pride or Prejudice?

The e-mail from the registrar informs us that April 1 (which is actually a Sunday) is the last day for add/drops. Again, with the modification that April 1 is a Sunday, a commenter below makes astute observations that I quote in full

What is up with the Registrar letting us know today about the drop deadline of Monday, April 1. Since it is the first day after spring break, if you wanted to drop a Monday- or Tuesday-only class, you would have to have already gotten the signature before she notified us of the deadline. Similiarly, if you want to add a writing class (LAW 299) and your prof. is taking a long spring break, you are SOL. Another smooth move by the Registar!

I agree with the commenter in full. I'm just wondering WHY I agree with him/her. Is it objectively reasonable to be pissed off, or is it just all the registrar bashing around Boalt creates an expectation and we're just victims of the confirmation bias? Maybe it's our fault. The deadline is probably in some publication. Maybe it's in a memo convenient placed in my locker, or maybe it's in the planner that I can't find. Thousand to one odds it might even be online. Moral of the story, if you're considering Boalt, "self-starters preferred."

Pick Me, Grade Me, Validate Me

If the readers will kindly allow me to speak to the 1Ls for a brief second, I'd be grateful. Thanks.

Dear 1Ls,

You guys (and gals) are a bunch of spoiled brats. You arrived at a Boalt that has 35% operational wireless THROUGHOUT the campus. Did you have to sign a petition for wireless in the classrooms? Do you know what it's like to only have access to the games that come with Windows? Thanks to wireless I don't even remember the rules of spider solitaire anymore. You also have seminar rooms that are remotely decent and look somewhat new. I confess that you have the distinct misfortune of not having Room 115 anymore, which when we first arrived was the only room with power outlets. That room was great. I didin't think a trough would be suitable for teaching law, but I was proven wrong.

There are really countless things I can point out (new reading room in the library, no construction noise in the library, change in menu at Zeb, etc. But the most important change of all was announced today by e-mail. The registrar wrote:

Electronic grades are coming to Boalt. This semester Boalt will start posting grades to BearFacts as courses are graded by faculty. No more waiting until February to see how you did in fall semester classes.

Spoiled brats. The whole lot of you. You have no idea the anxiety that festers in the human psyche when you have devoted every ounce/gram/bushel whatever of energy you have to finals, and then your grades don't come until two months later. I just can't do justice to the pains you are about to avoid. Now, let's not all jump for joy. This is Boalt afterall and it still takes 8 different websites to get all your personal information together. More importantly, computers and grades have NEVER worked smoothly with each other at Boalt. Hell for half of my 2L year I didn't get the mass e-mails to 2Ls because I was still on the 1L Listserv. So you will forgive me if I have my doubts. BUT, I still want to point out just how lucky (and spoiled and bratty) you all are. Ergo, below the fold, I am going to quote some of my favorite comments from over the years about grades and Boalt. Enjoy.

[Just in case the subtlety of this post is lost on some people reading, it should be taken as measure of the distance Boalt has traveled under the leadership of DE. So read the comments with that in mind.]

***

I Can Drive Fifty-Five

Update: I've taken out the long math part at the bottom that explained the credit system at Boalt, and how the new schedule would function. I will post the important parts in the Comments section, if you'd like to take a look. I made a few other changes as well, and these are in italics.

Continuing the nerd parade...

A funny thing about Boalt: much like a hopped-up red-hot, Boalt is the first into the classroom, but the last to leave. What do I mean? Our start date is as early as any other law school that I’m aware of, yet our end date is as late as any school. True, many schools have the same schedule as us. And others may start a week later, but don’t have flyback. But having looked at the schedules of some other law schools, I think we can have our cake and eat it too. In other words, we can have an extra week of vacation without sacrificing flyback.

Put simply, we can make classes a few minutes longer. Right now the standard unit for a Boalt credit is 50 minutes per week. If we up that to 55 minutes per week, we can cut a week off school while still easily meeting all of the ABA’s requirements.

This would have major effects on scheduling, and I realize there are many reasons not to change the schedule. This will be a huge hassle for the Registrar. The booking system for rooms will be totally different. Professors will have to change their schedules. There could be financial implications from cutting a week of class time. With fewer classes, more would need to be accomplished per class (though this increase would be extremely marginal). And of course, it may be true that such a change simply isn’t possible, because of either Boalt or University rules.

But all of these problems likely have solutions. And on the whole, the benefits of an extra vacation week outweigh the costs. There would be an extra week to relax before the school year starts. We can work a week longer if we like and thus earn an extra week’s pay. We would be less likely to burn-out during the semester. Alternatively, instead of a full week of vacation, it could be only a few days, with a couple of days added onto the reading period at the end of the semester, something that all the procrastinators would greatly appreciate.

Other schools have already implemented this system. I checked the schedules of about 5 “peer” schools, and at least two, Stanford and Michigan, use a form of the 55 minute class. In both cases, their Fall semester starts about 15 days after ours (Sept. 5^th), but ends only a day or two later, despite both schools having flyback weeks (UM’s is only Sat-Tues).

I realize this isn't necessarily a huge issue. But many students end work on a Friday and start school the following Monday. Still others actually want to work longer, so as to save a few more dollars. Either way the extra week would really help, and it seems like the school could make it happen simply by extending classes by a few minutes.

Grade Me Now

Both Volokh and Kerr discuss curves in law schools, with an emphasis on the increase in the mean/median GPA. Well it seems like most schools are hovering around a 3.2 curve with Stanford at 3.4. Hmmm, so where do we stand?

Just to explain things to 0Ls, in your first year large sections the curve is top 10% = HH, next 30% = H, and remaining 60% = P. If we assume the grading basis used to determine order of the coif (HH=5, H=3, and P=2) then simple math gives us a mean curve of 2.6 and of course a median of 2.

Another way of doing it would be to do what the main campus registrar does...convert all H grades to A and all P grades to B. That of course gives use a 3.4 mean GPA with a 3.0 still as the median. But that doesn't seem right. Keeping my ears close to the ground, the most common way I've heard our grades distilled is by counting the number of H grades. Similar to the one above, but with a slight twist. So my hunch is that our curve is not that far off the rest of the schools. It's just a matter of figuring out the right numerical value to assign to an H and to a P to get a 3.2 curve.

In other news, I'm glad to hear that the Virginia Supreme Court rejected the testimony of Dr. Stan Samenow (in a redux of the Atkins case that many of you will remember from law review write-on 05). Samenow's main argument is that every criminal makes a choice to commit crimes. Forget about poverty, education, opportunity, influence of groups, etc. It all boils down to choice. And this guy was used by the state to testify in the case of someone arguing mental retardation. Sigh.

Berkeley Public

The comments to the post below raise two points that I really want to vent about separately.

First, an anonymous commenter writes:

after sendings a not-terribly-friendly email to the registrar, i was told the problem was with the main campus system, not with Boalt. yay underfunded public school

Not quite. Underfunded public school we are. Technological mediocrity, however, is not a product of that. I know I've harped on this at least once before but for a top 5 engineering school to be this retarded when it comes to its own IT is just stroke-inducing. I will continue to point to the use of internet at the far superior sister University in southern California ad nauseam because I think it's worth it to see how one starving public university can completely outdo another one that has a bunch of freshmen-oh-I-get-to-play-Counterstrike-while-at-work heading its IT. I'm just speculating, maybe Cal has apt, former Silicon Valley execs running the show. That could be the problem.

Second, there is what can only be described as a panic induced mass pandemonium regarding "grade cut-offs" for firms during OCIP...as if it matters to the poor sap who you're screwing whether you get your six-figures (and blackberry) from a New York firm or a boutique. For those of you insecure enough [these are the ones who (a) write "happy" with two p's instead of two h's and (b) probably worried incessantly about the law school they can get into with their LSAT and GPAs. Fortunately for you, the legal profession is only delighted to reward competitive advantages. Hope your evals (and contingent bonuses) go well...don't stress too much. ;) ] the method of conferring Order of the Coif by the Registrar may prove useful. Don't stress too much. ;)

Yoo've gotta be kidding me

With the Abu Ghraib experience that is registration now partly behind me, I can opine on a few related issues. Punchline: The technological inadequacies of this school have now pushed me to the brink of insanity.

I cannot grasp what genius thought it convenient to create the following student information/transaction websites:

BearFacts
InfoBears
TeleBears
Summer TeleBears
CalMail

The irony of course is that each of the bears use the mother of all passwords (which requires cyrillic characters and hierogliphs) so it would not be even remotely difficult to combine the functions. Second they are all "best viewed with Netscape." In case anyone missed the newsflash, Netscape now only lives on through Mozilla and Firefox. Although I am an avid Firefox user, I don't understand why anyone would design a website that is not ideal for the browser used by 90% of your clients. Hmmmmm....

If we leave the main campus and move to Boalt for a second, we see the situation does not improve at all. First, you need to look up your enrollment time on InfoBears...or maybe BearFacts...not sure. Then you need to figure out your schedule from this. Remember, you must go to Fall 2005, then wade through the classes to find something that (1) intrests you since all you see at first are course titles (2) click on the course to find (i) the Professor teaching it, and (ii) the days and times the course is offered, and (iii) credits, grading, etc. Be sure to write all that down, since there is no capability to somehow select courses you like to see how they fit with the rest of your schedule. In fact, the Registrar is very kind in giving us a packet that lists all the courses for the Fall semester (about half of which have the correct corresponding professor listed, if any) along with a sheet that has each hour blocked off for a week. But only up to 5 PM. It's not like 85% of the classes are offered after the sun sets. I don't want to sound like an ingrate, I actually liked putting my highlighters to non-holding/facts/proc/issue use. In fact that method was far more superior than being able to search for a class by units, or by schedule.

If you're so curious as to actually care about enrollment counts, you are once again SOL. Some claim that there is a secret, mysterious procedure where you can get such information by using one of the Bears. To the best of this writer's ability and at press time, these appear to be rumors. Shawn Bayern, the incoming EIC of CLR does have a website on his own server that tracks current enrollment counts for all courses at Boalt. Kudos to Shawn, but why does it take the ingenuity and brain power of CLR to come up with something as simple as this?

The reason that enrollment counts are important is because we are allowed to enroll in 12 units during phase 1 of enrollment. For some this is more than a full load, for others this is one unit shy of a full load, and yet for some this is a 4-unit class away from a full load...but there is no cap on enrollment in any class. Why not cap enrollment at 90%?

Here's a novel thought: offer useful courses at useful times. As a bar course, I think quite a few more people would be interested in taking Estates and Trusts if it was not competing with the Tonight Show. Also, I think we can forego the classroom space of Topics in English Legal History for, oh I don't know, another course on legal ethics since it's kinda sorta mandatory for us to take (at the moment, according to Shawn's site, the only legal ethics course offered in the fall is waitlisted).

Lastly, as co-blogger Earl Warren has asked before, why don't we have a site that allows professor ratings and comments by students who have taken their courses? I'm glad that the course eval results are posted for every prof, but with an average rating of 4.8 (on a scale of 1-5) and a standard deviation 0.00003 this tells me nothing other than that Boalt professors are just bad asses...a probabilistic coincidence that is as likely as the rapture occuring today at noon.

A lot of people come here from a lot of different schools and I'm sure that there is no other school represented here at Boalt that has these technological shortcomings. But then again, how many bloggers out there can claim that they're going to have a syndicated series dedicated to their professor? That's right, I'd like to formally announce the series, "Yoo Said That?" which will cover the lectures of Prof. John Yoo, of torture memo and war powers memo fame. Should be fun.

And lastly my upcoming schedule:

Con Law -- Structural (Yoo)
Income Tax I (Rakowski)
Bonehead (Legal) Accounting
Financial Analysis (possible Drop)
Legal Ethics (God willing)