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I have heard some people say law school is bs and you can learn to pass the bar without ever taking the courses during school. Is that true?

In addition, there are certain classes in my target area of law that I really want to take. Icing on the cake is that there is very generous grading in these said courses (over 75% of the class gets an A- or higher). I have reached out to a few partners in this area of law and they say that showing interest through coursework and work experience is the most important thing on your resume.

Thoughts on this?

Good idea or is this a recipe for a catastrophic disaster?

Don't worry about bar classes.

I didn't take a single class in law school because of the bar, and learned most of the stuff for the bar the month of the exam.

If you're good at tests and retaining information, you'll be fine.

I've been hearing this from upperclassmen/new attorneys. Told me that they do not remember anything from 1L year and had to relearn it anyway for the bar. That's what I figured. Thanks guys!

Definitely take Evidence. It is one of the few truly practical law classes. Also, it's kinda fun.

BlueLotus wrote:Definitely take Evidence. It is one of the few truly practical law classes. Also, it's kinda fun.

You can learn evidence in like 4 hours.

The only class I think every law student should take (and really should be a 1L class) is Evidence. It was also my favorite class in law school.

Bar classes in generally are totally unnecessary though. At the time, I wished I had taken W&T, but it clearly wasn't necessary (I passed).

What is W&T?

chargers wrote:What is W&T?

Wills and Trusts

BlueLotus wrote:

chargers wrote:What is W&T?

Wills and Trusts

Ah, gotcha. We only have a Trusts & Estates class, but I'm guessing that's the same thing.

I took Evidence after 1L, but other than that (and professional responsibility), I took no bar courses. My grades were very happy for it.

Different folks learn in different ways. Some need to take bar related courses to feel confident, others easily learn/memorize the necessary material from bar prep courses. Really depends upon the individual & his/her learning style. Nevertheless (sadly), due to the outrageous cost of law school in the current market, the only safe advice to offer is to focus on bar related courses and to encourage all law students to take a bar review course (something that I never did).

The only bar courses I took were Evidence and some additional con law stuff. (My school required Evidence.) I'll admit that the subjects I'd taken courses in were easier to learn for the bar, but I'd still rather suffer through 6 weeks (or whatever) of bar study than a whole semester of courses I had no interest in.

taking bar classes won't really make much of a difference