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3L heading into my last semester.

Background: I go to a lower T1 school in a major city, on law review, etc. Have a biglaw job lined up. Here is my dilemma..

I am a terrible standardized test taker - shit the bed on LSAT (3x) despite consistently good practice scores (hence the school im at). I get VERY nervous for whatever reason whenever I take a standardized test. Despite that, I'm a pretty good law school test taker.

My dilemma: I'm just on the edge of Magna cum laude honors going into my final semester. Should i take classes that I know I'll ace or take Trusts/Estates and Secured Transactions to help me begin bar prep early? Both of these classes (and the prof's teaching them this semester) are significantly more difficult than the other courses I could take.

The reason I'd gun for latin honors is that I'd potentially like to clerk in 2019 or 2020 (which may be a stretch given my school - but a fair number of folks from past few years have done so with similar grades).

Any thoughts are appreciated. I also understand that this sounds ridiculous, but maxing out my grades is likely my only shot at a clerkship, so I want to do what I can to keep that chance alive.

Anonymous User wrote:3L heading into my last semester.

Background: I go to a lower T1 school in a major city, on law review, etc. Have a biglaw job lined up. Here is my dilemma..

I am a terrible standardized test taker - shit the bed on LSAT (3x) despite consistently good practice scores (hence the school im at). I get VERY nervous for whatever reason whenever I take a standardized test. Despite that, I'm a pretty good law school test taker.

My dilemma: I'm just on the edge of Magna cum laude honors going into my final semester. Should i take classes that I know I'll ace or take Trusts/Estates and Secured Transactions to help me begin bar prep early? Both of these classes (and the prof's teaching them this semester) are significantly more difficult than the other courses I could take.

The reason I'd gun for latin honors is that I'd potentially like to clerk in 2019 or 2020 (which may be a stretch given my school - but a fair number of folks from past few years have done so with similar grades).

Any thoughts are appreciated. I also understand that this sounds ridiculous, but maxing out my grades is likely my only shot at a clerkship, so I want to do what I can to keep that chance alive.

Just take what you want. Bar prep will teach you what you need to know

The bar exam is closer to a law-school exam than it is to a SAT/LSAT-type standardized test.

I'd gun for latin honors.

rpupkin wrote:The bar exam is closer to a law-school exam than it is to a SAT/LSAT-type standardized test.

I'd gun for latin honors.

Agreed.

I think the "bar class" idea is kind of a flame. The bar requires a very minimal understanding of each subject. I would definitely choose to improve your GPA.

As someone who took almost no fluff classes (despite First Offense repeatedly telling me how stupid it was), 100% take fluff classes for grades. You're not learning anything anyway.

Agreed that bar classes are a flame. I think I took just one outside of 1L required classes (so I essentially went in blind for crim pro/evidence, etc) and even if I had taken them I would've forgotten. Bar prep classes will teach you everything you need to know. I was more concerned with scheduling in 2L and took tough classes so my gpa suffered. In 3L I took ezpz classes and it was so much better. Boost that gpa.

Easy classes it is. Thanks for the responses.

Signing on to "bar classes are a flame." Even if some aren't (some people find taking Evidence helpful to start learning the terminology), definitely don't forego your GPA goals to take Trusts/Estates and Secured Transactions with difficult profs.

Cosigning everyone else. And FWIW, everyone (as in, even profs) told me that trusts and estates was pretty easy to learn for the bar, and I thought that was absolutely true. Secured Transactions, eh, my essay was pretty bad and I can't even recognize anything in the wikipedia discussion as anything I learned, but the bar really does test minimal competence and you'll be fine. The part that's more like LSAT/SAT is the MBE, and you've taken those courses already.

Cosigning with one exception. If you haven't taken Evidence, I think it's helpful. Depending on your state, it can be on both parts, so you could get hit with it twice. I think that some of the nuances are easier to learn over the course of a semester than during bar prep. As to T&E/Secured Transactions, though, meh. You'll learn the very basics during prep.

Yeah I agree, evidence was actually pretty helpful for the bar because I got it in both the MBE and my state essays.

OP Here. Thanks for the replies. I'm going to take the easier classes and gun for honors. Also re evidence - I already took that, and am glad I did.

thanks, all.