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which do you think would be better to take as a 1L elective

con law
pros: interested in subject, fulfills program requirement
cons: harder? attracts gunners?

corporations
pros: seems useful to learn about? easier/less gunnerish?
cons: not as interested in subject

I hated con law (and like American history, so going in I assumed I would like it because there is history and stuff but no)

Haven't taken corporations yet

HTH

Are you going to take both eventually do you think? Just trying to figure out which is easier as a 1L? Con law was a butt ton of reading but YMMV I guess

If you want biglaw, you pretty much have to take corporations, and no one will care if you know con law. (I'm kind of horrified at the idea that con law's not required, but I never took corporations, which probably horrifies other people.)

I also think con law is one of those classes where the prof is REALLY important, more so than other classes. My con law prof was amazing, so I loved the class. A bad prof in con law would suck way more than in a lot of classes.

I'm sure that I'll take both eventually, so I looked at professor reviews to help make the decision. Averaging over the past few years of teaching the course in question, and weighting student feedback to favor professor communication (30%), general professor effectiveness (35%), general course effectiveness (20%), workload (10%), and course organization (5%), I came up with the rankings:

4.86 Stephen Choi - Corporations
4.72 Daryl Levinson - ConLaw
4.62 Trevor W Morrison - ConLaw
4.31 Katrina M Wyman - Property
3.93 Frank K Upham - Property
3.43 José Enrique Alvarez - Intl Law

Hope that helps somewhat.

@zuck yeah, i'm going to take both at some point i think
i could also do property, which i hear is difficult
or international law or tax, both of which i have no interest in

my other courses are torts and administrative law
are those reading heavy? if so, and con law is too, i'll prob give myself a break and take corps

@nony i do want biglaw
i've heard some say it doesn't matter for oci, but otoh i was a performing arts ug and want to demonstrate that i'm business-minded

@checks
tyty
have you figured out your bidding strategy

If you want biglaw shouldn't you be interested in taking corporations?

I'd much rather take corporations or even tax than the doctrinals I have now.

Kinda nuts that both con law AND property are both not required IMO

I'd probably roll with corporations here just based on what you've said

Torts shouldn't be reading intensive (it was probably my lightest class 1L year but YMMV). Property and con law were the most reading

Don't know much about admin other than it having a gunner class rep

scottidsntknow wrote:If you want biglaw shouldn't you be interested in taking corporations?

I'd much rather take corporations or even tax than the doctrinals I have now.

Hey 1L calm down your balls. Especially lol at tax being better than your doctrinal classes.

Take whatever you want. It won't make a difference. Con law you can wikipedia for case briefs and I'm pretty sure there are like twelve solid supplements for corps so the reading shouldn't be a concern.

take con law with t-mo and be glad you have the opportunity to do so

I should clarify that I don't think employers care what classes you take, I just think corporations would have to have some more relevant material for biglaw than conlaw does. But that's partly because I know absolutely nothing about corporate anything, so it would have helped me.

sideroxylon wrote:take con law with t-mo and be glad you have the opportunity to do so

I was going to say... the prof quality trumps the gunner aspect imo. Previous grade distributions too.

Brut wrote: @checks
tyty
have you figured out your bidding strategy

I was going to shoot for property, but after seeing the professor reviews I'm setting my sights elsewhere. International law doesn't interest me, so it's down to corp and conlaw. Having no preference between the two, and knowing I'll take both, I'm bidding by my professor feedback rankings.

Checkers did the tax dude have any reviews?

phillywc wrote:Checkers did the tax dude have any reviews?

Oh I forgot about that class. There were no reviews for the "Income Taxation (for 1Ls)" class taught by Mitchell Kane, although he does have reviews for an "Income Taxation" class. I wasn't sure if the "(for 1Ls)" made it a different course, so I left it out of my research.

sideroxylon wrote:take con law with t-mo and be glad you have the opportunity to do so

This. Morrison is great.

Also, corporations has a pretty huge amount of reading. ConLaw has the most Wikipediability of all classes because the cases are so famous so you really don't have to read that much.

If all of these classes have upperclassmen mixed in you should take the one with the most upperclassmen because that's where the competition will be reduced.

Dude, you have to take corporations if you want to do corporate. It's a prereq for a lot of classes 2L year, and Choi is awesome. And I've heard the 2L Corps professors are hit or miss. Also, you can probably take Morrison or Yoshino down the road or Richards for the lolz

ETA: at Tiago's point, NYU conlaw classes tend to be extremely reading intensive, and it's pretty well known that Choi's explanations in class make reading pretty redundant so if you choose not to, you're probably fine.

Your grade in corporations is more likely to be in line with the rest of your first year grades. Con Law may require you to know opinions of individual justices from prior cases if the prompt asks you to predict how a case will go. It's not that con law attracts gunners, but that more people are going to be very prepared and very passionate about it. The cases are much more likely to evoke strong reactions, and remind people of why they came to law school. It's not that uncommon for a straight B student to pull an A in con law.

Depending on what your interests are it could be valuable to take corporations now. I only really remember my first year classes, because I tried the whole semester. Even if you could get similar grades blowing a class off till a day or two before the test, a solid knowledge of corporate law is incredibly useful for when you actually work. Crammed material is less likely to stick in your mind for years afterwards. I also disagree that constitutional law is useless. People at prestigious firms tend to be very smart, and take on pro bono matters they find intellectually interesting. It's bad economics to stuff your senior associates on free cases. You may make use out of it quicker than you think...

If you're interested in big law, take a class that you'll likely get an A in.

FKASunny wrote:If you're interested in big law, take a class that you'll likely get an A in.

We strict curve 1L electives at NYU

thx everyone
didn't know corps was a prereq
bid 1000 on choi with morrison as an alt and a 0 bid for levinson
jam that alt bid won't affect my chances of getting choi right

They are both fun as fuck. Sign up for both of them. The registrar will let you sign up for extra hours. I took 20 hours every semester.

I took ConLaw like Spring 2L year or something, took corporate law 1L spring.

I'd say look at who's offering and take it if there's someone you really want to take it with.