LawProf, can't sleep, taking Q's Forum

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thuggishruggishbone

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Re: LawProf, can't sleep, taking Q's

Post by thuggishruggishbone » Tue Jul 13, 2010 4:50 am

Tips on getting recommendations from profs?

Also, value in getting an LLM (for trying to get a law prof. gig)?
Last edited by thuggishruggishbone on Tue Jul 13, 2010 4:55 am, edited 1 time in total.

Mosca

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Re: LawProf, can't sleep, taking Q's

Post by Mosca » Tue Jul 13, 2010 4:53 am

What are your thoughts on summer prep before 1L? Does it make a noticeable difference?

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TheTopBloke

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Re: LawProf, can't sleep, taking Q's

Post by TheTopBloke » Tue Jul 13, 2010 4:59 am

Can law schools handle people that think or are they just looking for good little monkeys?

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Day2Daze

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Re: LawProf, can't sleep, taking Q's

Post by Day2Daze » Tue Jul 13, 2010 5:00 am

Hi, I just posted this question somewhere else but havent got a reply yet so thought Id try here :)

For assessed pieces of work and exams in law school is your name attached to your work, or does each student have a separate ID/candidate #?? Ive been to schools that have used diff systems, and definitely see the benefits of an anonymous grading situation so I was wondering if that was adopted in LS. Or does it differ from school to school?

thanks!

LawProfessor123

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Re: LawProf, can't sleep, taking Q's

Post by LawProfessor123 » Tue Jul 13, 2010 5:02 am

Mosca wrote:What are your thoughts on summer prep before 1L? Does it make a noticeable difference?
I don't know whether it would make a difference. Before my 1L year, I read Getting to Maybe and Learning Legal Reasoning. I do think those books greatly helped me. I also read 100 pages or so from Glannon's Civil Procedure, which helped me a little, but probably wasn't worth the effort.

Every person is different, of course. If you think you will have trouble keeping up with the reading, I could see why summer prep is required to merely keep your head above water. But for most people, I doubt that learning the actual rules will do much.

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LawProfessor123

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Re: LawProf, can't sleep, taking Q's

Post by LawProfessor123 » Tue Jul 13, 2010 5:03 am

Day2Daze wrote:Hi, I just posted this question somewhere else but havent got a reply yet so thought Id try here :)

For assessed pieces of work and exams in law school is your name attached to your work, or does each student have a separate ID/candidate #?? Ive been to schools that have used diff systems, and definitely see the benefits of an anonymous grading situation so I was wondering if that was adopted in LS. Or does it differ from school to school?

thanks!
Most law schools, if not all law schools, use blind grading and assign an Exam ID #.

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Day2Daze

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Re: LawProf, can't sleep, taking Q's

Post by Day2Daze » Tue Jul 13, 2010 5:13 am

Good to know, thanks :) Another random question, do you care what your students wear? Ive heard some profs get pretty anal about wearing hats inside etc? lol

LawProfessor123

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Re: LawProf, can't sleep, taking Q's

Post by LawProfessor123 » Tue Jul 13, 2010 5:32 am

Day2Daze wrote:Good to know, thanks :) Another random question, do you care what your students wear? Ive heard some profs get pretty anal about wearing hats inside etc? lol
Couldn't care less.

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MURPH

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Re: LawProf, can't sleep, taking Q's

Post by MURPH » Tue Jul 13, 2010 5:39 am

So to follow up from last time. I should try to transfer out of my T15- 20 school and into a better one. What do you recommend that I do to get good LORs from my 1L profs so I can transfer? ...Assuming I get excellent grades, of course.

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TheTopBloke

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Re: LawProf, can't sleep, taking Q's

Post by TheTopBloke » Tue Jul 13, 2010 7:42 am

Apparently they want monkeys.

LawProfessor123

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Re: LawProf, can't sleep, taking Q's

Post by LawProfessor123 » Wed Jul 14, 2010 3:19 pm

MURPH wrote:So to follow up from last time. I should try to transfer out of my T15- 20 school and into a better one. What do you recommend that I do to get good LORs from my 1L profs so I can transfer? ...Assuming I get excellent grades, of course.
It's tough to get recs from 1L profs,, since most 1L sections are very big and you are graded on exams (not on papers). Schools understand this, so really your focus should be on getting excellent grades.

Also, unless I'm mistaken, you haven't actually started your 1L year. Give your school a chance and stay focused on it -- there's probably some chance that people who walk in to a school expecting to leave do a little worse than otherwise.

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yinz

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Re: LawProf, can't sleep, taking Q's

Post by yinz » Wed Jul 14, 2010 3:34 pm

LawProfessor123 wrote:your focus should be on getting excellent grades.
You touched on this above, but can you talk a little more about exams. Aside from "assuming the issue away", what are some other common mistakes? Delving too deeply into the question or not enough? For those not-quite-"A" exams to which you assign a "B", what are the difference makers between the two? Whim, time management, subtance, an airball on a minor issue, all of the above or none of the above? How much of your grade assignments hinge on style and structure, if any at all?

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Re: LawProf, can't sleep, taking Q's

Post by 270910 » Wed Jul 14, 2010 3:57 pm

yinz wrote:
LawProfessor123 wrote:your focus should be on getting excellent grades.
You touched on this above, but can you talk a little more about exams. Aside from "assuming the issue away", what are some other common mistakes? Delving too deeply into the question or not enough? For those not-quite-"A" exams to which you assign a "B", what are the difference makers between the two? Whim, time management, subtance, an airball on a minor issue, all of the above or none of the above? How much of your grade assignments hinge on style and structure, if any at all?
Not to step on the law professor's toes, but as a 1L who has obsessed over things like this extensively, the most responsive answer here is also the curt one: Not quite A exams got fewer points than A exams. Grading isn't subjective, and each point tends to correspond to a proper legal argument or sub-part thereof. no professor I had adjusted grades for style or structure.

I watched as several students asked these very questions to two profs my 1L year, and the profs hated it because you just can't pin it down. They either have grading rubrics to use or grading heuristics to apply. People would get antsy - "Should we touch on more issues lightly or go deeper into the hard issues?" - "At what point should we stop talking about an issue?" - etc. It's just an impossible question to answer outside of "get points." I think there's a guide somewhere on TLS to that effect which comports with my experiences.

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LawProfessor123

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Re: LawProf, can't sleep, taking Q's

Post by LawProfessor123 » Thu Jul 15, 2010 12:05 am

yinz wrote:
LawProfessor123 wrote:your focus should be on getting excellent grades.
You touched on this above, but can you talk a little more about exams. Aside from "assuming the issue away", what are some other common mistakes? Delving too deeply into the question or not enough? For those not-quite-"A" exams to which you assign a "B", what are the difference makers between the two? Whim, time management, subtance, an airball on a minor issue, all of the above or none of the above? How much of your grade assignments hinge on style and structure, if any at all?
It really is impossible to answer this question outside of the context of a specific exam and a specific exam question. Differences between a solid A and a solid B are usually clear, in terms of missed issues and erroneous analysis. B+ and A- and similar differences are obviously harder to describe and may ultimately turn on subjective factors.

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Re: LawProf, can't sleep, taking Q's

Post by LawProfessor123 » Thu Jul 15, 2010 12:07 am

disco_barred wrote:
yinz wrote:
LawProfessor123 wrote:your focus should be on getting excellent grades.
You touched on this above, but can you talk a little more about exams. Aside from "assuming the issue away", what are some other common mistakes? Delving too deeply into the question or not enough? For those not-quite-"A" exams to which you assign a "B", what are the difference makers between the two? Whim, time management, subtance, an airball on a minor issue, all of the above or none of the above? How much of your grade assignments hinge on style and structure, if any at all?
Not to step on the law professor's toes, but as a 1L who has obsessed over things like this extensively, the most responsive answer here is also the curt one: Not quite A exams got fewer points than A exams. Grading isn't subjective, and each point tends to correspond to a proper legal argument or sub-part thereof. no professor I had adjusted grades for style or structure.

I watched as several students asked these very questions to two profs my 1L year, and the profs hated it because you just can't pin it down. They either have grading rubrics to use or grading heuristics to apply. People would get antsy - "Should we touch on more issues lightly or go deeper into the hard issues?" - "At what point should we stop talking about an issue?" - etc. It's just an impossible question to answer outside of "get points." I think there's a guide somewhere on TLS to that effect which comports with my experiences.
I like your answer, although I do think there is some room for subjectivity. But generally most points follow from a grading rubric. It gets fuzzier when two people answer a question incorrectly, and one person's wrong answer is different from the other's. In these circumstances it's difficult to come up with the "right" amount of points.

But A or A+ exams rarely rely on subjective factors -- they are just very, very good exams that hit most or all issues.

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robin600

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Re: LawProf, can't sleep, taking Q's

Post by robin600 » Thu Jul 15, 2010 12:24 am

How valuable do you believe case briefing to be? Would you suggest other methods?

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Re: LawProf, can't sleep, taking Q's

Post by LawProfessor123 » Thu Jul 15, 2010 12:29 am

robin600 wrote:How valuable do you believe case briefing to be? Would you suggest other methods?
Briefing every single case always struck me as a waste of time, but different people learn differently. I learned best by reading the same information in 2 or 3 different formats (casebook, E&E, and then maybe student-friendly treatise). But others might learn differently.

What is surely an absolute waste of time is to brief cases, going into the facts in painful detail, for the simple fear of being called on in class.

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pocket herc

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Re: LawProf, can't sleep, taking Q's

Post by pocket herc » Thu Jul 15, 2010 12:35 am

In your experience, are professors concerned about the terrible market their students are entering?

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Re: LawProf, can't sleep, taking Q's

Post by LawProfessor123 » Thu Jul 15, 2010 3:07 am

pocket herc wrote:In your experience, are professors concerned about the terrible market their students are entering?
A few are, but to most it's not a serious concern. The sad economic state of their respective law school's finances is far more pressing. And a good number of profs never practiced law a day in their life, so are fairly detached from job market considerations in any event.

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Kohinoor

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Re: LawProf, can't sleep, taking Q's

Post by Kohinoor » Thu Jul 15, 2010 3:23 am

Do you plan to go on the lecturing circuit or to some other branch of academia eventually? Have you ever known a professor that just ballparked the points he gave exams?

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Re: LawProf, can't sleep, taking Q's

Post by LawProfessor123 » Thu Jul 15, 2010 4:11 am

Kohinoor wrote:Do you plan to go on the lecturing circuit or to some other branch of academia eventually? Have you ever known a professor that just ballparked the points he gave exams?
I'm not sure what the lecturing circuit is.

Surely there are *some* professors who don't take their grading obligations seriously, but I do think that most schools try to keep these profs out of 1L courses.

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chicoalto0649

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Re: LawProf, can't sleep, taking Q's

Post by chicoalto0649 » Thu Jul 15, 2010 4:31 am

Any tips on learning black letter law?

I think a lot of people are (rightly) concerned with writing an A exam. However, knowing the BLL stone cold I presume is a pre-req to achieving that high grade. Is it simply a matter of rote memorization or is it more nuanced?

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Re: LawProf, can't sleep, taking Q's

Post by LawProfessor123 » Thu Jul 15, 2010 5:13 am

chicoalto0649 wrote:Any tips on learning black letter law?

I think a lot of people are (rightly) concerned with writing an A exam. However, knowing the BLL stone cold I presume is a pre-req to achieving that high grade. Is it simply a matter of rote memorization or is it more nuanced?
Honestly, these types of questions are better directed towards a 3L whom you respect. It's been a while since I've tried to memorize anything.

I'm sure there are some exams on which you can do well with rote memorization, but on other exams, that's impossible. A professor can easily write bizarre facts on which it's impossible to know which black letter law applies.

My impression from reading questions on this thread is that students seem to believe that there is some code that professors follow in drafting and grading exams. In reality, it's far more individualized than that.

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