3L Spring Classes Forum

[yips]

At a family holiday thing -- super bored, so I'm picking classes instead!

Relevant info:
-3L
-All the classes below have exams (no papers for me)
-No particular background in any of these
-I'd like to have the option of a clerkship in the future, but I'm not doing one right after graduation -- fellowship instead
-Want to maximize fun time, but I also would like to learn something (assume that in any of these classes, I will actually learn something)
-I can take two of these classes max (practical learning class is also happening)

If you could give reasons, that would be great AND would entertain me this holiday season!

[apollo2015]

I took a version of Corporations this semester, and loved it. The variant I took included a lot on partnerships, which I found particularly useful to learn.

I took Tax last Spring. I found Tax to be a boring waste of time. Most of Federal Income Tax law you can learn on your own in a much more pleasant manner just by doing your own tax return.

[eerie_erie]

Ditto, corporations can be fun, and yeah partnership law was interesting to learn about.

[rad lulz]

C'mon you know the answer

Whatever has the best curve

[nebula666]

Corporations is a good class and will be helpful no matter what type of law you practice.

Tax is awful. Don't do it.

Fed courts is probably the most notorious gunner class there is.

I'd go with Corps and whichever interests you / has the better curve between Education and Immigration.

[3|ink]

Tax depends on the professor. If you have a good professor, you might enjoy it.

Federal Courts is probably your best bet. I took it because I was told it looks good on your transcript. And it's really not all that hard. There's just a lot to take in. I'll ditto the gunner comments though. There were always 10-11 turds who had read all of the material before class.

(Was one of the turds)

[alicrimson]

IMO, the top three would be fed courts, corps, and tax. If you want to clerk, I've heard fed courts is a must. That being said, it is known as one of the super gunner courses for that same reason.

I suggest corps and tax, because I loved them. I took them both during one semester of 2L. I think tax is the best of the two, because it's good to have a base understanding of how to read the code. Tax runs everything. This can be useful.

If, after your clerkship, you think you're going into something generic like business litigation, go with corps. Even though it isn't directly related, some of the concepts bleed over and can be helpful when doing research or coming up with arguments.

[BarbellDreams]

This is pretty easy. Fed Courts is a nightmare and is one of the hardest classes in LS but if you wanna clerk you kinda have to take it so decide between if having a "easy" class or clerking is most important to you.

If Fed Courts is 1 and you just need 1 more then just check the curve for each other class. Tax is likely gonna be out completely as that usually requires a ton of work. If you know anything about stocks Corporations is going to be a joke for you so I'd just take that. I invested in equities for about 3 years prior to taking our basic Biz Orgs class and I felt like I could have taught that class from day 1.

[mi-chan17]

Just to be contrary and disagree with some of the advice thus far - I'm a federal clerk who never took fed courts. Only one judge who interviewed me even asked about it, and even then he said it wasn't make or break for him. So I wouldn't put myself through fed courts second semester 3L just to hedge your clerkship bets.

I'd just take whatever had the easiest curve.

[jarofsoup]

I could not imagine going to law school and not taking Corp. Its so fundamental. Some would say the same thing about tax, but I am avoiding that class at all costs.

The danger of taking a class like immigration law and education law would be the lack of supplementals/old outlines. If you are like me it is nice to have some sort of fall back if you don't get it.

[A. Nony Mouse]

I didn't take Fed Courts, Corps, or Tax.

If your school has offered education/immigration law regularly, there should be plenty of outlines - at least, at my school they were both popular and there were lots of old outlines. I took both and liked them both a lot, and also thought I learned relatively useful stuff (but based on my career plans/interests - don't know what yours are). Mostly, though,the profs were great, so I would choose based on the profs/curves at your school. (Or schedule.)

[2014]

If you aren't going to take multiple tax classes I wouldn't take any. Income tax seems like it would be the least relevant for practice and it tends to be at least a soft pre-req for corporate or partnership tax. I'd do corps and whatever else.