Northwestern 1L/2L/3L/Grads Taking Questions and Challenges Forum

[wabdcash]

Anyone have recommendations on the following 1L Spring Electives or professors:

Constitutional Criminal Procedure (Rountree)
Fourteenth Amendment (Hughes)
Labor Law (Crystal)
Family Law (Yuracko)
Employment Law (Yuracko)
Environmental Law (Barsa)
Estates and Trusts (Schanzenbach)
Legislation (Mulaney)

[wojo98]

I visited the school, but got mixed answers about the impacts of the relatively large number of older students and the urban environment. Are people generally as social as their counterparts at other T14s?

NU skews older, but not THAT much older (average age coming in is what, ~25?). Just means we have fewer, aspy K-JDs and more students in their mid-late 20s/early 30s than most other T14s. There's obviously much self-selection, but on the whole, leads to a well-adjusted class (i.e., we are thankfully not UChi).

But seriously, this is mostly irrelevant: just look at your aggregate cost of attendance + school's firm placement stats + placement into the city(ies) in which you want to practice and go from there. UVA will always be waiting for you if you just want to bro out and re-live college.

[franklyscarlet]

Anyone have recommendations on the following 1L Spring Electives or professors:

Constitutional Criminal Procedure (Rountree)
Fourteenth Amendment (Hughes)
Labor Law (Crystal)
Family Law (Yuracko)
Employment Law (Yuracko)
Environmental Law (Barsa)
Estates and Trusts (Schanzenbach)
Legislation (Mulaney)

Barsa is a magical woodland elf and is lovely to take a class with, if you haven't had him before. He does call on people though. I think 1L is a good time to take his classes because his exams are traditional "let me give you a crazy hypo you couldn't possibly cover in three hours" exams, and 1L is when you're primed to do those.

Some people like Schanzenbach, but he drove me bonkers with how he skips around constantly and seems to lose the thread.

Also, take uncurved stuff.

[wojo98]

Anyone have recommendations on the following 1L Spring Electives or professors:

Constitutional Criminal Procedure (Rountree)
Fourteenth Amendment (Hughes)
Labor Law (Crystal)
Family Law (Yuracko)
Employment Law (Yuracko)
Environmental Law (Barsa)
Estates and Trusts (Schanzenbach)
Legislation (Mulaney)

Also, take uncurved stuff.

This. Would suggest taking a 2 credit seminar for 3 credits if you can (if not eligible in the spring, target for the fall) - for you can 1) knock out the writing requirement, 2) avoid an exam, and 3) likely lock in a strong grade due to the lack of curve and the time spent just cranking through the iterative drafts.

Of your list, have enjoyed Yuracko, Barsa, Mulaney, and Schanzenbach in varying contexts. But lulz at taking Con Crim Pro volitionally as a 1L.

[franklyscarlet]

Anyone have recommendations on the following 1L Spring Electives or professors:

Constitutional Criminal Procedure (Rountree)
Fourteenth Amendment (Hughes)
Labor Law (Crystal)
Family Law (Yuracko)
Employment Law (Yuracko)
Environmental Law (Barsa)
Estates and Trusts (Schanzenbach)
Legislation (Mulaney)

Also, take uncurved stuff.

This. Would suggest taking a 2 credit seminar for 3 credits if you can (if not eligible in the spring, target for the fall) - for you can 1) knock out the writing requirement, 2) avoid an exam, and 3) likely lock in a strong grade due to the lack of curve and the time spent just cranking through the iterative drafts.

This is worth repeating over and over because if y'all are giant nerds like me, you'll be tempted to be all "arblegarble academic integrity, valuing learning/my interests over taking a bird class, nonsensenonsense." It's all well and good, but I fucked over my GPA by doing that. I'm extremely happy with where I ended up, but I went into OCI on much shakier footing than I needed to be because I didn't listen to this advice. Learn from my nerdery and mistakes. By all means take a class you're interested in, but don't be an idiot about it. 2L and 3L are there to take whatever you want.

[FloridaCoastalorbust]

I see that our bid points are for both this term and for spring, but don't understand what that means. Does that mean that the total points we have now (900) will not increase before we bid on first semester 2L year next spring? So if we spend all the bidding points now we won't be able to bid on stuff to take for first semester 2L?

[lemons]

I see that our bid points are for both this term and for spring, but don't understand what that means. Does that mean that the total points we have now (900) will not increase before we bid on first semester 2L year next spring? So if we spend all the bidding points now we won't be able to bid on stuff to take for first semester 2L?

No, as a 1L, you can only bid on classes for spring semester. So basically you have 900 points for next semester, which don't rollover to your 2L year. When you are a 2L, you will get something like 3000 (?) bid points for both fall and spring semesters. As a 1L, you don't have to worry about saving bid points, because they will essentially expire if you don't use them for spring semester bidding. So spend all those bid points if you want! But also, there's really no need to overbid for classes, because that will just inflate the bid price, which sucks for everyone. I'd just take a look at the
bidding history and maybe bid a little above, if you want/have extra points.

[7777777]

I see that our bid points are for both this term and for spring, but don't understand what that means. Does that mean that the total points we have now (900) will not increase before we bid on first semester 2L year next spring? So if we spend all the bidding points now we won't be able to bid on stuff to take for first semester 2L?

But also, there's really no need to overbid for classes, because that will just inflate the bid price, which sucks for everyone. I'd just take a look at the
bidding history and maybe bid a little above, if you want/have extra points.

I would not follow this advice.

[Desert Fox]

[itsme123]

Any thoughts on the best clinic to take? I'm not a big fan of having to do group work in the immigration clinic. Are all clinics group-work focused? Also, which ones have a manageable workload?

[FinalDecision1]

You have one chance to take two uncurved electives to boost your 1L gpa. You should only use 3-4 big points. Unless there is an option for a class that has a 40 person limit. Then you might wanna blow it all on that.

Take the classes with the easy profs uncurved. You'll regret not doing lot later.

.

[FloridaCoastalorbust]

should i start taking my profs' old practice exams before thanksgiving? i wasn't planning on it. at this point i'm finalizing and memorizing outlines, doing E&Es, and trying to frontload my memo. critiques and tips would be great.

[Leonardo DiCaprio]

will your diplomas say Pritzker

[mirroroferised7]

Anybody have experience/thoughts about Community Lawyering (it's called something else this semester, but it's the same class with the same prof.)

[itsme123]

Negotiations: Gandert, Carrel, or Buth?

[lemons]

Negotiations: Gandert, Carrel, or Buth?

GANDERT. He's worth the bid points

[itsme123]

Any thoughts on the best clinic to take? I'm not a big fan of having to do group work in the immigration clinic. Are all clinics group-work focused? Also, which ones have a manageable workload?

Bumping...

[mickey_mouse]

1L here looking for suggestions on easier/ probably uncurved classes. Suggestions? Was thinking:

-Economic Analysis of Law- Friedman
-Enviro Law- Barsa
-Legislation- Mulaney
-Local Gov't- Shoked

Any others?

[crumb cake]

.

[Desert Fox]

[PallasAthena]

.

[rinkrat19]

Any thoughts on the best clinic to take? I'm not a big fan of having to do group work in the immigration clinic. Are all clinics group-work focused? Also, which ones have a manageable workload?

Bumping...

Crim Defense clinic (the non-death penalty one) has a light work load and very little group work. I enjoyed it. You work on a criminal case with the prof and maybe 1 other student. You might get to argue in court for your case, if an appropriate proceeding comes up during the term. I did a fair amount of research work, but on my own and it was 1-2 day research, not huge projects. There's reading but it's mostly pretty light (a news feature article or two per week, plus 2 books over the year, both fast reads).

[mickey_mouse]

Anyone who has the so called grade distribution charts of various professors at Northwestern Law please PM me!
Thanks!

Hell yea, same

[cookiejar1]

should i start taking my profs' old practice exams before thanksgiving? i wasn't planning on it. at this point i'm finalizing and memorizing outlines, doing E&Es, and trying to frontload my memo. critiques and tips would be great.

I'm bored so:

UNDERSTAND THE EXAM. The goal here is to identify strategies that will help on each exam, deconstruct fact patterns, and to guess what the final exam is going to look like. Don't just take each practice exam. After you take all the exams look at them as a whole and identify common themes or patterns. A Kadens exam is different from a Shoked exam. You need to know how they're different and how each professor grades each exam (read the model answers CAREFULLY). Seriously, you gotta know how your professors grade. Adopt the writing style of the best model answers.

ISSUE SPOT BETTER. If you want to get an A/A+, you'll need to identify more issues than almost all of your classmates (note that this does not apply to certain exams that are structured in such a way that require analysis of one or a concrete number of issues (omg halp kadens trigger)). Identifying issues may be tough. Just be a bit creative and think with an open mind. You'll spot the most obvious issues — every B+ and above student will — but you'll also need to catch issues that are purposely written in a way that will make your classmates miss them. They're hidden in there. Practice finding them. It's a fatal mistake, however, to rely on these off the wall arguments if your analysis of the obvious issues are lacking. So you need to make sure that you're fast as fuck.

FAST AS FUCK. Which means you need to really know how to analyze issues without wasting any time. For example, in my attack outline for Property I have a section on the Adverse Possession of Real Property.

It lists out all of the elements (4 of them) as high level bullet points. Each element is broken down to different standards (Majority / Minority approaches) and/or exceptions/variations on the rule (e.g., seasonal usage or statutory period considerations). Finally, at a third level, I have hail mary "instrumental goals" (e.g., maximize social welfare, certainty of peace and title, efficient use of land, etc) when the facts aren't clear as to what a judge might determine. So when I run into a basic Adverse Possession issue I can just immediately stare at this attack outline to structure my analysis. What's the rule? Okay here are 4 elements. Are all of them met? Yes and no, depending on the jurisdiction or court or facts that are not given. Does the claim have merit? Ehhhhh maybe yes, maybe no but perhaps a court will say X because of blah blah instrumental goal. Okay cool I'm done with my analysis and I can move on to the next issue.

You need to be able to analyze all your issues by looking at just one section on your outline. If you're flipping through pages and thinking about your readings then you're just wasting too much time.

[Micdiddy]

1L here looking for suggestions on easier/ probably uncurved classes. Suggestions? Was thinking:

-Economic Analysis of Law- Friedman
-Enviro Law- Barsa
-Legislation- Mulaney
-Local Gov't- Shoked

Any others?

Remedies with Lupo is possibly the best class at the law school if uncurved.

Local Gov't was the hardest final I ever took in my life at any level of schooling (but, of course, everyone takes the same final). Besides that the class is awesome (because Shoked is awesome).