Course planning Forum

[splittermcsplit88]

How do you guys plan your courses for 2L and 3L? Is there a set group of courses I should take if I was interested in immigration law, public interest, or corporate? Personally, I'm interested in becoming general counsel or a tax lawyer. What should I take? Can I accommodate multiple majors? What tax classes should I take?

[Gorki]

I have never heard of majors in law school, but maybe skoos are doing this.

Take federal income tax and business entity taxation (S Corps, C Corps, LLC/LLP/P tax) if you want tax classes. Take corps/biz entities if you want to learn how they work from a law school point of view.

Otherwise it does not matter what you take. I took evidence, inc and biz tax, land use, real estate, and court room sim classes 2L. Do not feel that it was of any difference to me.

All that matters if that if you want a clinic or other course that has several pre-reqs you should do those 2L otherwise you will just never do em.

[SilvermanBarPrep]

There are some things to consider. Your life will be easier when it comes time to prepare for the bar exam, if you take the subjects that are tested in your state. Law school should definitely not be one long bar-review course, and you should take the courses that interest you, but it's very difficult to attempt to learn a subject (for example UCC Article 9) if you have not been exposed to it during school.

Sean

[A. Nony Mouse]

Eh, I took almost no bar classes and didn't miss them.

My sense is that tax is one of the few areas where taking classes in the area during law school actually helps, but I also don't think there are so many tax classes offered at any one school that you'd have to fill up your schedule with them to be able to show an interest in/aptitude for tax. It does sound like the general business-y/corps types of courses would be relevant. (I can't say much more than that because those are precisely the classes I avoided.) You could also talk to profs who teach things like tax and corporations and see what courses they suggest (bonus points for talking to an adjunct prof who actually practices in the area).

But it doesn't really matter that much, because the JD is such a generalist degree. Work experience probably has a bigger effect than course selection.

[splittermcsplit88]

Thanks guys

[splittermcsplit88]

I'm planning to take business organizations, federal income tax, evidence, and one more course for this semester. Is this too much to handle? These are all major topics, then again, I handled torts/contracts/property/civpro/lrw so why not?

[Tiago Splitter]

That's sounds fairly intense. Are you also doing a real journal or moot court? If so, three legit classes might overwhelming. Whatever happens make sure that fourth class is pure fluff.

[JusticeHarlan]

If you want to do corporate, I'd bite the bullet and take securities regulation at some point. I've never heard anyone say they enjoyed the class (though I guess I didn't hate hate it) but it's super useful for people doing capital markets (all about the public offerings, so Forms S-1 and S-3, plus that practice might also include yearly 10-Ks, quarterly 10-Qs, etc.), M&A (Form S-4s), PE (Form S-4 for buying public stuff, plus Reg D for private to private deals), VC (all reg D), fund formation (ditto), etc. Getting ahead on the whole '33 and '34 Act regulations can be helpful if you want to go down that road.

Also sec reg can help for those who want to do securities lit, so you can get a jump on 10b-5 (though take corporations/business orgs also, so you can learn derivative suits, another form of securities lit).

Conversely, I'm not sure someone interested in general corporate but not specifically practicing tax work would get too much out of an introductory federal income tax class. Firms tend to have dedicated folks who do that so the corporate lawyers won't really need to know any more than when to call up a tax bro to handle that part of a deal. Tax is so specialized and enough people have taken 5 different tax classes (and have LLMs) that you won't get very far having one tax class. Then again, I know people who say it always helps to know the tax so you can be involved in the structuring conversations, but personally that seems like (at least at my school) you'd need to take at least 3 tax classes to get to that level of understanding.

But as you seem at least somewhat interested in doing tax, then definitely take the intro tax class as soon as possible so you can hit those more advanced classes which will almost certainly have prerequisites. You don't want to be unable to take that sweet M&A taxation class because you didn't hit the right progression at the right time. Alternatively, you might find that it's actually incredibly boring, and save yourself the time by stopping after the intro

Of course, there's the caveat that nothing you learn in law school will actually be helpful

As for the bar, I'd say evidence should be almost required as an elective because it's both on the MBE and almost certainly on whichever state bar you'll take. T&E might also be a good one, it's the only class I wished I had taken for the bar, though as mentioned above none are really necessary because a prep course will teach you what you know (*knocks on wood for November results*).