1L Exam Prep and Motivation Thread Forum

[BarbellDreams]

I hate Torts.

I love torts. Every answer is basically "what would a reasonable person under the circumstances do?"

This. I had a lot of fun with my Torts exam.

[snowpeach06]

The more I work on joinder and supplmental jurisdiction, the more I get confused. WTF?

[BarbellDreams]

Supplemental jurisdiction makes my head spin.

[fathergoose]

Supplemental jurisdiction makes my head spin.

Civ pro is our last final and I don't plan on studying for it until after my second to last. I just don't think it'll matter. I knew nothing going into it last semester, flailed around for three hours, and somehow it was my highest grade. Go figure.

Is supplemental juris really gonna be that hard to cram?

[td6624]

so i thought i understood erie and stuff pretty well. apparently that might not be the case?

whoops. maybe i'm just looking for reasons to stress though. WHO KNOWS ANYMORE, RIGHT

[snowpeach06]

Supplemental jurisdiction makes my head spin.

Civ pro is our last final and I don't plan on studying for it until after my second to last. I just don't think it'll matter. I knew nothing going into it last semester, flailed around for three hours, and somehow it was my highest grade. Go figure.

Is supplemental juris really gonna be that hard to cram?

I've spent more time on it and joinder than anything else, and I still don't get it. But, I think I get tripped up on little things, maybe you'll be ok. But, for me, I mean, it could take me like a week to learn. And even then, I still might not get it. It's odd because I know the rules, but, like, they're so randomly similar and different and then sometimes ruin SMJ, sometimes dont. UGH.

[keg411]

I just read a sample "A" answer for my ConLaw class and it's the worst thing I have ever read (it made no sense and was all over the place in application; it also apparently had a giant rule statement that was 'omitted for brevity'). Thank god I'm talking to my prof in the next few days because otherwise I'm screwed .

[los blancos]

How a decent portion of my day was spent:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/15951/Crim%20Flowcharts.jpg

Shit, thanks for this.

srsly that's pretty cool

[kalvano]

Supplemental jurisdiction makes my head spin.

Civ pro is our last final and I don't plan on studying for it until after my second to last. I just don't think it'll matter. I knew nothing going into it last semester, flailed around for three hours, and somehow it was my highest grade. Go figure.

Is supplemental juris really gonna be that hard to cram?

Find me tomorrow, I have great notes and can explain it in about 5 minutes.

[Holly Golightly]

Pretty excited to earn my discretionary C in conlaw tomorrow.

[BarbellDreams]

Pretty excited to earn my discretionary C in conlaw tomorrow.

Haha, our prof gave D's last year according to the grade distribution charts...

[IthacaIsWet]

Supplemental jurisdiction makes my head spin.

Civ pro is our last final and I don't plan on studying for it until after my second to last. I just don't think it'll matter. I knew nothing going into it last semester, flailed around for three hours, and somehow it was my highest grade. Go figure.

Is supplemental juris really gonna be that hard to cram?

Find me tomorrow, I have great notes and can explain it in about 5 minutes.

If you could explain supplemental jurisdiction in 5 minutes, that would be awesome.

[kalvano]

Supplemental jurisdiction makes my head spin.

Civ pro is our last final and I don't plan on studying for it until after my second to last. I just don't think it'll matter. I knew nothing going into it last semester, flailed around for three hours, and somehow it was my highest grade. Go figure.

Is supplemental juris really gonna be that hard to cram?

Find me tomorrow, I have great notes and can explain it in about 5 minutes.

If you could explain supplemental jurisdiction in 5 minutes, that would be awesome.

You might have a problem finding me tomorrow.

[mths]

Pretty excited to earn my discretionary C in conlaw tomorrow.

I recall bold statements such as this from you last semester.

[Grizz]

If you could explain supplemental jurisdiction in 5 minutes, that would be awesome.

1367(a) giveth, 1367(b) taketh away

Plus something about Allapattah v. Exxon.

[Geist13]

Here is my summary of supplemental jurisdiction:

1367(a) --> Basically, the court may extend supplemental jurisdiction to claims that are part of the same case or controversy as the claim which independently satisfies subject matter jurisdiction requirements. "Case or controversy" is satisfied by the Gibbs "common nucleus of operative facts" test. You want to look for 1) some claim that meets the regular requirements of subject matter jurisdiction 2) any claim that arises under the same case or controversy as that independent claim will get in under supplemental jurisdiction. This section basically codifies Gibbs and overrules Finley.

1367(b) --> This places an important limits on supplemental jurisdiction. The limit is necessary because otherwise parties would be able to use supplemental jurisdiction to get around the complete diversity requirement. For example p. (NY) sues d. (NJ) on some frivolous claim. Having gotten into federal court, p. later joins a NY defendant. To prevent this (and other more complex) behavior, 1367(b) says that if the initial claim has diversity subject matter jurisdiction, additional claims brought by plaintiffs (either original or joined plaintiffs) will not get supplemental jurisdiction if they are joined under certain rules (or made by p.s joined by certain rules) and destroy diversity. Note, that this section only applies to claims brought by parties on the plaintiff's side. This is because the defendant did not choose the forum and therefore could not have been engaging in the type of tactics discussed above.

1367(c) --> this is basically a catchall that says supplemental jurisdiction is a discretionary device and the court can deny to extend it where appropriate.

Re: Allopatah --> There are two aspects to this case. 1) 1367 does not reference what happens when there is diversity jurisdiction, the additional claim is not prohibited, but the additional claim does meet the traditional requirements for amount in controversy. Allopatah states if a claim meets the requirements for supplemental jurisdiction then you don't have to worry about the regular aggregation rules for amount in controversy. This ruling flies in the face of everything we learned about aggregation rules, but there it is. 2) the case highlights how poorly drafted the statute is. Basically, Congress forgot to include claims asserted by plaintiffs who were joined under rule 20. 1367(b) prohibits claims made by plaintiffs joined under rule 19 but they literally just forgot to write the number 20. The court rules that even though it's likely the legislature just fucked up, they will not read rules into the statute. If the legislature wants it fixed it's up to them to do it.

1367 & Joinder rules --> Basically, the way I think about it is these are just separate from supplemental jurisdiction. If a claim does not satisfy the requirements of the joinder rules then you don't have to worry about supplemental jurisdiction because you can't join the claim anyway. If the claim does meet the joinder requirements, the court still must have subject matter jurisdiction to hear that claim. So then check to see if the claim satisfies the traditional subject matter jurisdiction requirements (1331 or 1332). If not, then you see if it can get in under supplemental jurisdiction (1367). If not, then the claim cannot be joined, even though it satisfies the FRCP joinder requirements.

[Holly Golightly]

Pretty excited to earn my discretionary C in conlaw tomorrow.

I recall bold statements such as this from you last semester.

I'm fairly certain I never felt quite this desperate last semester.

[TTH]

I'm thinking of framing my transcript from last semester. I'm pretty sure I'll never have that high of a GPA/class rank again. Holy God, I'm fucked for finals this semester.

[keg411]

I'm thinking of framing my transcript from last semester. I'm pretty sure I'll never have that high of a GPA/class rank again. Holy God, I'm fucked for finals this semester.

+1. I feel like I'm at a casino and my numbers keep coming up... but I'm about to lose it all .

[Helmholtz]

So this year's crim exam was going to be a test that would normally be a four-hour in-class open-book exam, except the teacher was going to give us six hours and make it a take-home because "some students last year feel they didn't have enough time to finish the questions." Since she didn't want this exam to favor people who can think or type quickly, she gave us a fairly strict word limit.

Our class just got an e-mail from her and instead of two big issues spotters, there is going to be one and instead of three short policy questions, there are going to be two. I am going out of my mind. The curve on this exam is going to be the most ridiculous I have ever seen.

[TTH]

So this year's crim exam was going to be a test that would normally be a four-hour in-class open-book exam, except the teacher was going to give us six hours and make it a take-home because "some students last year feel they didn't have enough time to finish the questions." Since she didn't want this exam to favor people who can think or type quickly, she gave us a fairly strict word limit.

Our class just got an e-mail from her and instead of two big issues spotters, there is going to be one and instead of three short policy questions, there are going to be two. I am going out of my mind. The curve on this exam is going to be the most ridiculous I have ever seen.

Yikes. 97 - A, 96.5 - B-

I get as freaked out as much as anyone else about in-class or closed-book finals, but we had an "easy" final in torts last semester and it ended up being my worst class because the curve was so tight.

edit: Torts was second worst. Crim was worst because I didn't learn anything in the class.

[Helmholtz]

So this year's crim exam was going to be a test that would normally be a four-hour in-class open-book exam, except the teacher was going to give us six hours and make it a take-home because "some students last year feel they didn't have enough time to finish the questions." Since she didn't want this exam to favor people who can think or type quickly, she gave us a fairly strict word limit.

Our class just got an e-mail from her and instead of two big issues spotters, there is going to be one and instead of three short policy questions, there are going to be two. I am going out of my mind. The curve on this exam is going to be the most ridiculous I have ever seen.

Yikes. 97 - A, 96.5 - B-

Exactly. And maybe she just assumes we're completely retarded when it comes to knowing how curves work because she always acts like she's dropping the best news in the world when telling us how much easier to write this exam is going to be compared to last year's.

[TTH]

So this year's crim exam was going to be a test that would normally be a four-hour in-class open-book exam, except the teacher was going to give us six hours and make it a take-home because "some students last year feel they didn't have enough time to finish the questions." Since she didn't want this exam to favor people who can think or type quickly, she gave us a fairly strict word limit.

Our class just got an e-mail from her and instead of two big issues spotters, there is going to be one and instead of three short policy questions, there are going to be two. I am going out of my mind. The curve on this exam is going to be the most ridiculous I have ever seen.

Yikes. 97 - A, 96.5 - B-

Exactly. And maybe she just assumes we're completely retarded when it comes to knowing how curves work because she always acts like she's dropping the best news in the world when telling us how much easier to write this exam is going to be compared to last year's.

Make sure every word is gold.

We have a 48-hour take home exam in con law, which last year consisted of four questions, each with a 500-word limit. Given, that I usually crank out 1,500-2,000 words on a one-hour issue spotter, I'm freaking out about the curve in that class, especially since I'm lost in the weeds on the subject matter.

[somewhatwayward]

How a decent portion of my day was spent:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/15951/Crim%20Flowcharts.jpg

this is awesome, but has anyone managed to print it in a readable font?

[Helmholtz]

How a decent portion of my day was spent:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/15951/Crim%20Flowcharts.jpg

this is awesome, but has anyone managed to print it in a readable font?

Not sure if this will be helpful:

--LinkRemoved--