what 2L/3L courses make you a "well-rounded" student? Forum

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lsat_fear

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what 2L/3L courses make you a "well-rounded" student?

Post by lsat_fear » Sat Apr 17, 2010 11:51 am

I was looking at a clerkship application page and it said that they look at your course selection to make sure you're "well-rounded." What courses does that mean? I'd assume it probably includes Fed Courts, Corporations, and Admin, but what else?

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Re: what 2L/3L courses make you a "well-rounded" student?

Post by UCLAtransfer » Sat Apr 17, 2010 12:00 pm

Any class that you can most easily get an A in will make you the most "well rounded" for clerkships.

I'm pretty sure this is one of those things they have to say, like "law schools adcoms seek 'well rounded' applicants, and base their admissions decisions on a number of factors."

All the clerks I have talked to that pre-screen clerkship apps for their judges have said School, Rank/GPA, and LR/Journal are king.

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Re: what 2L/3L courses make you a "well-rounded" student?

Post by 270910 » Sat Apr 17, 2010 12:20 pm

The big breakdown is between heavily doctrinal courses (evidence, trusts and estates, federal income tax, corporations, federal courts, bankruptcy, etc.) and off-beat seminars "Shakespeare & The Law" etc. Most people agree that all else being equal, a resume that is heaviest on doctrinal classes looks more impressive. At many schools seminars have more lenient curves as well, which contributes to the feeling that they are 'soft' courses. That being said, as the above poster said the actual GPA (and rank) is a much more important factor.

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Re: what 2L/3L courses make you a "well-rounded" student?

Post by Anonymous Loser » Sat Apr 17, 2010 12:48 pm

^ both above posts are highly credited. A "well-rounded" student is one who is capable of excelling in difficult doctrinal courses while remaining heavily involved with the school's flagship journal.

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remotelyfeasible

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Re: what 2L/3L courses make you a "well-rounded" student?

Post by remotelyfeasible » Sat Apr 17, 2010 1:28 pm

Generally speaking, I believe that judges like Fed Courts, Admin, Con Law (if not in 1L curriculum) and Crim Pro. For federal courts, employment discrimination can also be pretty useful.

It's also best if you take as little fluff as possible (if half your classes are Law & Literature, that's a problem).

Of course, GPA and Law Review participation are far more important than what specific classes you take.

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Re: what 2L/3L courses make you a "well-rounded" student?

Post by Renzo » Sat Apr 17, 2010 1:39 pm

Disco is right. A 2nd cir. judge I met recently said that he wanted not just to see good grades, but to see a transcript with lots of black letter classes. He said, " I don't really care how well you do in any law-and-blank classes. I want to see someone who has taken lots of classes on subjects that will be coming before the court--employment law, securities law, and so on."

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Re: what 2L/3L courses make you a "well-rounded" student?

Post by Grad_Student » Sat Apr 17, 2010 3:12 pm

WTF IS FED. COURTS! you all keep talking about it and why the fuck doesn't my school have that?!

Anyways, Evidence, Payment, Tax, CrimPro

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Re: what 2L/3L courses make you a "well-rounded" student?

Post by Renzo » Sat Apr 17, 2010 5:40 pm

Grad_Student wrote:WTF IS FED. COURTS! you all keep talking about it and why the fuck doesn't my school have that?!

Anyways, Evidence, Payment, Tax, CrimPro
No way your school doesn't have fed courts. Really?

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Re: what 2L/3L courses make you a "well-rounded" student?

Post by Leeroy Jenkins » Sat Apr 17, 2010 5:47 pm

Do you have federal jurisdiction? similar stuff as i understand it.

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Re: what 2L/3L courses make you a "well-rounded" student?

Post by Grad_Student » Sat Apr 17, 2010 6:02 pm

Renzo wrote:
Grad_Student wrote:WTF IS FED. COURTS! you all keep talking about it and why the fuck doesn't my school have that?!

Anyways, Evidence, Payment, Tax, CrimPro
No way your school doesn't have fed courts. Really?
Maybe I just never looked for it.

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Re: what 2L/3L courses make you a "well-rounded" student?

Post by remotelyfeasible » Sat Apr 17, 2010 6:05 pm

Grad_Student wrote:
Renzo wrote:
Grad_Student wrote:WTF IS FED. COURTS! you all keep talking about it and why the fuck doesn't my school have that?!

Anyways, Evidence, Payment, Tax, CrimPro
No way your school doesn't have fed courts. Really?
Maybe I just never looked for it.
Yeah Fed Courts = Fed Jur. And pretty much every school should offer it, I would think.

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Re: what 2L/3L courses make you a "well-rounded" student?

Post by XxSpyKEx » Sat Apr 17, 2010 8:20 pm

disco_barred posted the classes. In all honestly, it only matter if you want to clerk, and even then only 2L courses matter. If you don't want to clerk it doesn't matter at all what you take because OCI is done at the beginning of your 2nd year, which will either lead to an offer or it won't. If it doesn't, then you are going to have to hustle like every TTT grad in the country for a non-large firm job and I'd bet that virtually none of those firms will ever ask you for a transcript. In fact, no large firms even ask for a transcript outside of OCI that I encountered (I only interviewed with 5-8 firms outside of OCI, but not a single one asked for a transcript).

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Re: what 2L/3L courses make you a "well-rounded" student?

Post by Renzo » Sat Apr 17, 2010 8:24 pm

XxSpyKEx wrote:disco_barred posted the classes. In all honestly, it only matter if you want to clerk, and even then only 2L courses matter. If you don't want to clerk it doesn't matter at all what you take because OCI is done at the beginning of your 2nd year, which will either lead to an offer or it won't. If it doesn't, then you are going to have to hustle like every TTT grad in the country for a non-large firm job and I'd bet that virtually none of those firms will ever ask you for a transcript. In fact, no large firms even ask for a transcript outside of OCI that I encountered (I only interviewed with 5-8 firms outside of OCI, but not a single one asked for a transcript).
There is one big exception to this, but it doesn't apply to everyone: If you want to do criminal work, prosecutors offices and PD offices really, really expect you to have taken crim pro and evidence.

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Re: what 2L/3L courses make you a "well-rounded" student?

Post by fortissimo » Sun Apr 18, 2010 1:07 am

Corporations, Tax, Securities Reg.

If you want to be a litigator Evidence. Maybe Labor Law. Jurisdiction (although in some schools it's already covered under Civ Pro) and I think at my school it's separate from Fed Courts. Maybe Econ Analysis of the Law. Commercial Transactions.

Fed Courts if you are interested in clerking. Admin (although I'm NEVER taking this since I hated Con Law).

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Re: what 2L/3L courses make you a "well-rounded" student?

Post by mikeytwoshoes » Sun Apr 18, 2010 4:40 pm

XxSpyKEx wrote:disco_barred posted the classes. In all honestly, it only matter if you want to clerk, and even then only 2L courses matter. If you don't want to clerk it doesn't matter at all what you take because OCI is done at the beginning of your 2nd year, which will either lead to an offer or it won't. If it doesn't, then you are going to have to hustle like every TTT grad in the country for a non-large firm job and I'd bet that virtually none of those firms will ever ask you for a transcript. In fact, no large firms even ask for a transcript outside of OCI that I encountered (I only interviewed with 5-8 firms outside of OCI, but not a single one asked for a transcript).
Maybe they weren't interested in hiring you. Did you get callbacks?

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Re: what 2L/3L courses make you a "well-rounded" student?

Post by XxSpyKEx » Sun Apr 18, 2010 6:18 pm

mikeytwoshoes wrote:
XxSpyKEx wrote:disco_barred posted the classes. In all honestly, it only matter if you want to clerk, and even then only 2L courses matter. If you don't want to clerk it doesn't matter at all what you take because OCI is done at the beginning of your 2nd year, which will either lead to an offer or it won't. If it doesn't, then you are going to have to hustle like every TTT grad in the country for a non-large firm job and I'd bet that virtually none of those firms will ever ask you for a transcript. In fact, no large firms even ask for a transcript outside of OCI that I encountered (I only interviewed with 5-8 firms outside of OCI, but not a single one asked for a transcript).
Maybe they weren't interested in hiring you. Did you get callbacks?
This doesn't even make sense. Typically non-OCI firms would ask for a transcript prior to calling you in for an interview (if they wanted it). Additionally, why would a firm waste their time interviewing someone they aren't interested in hiring? It's not like these partners just had unlimited time and want to call people in for interviews for shits and giggles (I don't really remember that well since it was a while ago, but I recall pretty much all of them being interviews with partners).

I only got a callback at one of the non-OCI firms, but that wasn't too surprising given that I had no ties to the other market (and all but the one interview was for the other market; OCI I only bid on the one market that I had ties to)... I still don't really understand your line of reasoning here though. If a firm would call someone in for a screening interview that they have no interest in hiring (perhaps for shits and giggles), then why wouldn't they also call someone in for a callback that they have no interest in hiring?

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Re: what 2L/3L courses make you a "well-rounded" student?

Post by BetterCallSaul » Sun Apr 18, 2010 6:29 pm

I just came here to say that I hate Admin.

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Re: what 2L/3L courses make you a "well-rounded" student?

Post by prezidentv8 » Sun Apr 18, 2010 6:30 pm

BetterCallSaul wrote:I just came here to say that I hate Admin.
I hear bad things. Am staying away from that for now.

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Re: what 2L/3L courses make you a "well-rounded" student?

Post by eth3n » Sun Apr 18, 2010 6:55 pm

- Stupid 1L Question -

As the evil 1L curve is gone from these classes, does anyone find it difficult to get an A in 2L/3L classes?

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Re: what 2L/3L courses make you a "well-rounded" student?

Post by kgirl » Sun Apr 18, 2010 6:57 pm

I recommend "federal courts" or "federal jurisdiction"; my school only offers federal jurisdiction but I don't think there is an enormous difference between the two. I took it in my 2L year. I thought it was really challenging because the concepts there are really abstract. Not surprisingly, there were less than 15 people in that class, at least in my school. Whoever wants to clerk should take this class, federal clerks especially. It's a useful course, much more demanding and intellectually challenging that say a course like "Law and Shakespeare". If you have done well in Con Law, you will find this course interesting. My next stop will be admin law. I find that my background in federal jurisidiction helps in Crim Pro; there are a lot of overlapping themes.

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Re: what 2L/3L courses make you a "well-rounded" student?

Post by 270910 » Sun Apr 18, 2010 6:57 pm

eth3n wrote:- Stupid 1L Question -

As the evil 1L curve is gone from these classes, does anyone find it difficult to get an A in 2L/3L classes?
Depends greatly on the school. At some schools, the evil 1L curve never leaves. At others, it is slightly loosened. Yet others loosen it for seminars but not for lecture courses, or else draw the line at a certain number of students.

No matter what, a dedicated student will have an easier time getting good grades after the first year because of attrition. Law school sucks and takes a lot of work, people are going to start phoning it in eventually.

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Re: what 2L/3L courses make you a "well-rounded" student?

Post by kgirl » Sun Apr 18, 2010 6:59 pm

yes, an A is still hard to get in upper classes where there are more than 60 people in the class.
Doctrinal courses like Evidence, Income Tax, Crim Pro, BA, Secured Transactions are always packed. Your whole grade hinges on the final exam.

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Re: what 2L/3L courses make you a "well-rounded" student?

Post by BetterCallSaul » Sun Apr 18, 2010 7:01 pm

eth3n wrote:- Stupid 1L Question -

As the evil 1L curve is gone from these classes, does anyone find it difficult to get an A in 2L/3L classes?
The curve is looser but still there. Of course, it depends on the class.
My evil admin course, for example, contains basically all the members of law review so it doesn't really matter that the curve loosened up a bit.

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Re: what 2L/3L courses make you a "well-rounded" student?

Post by Renzo » Sun Apr 18, 2010 7:03 pm

disco_barred wrote:
eth3n wrote:- Stupid 1L Question -

As the evil 1L curve is gone from these classes, does anyone find it difficult to get an A in 2L/3L classes?
Depends greatly on the school. At some schools, the evil 1L curve never leaves. At others, it is slightly loosened. Yet others loosen it for seminars but not for lecture courses, or else draw the line at a certain number of students.

No matter what, a dedicated student will have an easier time getting good grades after the first year because of attrition. Law school sucks and takes a lot of work, people are going to start phoning it in eventually.
Yeah, at most schools it's possible to stack your schedule with some small seminars that aren't curved, but the curve usually remains in place for the doctrinal classes.

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Re: what 2L/3L courses make you a "well-rounded" student?

Post by eth3n » Sun Apr 18, 2010 7:15 pm

well, I really wish I didn't ask that question so I could enjoy my summer full of naive hopes that I would never take a curved test again.

also, wtf is "complex litigation" and should a "well-rounded" individual add it to the list?

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