What classes for what field? Forum

[Easy-E]

Someone alluded to this in another thread, but is there some sort of guide to what classes to take for an area of law? I know classes are going to be different everywhere, but I was just hoping to find what I should be targeting for whatever field of law you hope to work in.

[JVK]

There really isn't a guide, but here's my own rough thought process so far. I'm a rising 2L, so take it with a grain of salt, it's just what I'm thinking and what upperclassmen have recommended to me.

If you want to clerk and have a chance at clerking, judges like to see courses like Federal Courts, Evidence, and perhaps Administrative Law. If you want to do criminal work, then Criminal Procedure classes (Columbia divides it into Criminal Investigations and Criminal Adjudication) and so on. Corporations is a good general one to take. My 3L roommate who just graduated recommended taking Evidence as a 3L if you are going to take it, since it'll be closer to the Bar exam and it's apparently a bitch to relearn.

But honestly, it really doesn't matter. This isn't anything you need to plot out well in advance, it should be fairly obvious after evaluating what you want to do and what you think might be interesting.

For what it's worth, I signed up for Corporations, Federal Income Tax, and two seminars on financial regulation and negotiations for this coming fall as a rising 2L. I wanted to take Corporations since it's a prereq for some other transactional-type classes down the road, and Tax 'cause the professor's great and I want to test it out to see if I find it interesting. Spring semester, I'm hoping to take Admin if I decide to go the litigation route after OCI, and Antitrust. There're a couple great corporate seminars then, and if I don't take Admin I'll probably take Copyright. I can always swap out a seminar or two for an externship spring semester.

It's also worth considering whether or not you plan to write a Note or do a clinic.

Haha probably TMI but that's what I've thought through as of now. Good luck!

[Easy-E]

There really isn't a guide, but here's my own rough thought process so far. I'm a rising 2L, so take it with a grain of salt, it's just what I'm thinking and what upperclassmen have recommended to me.

If you want to clerk and have a chance at clerking, judges like to see courses like Federal Courts, Evidence, and perhaps Administrative Law. If you want to do criminal work, then Criminal Procedure classes (Columbia divides it into Criminal Investigations and Criminal Adjudication) and so on. Corporations is a good general one to take. My 3L roommate who just graduated recommended taking Evidence as a 3L if you are going to take it, since it'll be closer to the Bar exam and it's apparently a bitch to relearn.

But honestly, it really doesn't matter. This isn't anything you need to plot out well in advance, it should be fairly obvious after evaluating what you want to do and what you think might be interesting.

For what it's worth, I signed up for Corporations, Federal Income Tax, and two seminars on financial regulation and negotiations for this coming fall as a rising 2L. I wanted to take Corporations since it's a prereq for some other transactional-type classes down the road, and Tax 'cause the professor's great and I want to test it out to see if I find it interesting. Spring semester, I'm hoping to take Admin if I decide to go the litigation route after OCI, and Antitrust. There're a couple great corporate seminars then, and if I don't take Admin I'll probably take Copyright. I can always swap out a seminar or two for an externship spring semester.

Haha probably TMI but that's my rough thought process so far. Good luck!

I appreciate the response. I know I want to take crimpro or evidence in the fall, I'm always keeping criminal law in the back of my head, but I'm also interested in labor and land use. I know a professor I really liked is teaching labor law so I'll take that, but there really isn't anything that appears to fall into land use.

[JVK]

I appreciate the response. I know I want to take crimpro or evidence in the fall, I'm always keeping criminal law in the back of my head, but I'm also interested in labor and land use. I know a professor I really liked is teaching labor law so I'll take that, but there really isn't anything that appears to fall into land use.

You're in a decent place!

I don't know if I'd recommend taking all black letter law classes, and you already have two figured out for the fall with Labor and Criminal Procedure, which is great. See if there are courses with less units you can take, since a journal/student groups/a note/etc. can suck up a lot of time, too. Maybe there's a clinic dealing with certain types of criminal work.

You can figure out if there are any land use or more advanced Property classes in the spring, and by the time you need to sign up for those you should have a better idea in general of what you want to do by virtue of having put in more time/talked to more people and professors.

[Easy-E]

I appreciate the response. I know I want to take crimpro or evidence in the fall, I'm always keeping criminal law in the back of my head, but I'm also interested in labor and land use. I know a professor I really liked is teaching labor law so I'll take that, but there really isn't anything that appears to fall into land use.

You're in a decent place!

I don't know if I'd recommend taking all black letter law classes, and you already have two figured out for the fall with Labor and Criminal Procedure, which is great. See if there are courses with less units you can take, since a journal/student groups/a note/etc. can suck up a lot of time, too. Maybe there's a clinic dealing with certain types of criminal work.

You can figure out if there are any land use or more advanced Property classes in the spring, and by the time you need to sign up for those you should have a better idea in general of what you want to do by virtue of having put in more time/talked to more people and professors.

No law review/moot court for me, and no clinics speak to anything I'm remotely interested in. Looks like their is Property stuff in the spring, though that is tentative.