what r the top 3 substantively difficult upper-level courses Forum

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lsat_fear

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what r the top 3 substantively difficult upper-level courses

Post by lsat_fear » Tue Feb 23, 2010 6:29 pm

i'm guessing

Federal Courts
Secured Transactions
Federal Income Tax

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TTT-LS

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Re: what r the top 3 substantively difficult upper-level courses

Post by TTT-LS » Tue Feb 23, 2010 7:00 pm

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Snooker

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Re: what r the top 3 substantively difficult upper-level courses

Post by Snooker » Tue Feb 23, 2010 8:24 pm

I remember you recommending taking courses in a certain order so as to avoid the gunners and land good grades more easily. What's your opinion on that issue?

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TTT-LS

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Re: what r the top 3 substantively difficult upper-level courses

Post by TTT-LS » Tue Feb 23, 2010 8:55 pm

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nealric

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Re: what r the top 3 substantively difficult upper-level courses

Post by nealric » Wed Feb 24, 2010 12:08 am

Fed Cts.
Corporate Tax (Tax I isn't that difficult)
Admin

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Ipsa Dixit

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Re: what r the top 3 substantively difficult upper-level courses

Post by Ipsa Dixit » Wed Feb 24, 2010 2:24 pm

Business Associations

On another note, my school canceled Fed Courts this semester because not enough students enrolled.

ScaredWorkedBored

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Re: what r the top 3 substantively difficult upper-level courses

Post by ScaredWorkedBored » Wed Feb 24, 2010 2:40 pm

Substantively:

Tax
Bankruptcy
Admin.


All three generally have their top grades determined by "not quite as horrible" performance on the exam. My raw score failed our tax exam and I tied for highest grade in the class.

There are other classes that, depending on the curve, should be relatively easy but become soul-killing brutality because of the people who take it. That's where Federal Courts, while not really "easy" substantively, gets its reputation from. Advanced business transactions courses can also be in this catagory. Not so much because the stuff is that "hard" - it's time consuming but not really difficult if you've been paying attention your first two years - but because there is no one in the class who isn't a high Vault gunner.

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nealric

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Re: what r the top 3 substantively difficult upper-level courses

Post by nealric » Wed Feb 24, 2010 3:29 pm

All three generally have their top grades determined by "not quite as horrible" performance on the exam. My raw score failed our tax exam and I tied for highest grade in the class.
I suppose it depends on the prof, but in a lot of Tax I classes here missing 4/20 of questions will put you in B- land. Tax I is a really broad overview, so I suppose it depends on how much breadth and depth the prof wants to include.

This isn't a common law school class (it's technically an LLM class), but in my U.S. Tax of International Transactions class, the model answer had several questions wrong, and one of the essays was way out in left field. I panicked on the exam and changed 1/2 my answers in the last 10 minutes, and still got a B+.

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TTT-LS

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Re: what r the top 3 substantively difficult upper-level courses

Post by TTT-LS » Wed Feb 24, 2010 4:19 pm

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fortissimo

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Re: what r the top 3 substantively difficult upper-level courses

Post by fortissimo » Wed Feb 24, 2010 10:44 pm

I've heard Corporate Tax (Tax II) and Fed Courts are tough. My friend thinks Corporate Tax is much, much harder than Tax I (Individual). This person is also taking International Tax and says it is also hard, but his International Tax prof says that Partnership Tax is the hardest class in law school.

Supposedly Jurisdiction kind of blows too, but maybe not one of the hardest.

WellNow

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Re: what r the top 3 substantively difficult upper-level courses

Post by WellNow » Wed Feb 24, 2010 10:56 pm

I have heard a lot of professors say that conflict of laws is one of the most difficult courses around.

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steve_nash

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Re: what r the top 3 substantively difficult upper-level courses

Post by steve_nash » Wed Feb 24, 2010 11:48 pm

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vanwinkle

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Re: what r the top 3 substantively difficult upper-level courses

Post by vanwinkle » Wed Feb 24, 2010 11:51 pm

Given your subject line, I'm going to consider "Remedial English" to be substantively difficult. With the bar set that low, just about any upper-level law course is going to be extremely hard for you. HTH.

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Ignatius J. Reilly

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Re: what r the top 3 substantively difficult upper-level courses

Post by Ignatius J. Reilly » Thu Feb 25, 2010 12:12 am

I'm probably gonna get laughed at here, but for me it was Evidence. Hearsay can be a very complicated issue.

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Grad_Student

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Re: what r the top 3 substantively difficult upper-level courses

Post by Grad_Student » Thu Feb 25, 2010 12:51 am

Evidence
Payment Systems

thats it.

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Re: what r the top 3 substantively difficult upper-level courses

Post by BobSacamano » Thu Feb 25, 2010 8:32 am

What exactly makes Fed Courts so difficult? One of my professors, when I was asking him what courses to take next year, even warned me that it's really hard.

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Re: what r the top 3 substantively difficult upper-level courses

Post by 270910 » Thu Feb 25, 2010 8:39 am

BobSacamano wrote:What exactly makes Fed Courts so difficult? One of my professors, when I was asking him what courses to take next year, even warned me that it's really hard.
Subject matter aside (and I've heard it's no walk in the park) your big problem is potential clerkship applicants. It seems to be somewhere between 'required' and 'strongly encouraged', so not only do you have a higher concentration of people with high GPAs in the class, but they're all going to be pulling out the stops to try and get an A.

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vanwinkle

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Re: what r the top 3 substantively difficult upper-level courses

Post by vanwinkle » Thu Feb 25, 2010 12:55 pm

disco_barred wrote:
BobSacamano wrote:What exactly makes Fed Courts so difficult? One of my professors, when I was asking him what courses to take next year, even warned me that it's really hard.
Subject matter aside (and I've heard it's no walk in the park) your big problem is potential clerkship applicants. It seems to be somewhere between 'required' and 'strongly encouraged', so not only do you have a higher concentration of people with high GPAs in the class, but they're all going to be pulling out the stops to try and get an A.
Yeah, this. It's bad enough in a general T14 law school class, because most people there have 170+ LSATs and were capable in UG. However, out of all of those people, if you take the ones who manage to all get the most A's and have the biggest shot at clerkships, and put them in a room together... They're still being graded on a curve, and it's a curve against a class full of people that all know how to beat the curve in other classes.

You're screwed, basically.

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lsat_fear

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Re: what r the top 3 substantively difficult upper-level courses

Post by lsat_fear » Thu Feb 25, 2010 6:05 pm

vanwinkle wrote:Given your subject line, I'm going to consider "Remedial English" to be substantively difficult. With the bar set that low, just about any upper-level law course is going to be extremely hard for you. HTH.
:roll:

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Re: what r the top 3 substantively difficult upper-level courses

Post by username1 » Thu Feb 25, 2010 9:47 pm

vanwinkle wrote:
disco_barred wrote:
BobSacamano wrote:What exactly makes Fed Courts so difficult? One of my professors, when I was asking him what courses to take next year, even warned me that it's really hard.
Subject matter aside (and I've heard it's no walk in the park) your big problem is potential clerkship applicants. It seems to be somewhere between 'required' and 'strongly encouraged', so not only do you have a higher concentration of people with high GPAs in the class, but they're all going to be pulling out the stops to try and get an A.
Yeah, this. It's bad enough in a general T14 law school class, because most people there have 170+ LSATs and were capable in UG. However, out of all of those people, if you take the ones who manage to all get the most A's and have the biggest shot at clerkships, and put them in a room together... They're still being graded on a curve, and it's a curve against a class full of people that all know how to beat the curve in other classes.

You're screwed, basically.
How do they do this exactly??

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Re: what r the top 3 substantively difficult upper-level courses

Post by 270910 » Thu Feb 25, 2010 10:04 pm

username1 wrote:How do they do this exactly??
Arcane rituals, fish oil supplements, bullet-time?

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Grad_Student

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Re: what r the top 3 substantively difficult upper-level courses

Post by Grad_Student » Fri Feb 26, 2010 1:14 am

lol You know you go to a TTT when your school doesn't offer Fed. Courts.

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