1L Exam Prep and Motivation Thread Forum

[fathergoose]

An UG answered his phone in the library the other day. Not like a quiet whisper "I'm in the library I'll call you back" either. He full on answered and was chatting up with his "Bro" telling him how great and quiet the law school library was.

I blacked out but after I came to and they removed the phone from his esophagus I think both of us felt much better.

[Thirteen]

Haha.

It's amazing what, after hour 9 of studying and 3 cups of coffee, sounds loud. Someone tried to chew a soft brownie in the library and it sounded like a hog feeding from a trough. I could hear every smack and gulp and snort.

+1. one of my biggest pet peeves. along with:

loud breathing
excessively loud headphones
undergrads
POUND-the-keyboard typing
sub-zero library temperatures
people mumbling to themselves

Irritable? what? no. not me.

The bearded 2E that was in crim always types extremely loudly in the library. Whenever he sits near me, I have to move to another floor.

[romothesavior]

Spending entire days at the law school is downright draining. Ugh. I need beers ASAP.

[ogurty]

how are people's outlines longer than all of my notes for a class for an entire semester

We have covered -

Concurrent estates, including joint tenancy
Co-tenant rights & duties
Leasehold estates
Leases versus licenses
Modern leases versus old leases
Fair Housing / Civil Rights / ADA
Quiet Enjoyment
Tenant Rights
Landlord / Tenant Covenants
Habitability / Suitability
Rent
Landlord Rights & Duties, including (but not limited to) rent, security deposits, duty to mitigate or not, injuries, self-help, etc.
Subleases
Assignments
Real estate contracts for sale, mortgages, all the implied and future covenants, equitable conversion, remedies, closing, merger, defects, deeds, etc
Title searches
Recording acts
Notice
Easements
Covenants
Servitudes
Zoning
Eminent Domain






And that is the short list. Just shy of 700 pages in one semester.

This is maybe 75% of what we covered this semester. Add on title insurance, recording indices, nuisance (f'ing nightmare), marital property, community property, adverse possession, intellectual property....plus a variety of units on ethics, the Coase theorem, and the value of liability rules over property rules. Probably a few other things too. All but 2 chapters of the Understanding Property hornbook.

Notice I said "we've covered" it. My professor blows threw material so quickly that it isn't quite right to say he "taught" it.

[gwuorbust]

lol and I thought my property was bad. All I need to know are

estates(40% of my grade!),
RC/ES,
nuisance,
zoning,
easements,
government taking

but then all of those will be on the exam and I will have to go into great detail on each..so I have less guess work on what to study, but have had to learn how to argue each backwards and forwards. hopefully I'll be able to do that on Monday.

[JCougar]

how are people's outlines longer than all of my notes for a class for an entire semester

We have covered -

Concurrent estates, including joint tenancy
Co-tenant rights & duties
Leasehold estates
Leases versus licenses
Modern leases versus old leases
Fair Housing / Civil Rights / ADA
Quiet Enjoyment
Tenant Rights
Landlord / Tenant Covenants
Habitability / Suitability
Rent
Landlord Rights & Duties, including (but not limited to) rent, security deposits, duty to mitigate or not, injuries, self-help, etc.
Subleases
Assignments
Real estate contracts for sale, mortgages, all the implied and future covenants, equitable conversion, remedies, closing, merger, defects, deeds, etc
Title searches
Recording acts
Notice
Easements
Covenants
Servitudes
Zoning
Eminent Domain


And that is the short list. Just shy of 700 pages in one semester.

I've edited your list to cover what we covered in property last semester, aside from adverse possession. We spent over a month on takings, because the instructor was young and just had a baby and didn't care a lick about teaching the class and all she ever said was "and why is that?" and "what do you think about that?" We also spent two weeks reading policy articles from non-law journals and related them to property law. And we did like 3 stupid in-class group exercises/games that were a total waste of time. We also spent two class periods taking "practice exam questions." The first practice exam question was written poorly, and she said we were supposed to bring up zoning when the fact scenario said absolutely nothing about zoning issues. She said that even if the fact don't raise the issue, we should bring up what could hypothetically happen if there were a zoning issue to come up. She admitted that she worded the question poorly, but said "even if the question is written poorly, it ends up working itself out on the exam." Which goes to show you her mentality when the exam itself came along.

And the final exam was some nebulous policy questions that were poorly worded, and constitute the bane of my existence right now. It was by far the worst educational experience of my life. And she awarded points to word barf on the exam, instead of talking about only relevant things. The people who recopied their entire outline onto paper regardless of relevance got good grades, everyone else got screwed. One question involved inventing our own property laws for some stupid native tribe. The people that invented laws that invoked all possible policy articles we read got the most points. The people that invented simple but reasonable laws got screwed, even if they used a good policy analysis to back up their system of laws. You simply got points the more policy catch-phrases you used in the invention of your laws. There was no analysis of whether your laws were functional that entered into the grading. She simply had a tally sheet and the more policies you mentioned, the more points you got. Same thing for the issue spotters. If you mentioned doctrines not raised by the fact pattern, you got points for talking about them. Of course, that threw off the curve for people who had common sense. Lots of people got their worst grade in that class. And when you went to discuss the test with her, she had no idea what was going on. I came in and she was like "you did well, didn't you? You always had great insight in class." She had my test in front of her and I got well below median.

So at least you don't have that.

[Grizz]

HALP I have NO fucking motivation.

[stratocophic]

how are people's outlines longer than all of my notes for a class for an entire semester

We have covered -

Concurrent estates, including joint tenancy
Co-tenant rights & duties
Leasehold estates
Leases versus licenses
Modern leases versus old leases
Fair Housing / Civil Rights / ADA
Quiet Enjoyment
Tenant Rights
Landlord / Tenant Covenants
Habitability / Suitability
Rent
Landlord Rights & Duties, including (but not limited to) rent, security deposits, duty to mitigate or not, injuries, self-help, etc.
Subleases
Assignments
Real estate contracts for sale, mortgages, all the implied and future covenants, equitable conversion, remedies, closing, merger, defects, deeds, etc
Title searches
Recording acts
Notice
Easements
Covenants
Servitudes
Zoning
Eminent Domain


And that is the short list. Just shy of 700 pages in one semester.

I've edited your list to cover what we covered in property last semester, aside from adverse possession. We spent over a month on takings, because the instructor was young and just had a baby and didn't care a lick about teaching the class and all she ever said was "and why is that?" and "what do you think about that?" We also spent two weeks reading policy articles from non-law journals and related them to property law. And we did like 3 stupid in-class group exercises/games that were a total waste of time. We also spent two class periods taking "practice exam questions." The first practice exam question was written poorly, and she said we were supposed to bring up zoning when the fact scenario said absolutely nothing about zoning issues. She said that even if the fact don't raise the issue, we should bring up what could hypothetically happen if there were a zoning issue to come up. She admitted that she worded the question poorly, but said "even if the question is written poorly, it ends up working itself out on the exam." Which goes to show you her mentality when the exam itself came along.

And the final exam was some nebulous policy questions that were poorly worded, and constitute the bane of my existence right now. It was by far the worst educational experience of my life. And she awarded points to word barf on the exam, instead of talking about only relevant things. The people who recopied their entire outline onto paper regardless of relevance got good grades, everyone else got screwed. One question involved inventing our own property laws for some stupid native tribe. The people that invented laws that invoked all possible policy articles we read got the most points. The people that invented simple but reasonable laws got screwed, even if they used a good policy analysis to back up their system of laws. You simply got points the more policy catch-phrases you used in the invention of your laws. There was no analysis of whether your laws were functional that entered into the grading. She simply had a tally sheet and the more policies you mentioned, the more points you got. Same thing for the issue spotters. If you mentioned doctrines not raised by the fact pattern, you got points for talking about them. Of course, that threw off the curve for people who had common sense. Lots of people got their worst grade in that class. And when you went to discuss the test with her, she had no idea what was going on. I came in and she was like "you did well, didn't you? You always had great insight in class." She had my test in front of her and I got well below median.

So at least you don't have that.

Pictured above: me, upon reading question #1 of that godawful 'exam'

[Omerta]

Spent 11 hours today charting conlaw. All I could think about the entire time was my crim exam--epitome of theory based complete arbitrariness. I'm going to flip my shit if I spike a B in that class.

[ogurty]

how are people's outlines longer than all of my notes for a class for an entire semester

We have covered -

Concurrent estates, including joint tenancy
Co-tenant rights & duties
Leasehold estates
Leases versus licenses
Modern leases versus old leases
Fair Housing / Civil Rights / ADA
Quiet Enjoyment
Tenant Rights
Landlord / Tenant Covenants
Habitability / Suitability
Rent
Landlord Rights & Duties, including (but not limited to) rent, security deposits, duty to mitigate or not, injuries, self-help, etc.
Subleases
Assignments
Real estate contracts for sale, mortgages, all the implied and future covenants, equitable conversion, remedies, closing, merger, defects, deeds, etc
Title searches
Recording acts
Notice
Easements
Covenants
Servitudes
Zoning
Eminent Domain






And that is the short list. Just shy of 700 pages in one semester.

This is maybe 75% of what we covered this semester. Add on title insurance, recording indices, nuisance (f'ing nightmare), marital property, community property, adverse possession, intellectual property....plus a variety of units on ethics, the Coase theorem, and the value of liability rules over property rules. Probably a few other things too. All but 2 chapters of the Understanding Property hornbook.

Notice I said "we've covered" it. My professor blows threw material so quickly that it isn't quite right to say he "taught" it.

I just realized your list doesn't even have estates in land, future interests, and RAP! God you guys had it easy.

[fathergoose]

I just realized your list doesn't even have estates in land, future interests, and RAP! God you guys had it easy.

To be fair we did all of that last semester when it was a two hour class. This list is for the three hours we have this semester. It has not been entirely pleasant.

[snowpeach06]

I know nothing, I am fucked, I hate my life, la la la

This

HALP I have NO fucking motivation.

And This.

Apparently we covered like 40 rules in civ pro. And that's not counting all the PJ/SMJ/Venue crap. I've done sample questions for like, 4 rules - heavily using my outline, which we aren't allowed to have in an exam. Despite my lack of knowledge, I seem to have no problem dropping everything and watching tv. In my dream last night, my friends even decided they were going to go to an amusement park today, and dream me was all ready to go, still knowing I had my first exam on Tuesday.

[keg411]

I just realized your list doesn't even have estates in land, future interests, and RAP! God you guys had it easy.

To be fair we did all of that last semester when it was a two hour class. This list is for the three hours we have this semester. It has not been entirely pleasant.

I took most of yesterday off. My studying was starting to get unproductive and I was starting to freak out. Feeling much better now .

[forty-two]

con law =

[td6624]

HALP I have NO fucking motivation.

everyone is saying this. but of course you have to wonder what percentage people actually mean it. if everyone means it, then.... awesome. we'll all do kinda crappy and the curve will work itself out. but i'm worried there's a good 50% of the class that is probably busting their balls hardcore 12 hours a day and that they're all gonna do really well and then i'm gonna do really badly and get bad grades and never have a job and then my boyfriend will dump me and i'll have to move in with my parents and then probably /self before 28.

and yet that still can't motivate me.

YEAH FINALSSSSSSS

[BarbellDreams]

HALP I have NO fucking motivation.

everyone is saying this. but of course you have to wonder what percentage people actually mean it. if everyone means it, then.... awesome. we'll all do kinda crappy and the curve will work itself out. but i'm worried there's a good 50% of the class that is probably busting their balls hardcore 12 hours a day and that they're all gonna do really well and then i'm gonna do really badly and get bad grades and never have a job and then my boyfriend will dump me and i'll have to move in with my parents and then probably /self before 28.

and yet that still can't motivate me.

YEAH FINALSSSSSSS

Yeah, thats when the gunners come out. EVERYONE in my section says stuff about not knowing anything, not being ready, cant study cause no motivation, but you know at least a quarter of them are saying this while busting their ass 15 hours a day.

[SmittenMitten]

HALP I have NO fucking motivation.

Amen.

[YourCaptain]

You know it's Finals period when you study another subject (civpro) 'to take a break from' another subject after unsuccessfully spending two hours trying to untangle it.

[BarbellDreams]

You know it's Finals period when you study another subject (civpro) 'to take a break from' another subject after unsuccessfully spending two hours trying to untangle it.

Currently taking a break from practice Property problems to do some supplement work with my Civ pro outline

[pleasetryagain]

You know it's Finals period when you study another subject (civpro) 'to take a break from' another subject after unsuccessfully spending two hours trying to untangle it.

I lol'd

[Baylan]

Anyone else feel like they're being trained for work/life balance to suck today?

[BarbellDreams]

Anyone have any link that just gives a lot of FRCP practice problems (Like Proper pleading, proper defense, proper sanctions, heightened pleading standards, discovery, etc.)?

I have the E&E and the Glannon Guide but have gone through most of them and need more practice problems.

[Holly Golightly]

conlawconlawconlaw ALL DAY LONG, baby

[IthacaIsWet]

Professor Paula Franzese, who does the BarBri 1L lecture for Property, is terrible.
She keeps taking these long pauses in the middle of half of her sentences and it's really damn distracting.

She also spends literally 4-5 minutes, out of 6 hours, talking about adverse possession.

[snowpeach06]

For removal, it says you can file to remove within 30 days. This this mean you only have 29 days and the 30th day doesn't count?