If you didn't type 6000+ words on your 3 hours exam you're f Forum

[nealric]

How are job prospects for the tax LLM? And, did you think that accounting courses/experience would have helped, or have helped you?

I got my job from 2L OCI, so I'm not the best person to ask about LLM recruting.

From what I've observed from others, the job prospects are mixed for those who came into the LLM program without any jobs lined up. Those who struggled most were those from lower ranked law schools.

The majority that I've seen end up in accounting firms, tax consulting firms, or government (mostly IRS). Those who got biglaw usually had some sort of "in"- like a foreign student who wanted to transfer from an international biglaw office to a domestic one.

I don't think an accounting background would have helped me much other than for a few specific classes. Tax accounting (obviously) and partnership tax invoke accounting principles. But for the most part, accounting experience is pretty irrelevant.

[OperaSoprano]

OP is obviously trolling, but FWIW I received an A for < 3,800 words in 3 hours (in torts, which conventional wisdom claims to be racehorse-exam subject) and another for < 2,000 words in 2 hours. I believe both profs used checklists. I did similarly well on a take home exam with a ten page limit, for which I wrote about seven pages. I am not a straight A student (I have only taken five graded LS exams and seven classes, so others have more experience than I do.) Moreover, I make a shit ton of mistakes, but I don't think most can be attributed to my typing speed or the number of words I write.

I will say that if you truly know your stuff and can write 10,000 words, amazing things are possible, but I have reason to know this kind of word count is exceptionally rare. Just gathering from all the people I've had discussions with across the law school spectrum, exams of 6,000+ words are rare, and plenty of people get As without typing out War and Peace. DailyGrind's laser beam analogy is TCR.

Slow typers, focus on spotting/analyzing the issues quickly and making what you do say count.

[McBean]

OP is obviously trolling, but FWIW I received an A for < 3,800 words in 3 hours (in torts, which conventional wisdom claims to be racehorse-exam subject) and another for < 2,000 words in 2 hours. I believe both profs used checklists. I did similarly well on a take home exam with a ten page limit, for which I wrote about seven pages. I am not a straight A student (I have only taken five graded LS exams and seven classes, so others have more experience than I do.) Moreover, I make a shit ton of mistakes, but I don't think most can be attributed to my typing speed or the number of words I write.

I will say that if you truly know your stuff and can write 10,000 words, amazing things are possible, but I have reason to know this kind of word count is exceptionally rare. Just gathering from all the people I've had discussions with across the law school spectrum, exams of 6,000+ words are rare, and plenty of people get As without typing out War and Peace. DailyGrind's laser beam analogy is TCR.

Slow typers, focus on spotting/analyzing the issues quickly and making what you do say count.

This is strangely similar to my first year experience. I don't think I was over 3,500 words on any exam. On a take home exam I ended at 8 pages of the 10 page limit. I ended up at 3.66. Not stellar, but good enough for OCI in my case.

I sometimes wonder if the high word count takers give themselves enough time to even think about what they are writing.

[dood]

...

[ResolutePear]

How are job prospects for the tax LLM? And, did you think that accounting courses/experience would have helped, or have helped you?

I got my job from 2L OCI, so I'm not the best person to ask about LLM recruting.

From what I've observed from others, the job prospects are mixed for those who came into the LLM program without any jobs lined up. Those who struggled most were those from lower ranked law schools.

The majority that I've seen end up in accounting firms, tax consulting firms, or government (mostly IRS). Those who got biglaw usually had some sort of "in"- like a foreign student who wanted to transfer from an international biglaw office to a domestic one.

I don't think an accounting background would have helped me much other than for a few specific classes. Tax accounting (obviously) and partnership tax invoke accounting principles. But for the most part, accounting experience is pretty irrelevant.

Regardless, the info was appreciated.

[dood]

...

[JCougar]

You don't need 8,000 words to spot every issue on an issue spotter and apply the facts to the rule if you are succinct. And your conclusion and policy arguments can be summed up in one sentence.

If you end up typing that many words, the professor will be unimpressed because it's obvious you're just spitting everything out there that comes to your mind.

[Columbia Law]

You don't need 8,000 words to spot every issue on an issue spotter and apply the facts to the rule if you are succinct. And your conclusion and policy arguments can be summed up in one sentence.

If you end up typing that many words, the professor will be unimpressed because it's obvious you're just spitting everything out there that comes to your mind.

That's why it's an issue spotter. You technically can split everything. If you can get every issue in 3 hours, you're a genius.

You need to split as much as you can. You want to analyze all the issues then determine which are the best. That's what they are testing in those three hours.

[JCougar]

You don't need 8,000 words to spot every issue on an issue spotter and apply the facts to the rule if you are succinct. And your conclusion and policy arguments can be summed up in one sentence.

If you end up typing that many words, the professor will be unimpressed because it's obvious you're just spitting everything out there that comes to your mind.

That's why it's an issue spotter. You technically can split everything. If you can get every issue in 3 hours, you're a genius.

You need to split as much as you can. You want to analyze all the issues then determine which are the best. That's what they are testing in those three hours.

I said "spit" not "split."

But yes, you could probably split everything -- some issues split 50-50, others split 70-30, some are like 95-5 as far as weight of the evidence goes. For the ones that are 95-5, you're best off spending 1-2 sentences on them at most. Your analysis should be focused on the splits that are closer to 50-50.

I doubt your professor is going to give you tons of points if you write an entire paragraph on the 95-5 issue. You don't get as many points for reaching as you do for relevant analysis.

[BruceWayne]

OP is obviously trolling, but FWIW I received an A for < 3,800 words in 3 hours (in torts, which conventional wisdom claims to be racehorse-exam subject) and another for < 2,000 words in 2 hours. I believe both profs used checklists. I did similarly well on a take home exam with a ten page limit, for which I wrote about seven pages. I am not a straight A student (I have only taken five graded LS exams and seven classes, so others have more experience than I do.) Moreover, I make a shit ton of mistakes, but I don't think most can be attributed to my typing speed or the number of words I write.

I will say that if you truly know your stuff and can write 10,000 words, amazing things are possible, but I have reason to know this kind of word count is exceptionally rare. Just gathering from all the people I've had discussions with across the law school spectrum, exams of 6,000+ words are rare, and plenty of people get As without typing out War and Peace. DailyGrind's laser beam analogy is TCR.

Slow typers, focus on spotting/analyzing the issues quickly and making what you do say count.

This is strangely similar to my first year experience. I don't think I was over 3,500 words on any exam. On a take home exam I ended at 8 pages of the 10 page limit. I ended up at 3.66. Not stellar, but good enough for OCI in my case.

I sometimes wonder if the high word count takers give themselves enough time to even think about what they are writing.

Oh thank God. I didn't hit 3,000 words on either of my first 2 exams! I'm really going to try to get to 4,000 on my Contracts exam tomorrow.

[California Babe]

There is no way for you to actually say you did better than someone who graduated #1 at UCLA. Or that you did better than every single person on a law review.

To your overall point, yes that's true. Judging success based on word count is hilariously inaccurate. Your point is lost in your attempt to artificially claim to have done better than people who, in reality, did just as well as you.

How does one claim affect the other in the way you suggest? They seem independent to me.[/quote]

By claiming to have done better than other people you could be implying your method is better. At this point it's evident that this was not the intended point, so it doesn't matter.

I suppose I won't go too deeply into it because it's off topic and irrelevant to the actual point intended, but it's unbelievably wrong to make the claim that because the student body at one school is in general more competitive/talented/hardworking/whatever the best students at that school necessarily did better than the best students at a lower-quality school. Especially when you're talking about schools that both have pretty high-caliber students.

[quakeroats]

There is no way for you to actually say you did better than someone who graduated #1 at UCLA. Or that you did better than every single person on a law review.

To your overall point, yes that's true. Judging success based on word count is hilariously inaccurate. Your point is lost in your attempt to artificially claim to have done better than people who, in reality, did just as well as you.

How does one claim affect the other in the way you suggest? They seem independent to me.

By claiming to have done better than other people you could be implying your method is better. At this point it's evident that this was not the intended point, so it doesn't matter.

I suppose I won't go too deeply into it because it's off topic and irrelevant to the actual point intended, but it's unbelievably wrong to make the claim that because the student body at one school is in general more competitive/talented/hardworking/whatever the best students at that school necessarily did better than the best students at a lower-quality school. Especially when you're talking about schools that both have pretty high-caliber students.

I'd say it depends on a number of assumptions that haven't been ironed out, but I wouldn't say the point of view is unbelievably wrong--whatever that means. I'd just say we don't have enough data to draw an inference.

[California Babe]

I'd say it depends on a number of assumptions that haven't been ironed out, but I wouldn't say the point of view is unbelievably wrong--whatever that means. I'd just say we don't have enough data to draw an inference.

"Unbelievably wrong" means that it is so wrong it is unbelievable to me that someone could think it was right. Of course we don't have enough data to draw the inference. That is my entire point.

Here's another situation where a claim is unbelievably wrong:

Two basketball teams, Team A and Team B submit general information about the height of their players. The data shows that Team A generally has taller players than Team B, therefore, the tallest player on Team A is taller than the tallest player on Team B.

That italicized claim is unbelievably wrong.

[vamedic03]

I'm going to go with G.T.L. Rev. here and say that there is no need to try and hit a certain word count on an exam. The important thing is quality rather than quantity. FWIW - my 1L exams ranged from 1600-4500 words for my required classes.

[creatinganalt]

(Not being snarky, I am genuinely curious)

Can anyone confirm that this is the case in HYS? Because there is so much policy on our exams and it would seem like professors don't really do straight issue spotters. All of my professors penalize for off topic arguments. And many of our exams are clearly limited to two or three big issues with a few sub points but massive scope for rationale/policy debates. I just don't know where this 8k crazy issue spotter would fit into what I'm being taught.

[beach_terror]

I wrote 6600 on my Civ Pro exam today, and kept it confined to the issues raised squarely in the fact pattern and policy underlying some of it. Hopefully that bodes well. Walked away with mixed emotions on the exam, but after thinking about it, I'm pretty happy with what I put down on my exam.

[seespotrun]

I wrote 6600 on my Civ Pro exam today, and kept it confined to the issues raised squarely in the fact pattern and policy underlying some of it. Hopefully that bodes well. Walked away with mixed emotions on the exam, but after thinking about it, I'm pretty happy with what I put down on my exam.

Hella words, yo.

[beach_terror]

I wrote 6600 on my Civ Pro exam today, and kept it confined to the issues raised squarely in the fact pattern and policy underlying some of it. Hopefully that bodes well. Walked away with mixed emotions on the exam, but after thinking about it, I'm pretty happy with what I put down on my exam.

Hella words, yo.

Yeah, copy/pasting the entire thing a few times really helped my word court.

[seespotrun]

I wrote 6600 on my Civ Pro exam today, and kept it confined to the issues raised squarely in the fact pattern and policy underlying some of it. Hopefully that bodes well. Walked away with mixed emotions on the exam, but after thinking about it, I'm pretty happy with what I put down on my exam.

Hella words, yo.

Yeah, copy/pasting the entire thing a few times really helped my word court.

lol

[JCougar]

I'd be surprised if I wrote over 3000 words on either of my 3-hour exams so far.

One caveat: my first exam made you "read the questions and outline your answers" for the first 45 minutes, so I only had 2:15 of actual writing time; my second exam had a 50-minute multiple choice section. But still, I don't see why its necessary to type 6,000+ words to spot all the significant and even some minor issues, unless you're not being succinct and bullshitting a bit.

For example, I took a practice exam yesterday and hit every issue on a 40-minute issue-spotter (minus two little details). It took me just under 500 words. There was an enormous 90-minute issue spotter on that same test, with about 10 issues. I spotted 7 of them, and missed 3 (two were fairly minor, though). That took me just over 1,300 words. The last question on the test, I got every issue minus two minor counter-arguments...it was a 40-minute question again. It took me 752 words.

I just can't understand how people can type twice as many words and still be talking about stuff that's germane to the issues.

But I guess we'll see how I do.

[beach_terror]

I wrote 6600 on my Civ Pro exam today, and kept it confined to the issues raised squarely in the fact pattern and policy underlying some of it. Hopefully that bodes well. Walked away with mixed emotions on the exam, but after thinking about it, I'm pretty happy with what I put down on my exam.

Hella words, yo.

Yeah, copy/pasting the entire thing a few times really helped my word court.

lol

Nah but for real, I'm a little concerned I nitpicked some facts a bit too far, but when I asked her about it she said as long as you don't veer too far off course she'd rather see all of your thought process than not enough of it. I wrote roughly 6k words for her 8 hour take home from last year that was capped at 2.5k and she said that I was fine. Here's to hoping.

[seespotrun]

Nah but for real, I'm a little concerned I nitpicked some facts a bit too far, but when I asked her about it she said as long as you don't veer too far off course she'd rather see all of your thought process than not enough of it. I wrote roughly 6k words for her 8 hour take home from last year that was capped at 2.5k and she said that I was fine. Here's to hoping.

It sounds like you did well. Keep plugging away, beach.

[ResolutePear]

NOTHING IN THIS THREAD MAKES SENSE!

Stabs a baby seal with a beach ball

[100Miles&Runnin']

Just did 4300 on a 3 hr K exam today...really wish I had made it to 6k. I felt good about it until I stopped typing and looked up and saw I still had 40 min left. Then I asked somebody else about their word count: 8k. I'm guessing he did better than me.

[180orbust]

Just did 4300 on a 3 hr K exam today...really wish I had made it to 6k. I felt good about it until I stopped typing and looked up and saw I still had 40 min left. Then I asked somebody else about their word count: 8k. I'm guessing he did better than me.

1) Don't ask other people about their word count.
2) If you get twice as many points per page as Mr. 8k, then you will do better. This is very possible.
3) Congrats on finishing Contracts.