UVA Law Students Taking Questions Forum

[thesealocust]

Can anyone shed some light on what Harrison's exam will be like? He's completely hiding the ball right now and refuses to answer any questions. He refused to even say whether or not we could use an outline...

Like every other law school exam. Fact patterns for which you apply the laws you learn, should be open book + open note/outline. He'll likely give you a practice problem or two close to thanksgiving and otherwise say nothing about it, plus hide from and/or actively avoid you if you try to talk to him about it directly.

When I was a 1L I once asked him if I could ask him a question before class while we waited to get in the room.

He responded "no" and then walked away from me.

[cfr1225]

Can anyone shed some light on what Harrison's exam will be like? He's completely hiding the ball right now and refuses to answer any questions. He refused to even say whether or not we could use an outline...

Don't fall for the trap of thinking that just because he didn't teach it that it won't be on the exam. A shocking number of people have that mindset and then end up pissed off when they have no idea what anything on the exam is about.

In my experience, he always refuses to commit to outline use, but he approves it at the last minute.

[WahooLaw24]

Chances of getting into Regulation of the Political Process w/ Professor Gilbert? Waitlist # 5.

[anon sequitur]

Chances of getting into Regulation of the Political Process w/ Professor Gilbert? Waitlist # 5.

Pretty high. In my experience, waitlists move along at a good clip, especially for non-core classes (evidence, corporations, PR, etc.) since people generally don't plan their semester around classes like that, they'll add/drop pretty frequently as their plans change.

[Legal_Padawan]

When I was a 1L I once asked him if I could ask him a question before class while we waited to get in the room.

He responded "no" and then walked away from me.

Sounds about right. Thanks!
(Btw, for the 0Ls out there, Harrison is pretty atypical, most profs at UVA are very accessible and helpful)

Don't fall for the trap of thinking that just because he didn't teach it that it won't be on the exam. A shocking number of people have that mindset and then end up pissed off when they have no idea what anything on the exam is about.

In my experience, he always refuses to commit to outline use, but he approves it at the last minute.

Do you mean that the exam will contain things that he just didn't focus on, or that it will contain things we did not talk about at all? (As in, if we never mentioned IIED or false imprisonment once, can we safely assume that he won't ask about them on the exam?)

[thesealocust]

I only took one Harrison class, but the exam covered the things we talked about in class from the assigned readings

* shrug *

[cfr1225]

Do you mean that the exam will contain things that he just didn't focus on, or that it will contain things we did not talk about at all? (As in, if we never mentioned IIED or false imprisonment once, can we safely assume that he won't ask about them on the exam?)

Based on personal experience, I would say there is a decent likelihood that things he did not focus on at length in class could make a significant showing on the exam. (This was not in a 1L class, but I doubt he's terribly different from how he runs electives versus how he runs required courses).

Based on anecdotal evidence, I can say this much: I know people who had him for Crim and said that they barely covered anything at all except actus reus until the last week, when Harrison blew through the syllabus and covered pretty much everything left in the class (which was a lot). Well, obviously any Crim Exam is going to require you to know, for example, mens rea pretty well, but he just glazed over the topic. I assume from your question that he's teaching torts, so my advice would be that if he just gives a rushed a surface level explanation of, for example, proximate cause, that does not mean that you can get away with a surface level understanding of proximate cause on the exam. You need to know as though it had actually been taught to you.

(I have similar anecdotal evidence from people who had him for Property.)

[Legal_Padawan]

Do you mean that the exam will contain things that he just didn't focus on, or that it will contain things we did not talk about at all? (As in, if we never mentioned IIED or false imprisonment once, can we safely assume that he won't ask about them on the exam?)

Based on personal experience, I would say there is a decent likelihood that things he did not focus on at length in class could make a significant showing on the exam. (This was not in a 1L class, but I doubt he's terribly different from how he runs electives versus how he runs required courses).

Based on anecdotal evidence, I can say this much: I know people who had him for Crim and said that they barely covered anything at all except actus reus until the last week, when Harrison blew through the syllabus and covered pretty much everything left in the class (which was a lot). Well, obviously any Crim Exam is going to require you to know, for example, mens rea pretty well, but he just glazed over the topic. I assume from your question that he's teaching torts, so my advice would be that if he just gives a rushed a surface level explanation of, for example, proximate cause, that does not mean that you can get away with a surface level understanding of proximate cause on the exam. You need to know as though it had actually been taught to you.

(I have similar anecdotal evidence from people who had him for Property.)

Got it. Thanks for the feedback.

[BigLawer]

Anyone have any info on Trial Ad classes? What are they like, how much work?

They appear to be classes of like 10 - 16, are curves usually B+ heavy?

[jkpolk]

I only took one Harrison class, but the exam covered the things we talked about in class from the assigned readings

* shrug *

His test is exactly what he teaches in class.

[North]

His test is exactly what he teaches in class.

Can the same be said about Nelson? Outlining for his Civ Pro is... daunting. I'm more or less only learning exactly what he spoke about I class (outlining the lectures and the pages/cases he directly references in them).

[jkpolk]

His test is exactly what he teaches in class.

Can the same be said about Nelson? Outlining for his Civ Pro is... daunting. I'm more or less only learning exactly what he spoke about I class (outlining the lectures and the pages/cases he directly references in them).

Honestly, i think I would have done better in 90% of my classes if I had just taken good class notes and studied from them exclusively. Mental clarity is the tits.

[anon sequitur]

Anyone have any info on Trial Ad classes? What are they like, how much work?

They appear to be classes of like 10 - 16, are curves usually B+ heavy?

I took Davidson. He told us that it's very B+ heavy, I get the feeling he's only going to give one or two grades higher than B+, maybe even none at all. It's been great, basically playacting like you're a trial lawyer. In our section, we did an activity every class, in sections with more students, you might get some weeks off. To get ready for an activity, you have to prepare for it, probably 30-60 minutes for easier assignments (direct or cross examinations) 1-3 hours for harder ones (opening, closing arguments). Final project is to do a whole trial, I prepared for probably about 8-10 hours. Seems like a pretty light workload for 3 credits to me. Would highly recommend.

[Tom Joad]

I only took one Harrison class, but the exam covered the things we talked about in class from the assigned readings

* shrug *

His test is exactly what he teaches in class.

[thesealocust]

His test is exactly what he teaches in class.

Can the same be said about Nelson? Outlining for his Civ Pro is... daunting. I'm more or less only learning exactly what he spoke about I class (outlining the lectures and the pages/cases he directly references in them).

Yes. Really it's true of 90%+ of law professors.

[scifiguy]

.

[Legal_Padawan]

I only took one Harrison class, but the exam covered the things we talked about in class from the assigned readings

* shrug *

His test is exactly what he teaches in class.

So does that mean we can expect pure-policy questions? Also, does he want us to incorporate policy into "regular" questions as well?

[thesealocust]

Harrison's exam is likely to be standard in every way. A few fact patterns you respond to using the law you learned from cases. Like all professors, using policy arguments/rationales can be helpful but isn't "the point" unless there's a specific policy related questions amongst the fact patterns.

[Br3v]

I know we aren't supposed to worry about having the best secret outline or whatever, but are there like secret outline banks I do not know about? For example, I read that recent ATL article about the LR outline bank (NYU), and had no idea something like that existed. I have read somewhere in TLS that people can get access to some from joining various clubs or whatever.

[thesealocust]

VLR has an outline bank, but (unsurprisingly) it doesn't have 1L outlines because nobody on VLR is a 1L

Most other journals do too, PAs sometimes have outlines to distribute, etc. Old outlines are not crucial and are not magic. They're most important if you're lazy and have skipped a lot of class/reading because they can be more efficient at that point, especially if you're a 2L/3L and have a better sense of how to muddle your way through an exam.

Nothing to see/worry about here.

[Madmen321]

Another housing question: can anyone comment on "The Arden Place" apartments? They seem to be about 4 miles from campus. Do any students live there?

Thanks!

[Br3v]

Thanks TSL

Madmen, I am not sure about those apartments (never heard of them) but I would venture to say that about 75%-90% of the 1L class lives in one of (a) Pavilion (b) Jeffersonian (c) Ivy. With the remaining students, half live in random places on Arlington and the other half spread across the rest of the city.

[sprezz]

Another housing question: can anyone comment on "The Arden Place" apartments? They seem to be about 4 miles from campus. Do any students live there?

Thanks!

pm me if you have any questions other than LS representation there; i'm familiar with the complex and the apartments. pretty good value: lots of space and appointed well, but the location is not convenient to anything besides dollar movies across the parking lot and chick fil a breakfast

[steelythews]

Anyone have personal experience with the Arlington Park Townhomes?

[Hspeaksfriend]

Another housing question: can anyone comment on "The Arden Place" apartments? They seem to be about 4 miles from campus. Do any students live there?

Thanks!

I looked into those before I came to UVA. The website makes them look nice and shiny and lovely, but they were getting terrible reviews on yelp (at least at the time when I looked).