UVA Law Students Taking Questions Forum

[joeshmo39]

I think you should write a why UVA and just let your PS stand on its own. It's not really a major undertaking, "essay" is giving it a lot when it should be no more than one page double spaced. Just think about a few attractive aspects of UVA and separate those ideas into paragraphs then write it out. It worked for my ED application at least. I'm not saying it's the only way to go about it of course. I don't think it can hurt though, and it will take 20 minutes.

[vamedic03]

I think you should write a why UVA and just let your PS stand on its own. It's not really a major undertaking, "essay" is giving it a lot when it should be no more than one page double spaced. Just think about a few attractive aspects of UVA and separate those ideas into paragraphs then write it out. It worked for my ED application at least. I'm not saying it's the only way to go about it of course. I don't think it can hurt though, and it will take 20 minutes.

*caveat - if you write it poorly, it will probably hurt you.

[joeshmo39]

I think you should write a why UVA and just let your PS stand on its own. It's not really a major undertaking, "essay" is giving it a lot when it should be no more than one page double spaced. Just think about a few attractive aspects of UVA and separate those ideas into paragraphs then write it out. It worked for my ED application at least. I'm not saying it's the only way to go about it of course. I don't think it can hurt though, and it will take 20 minutes.

*caveat - if you write it poorly, it will probably hurt you.

I want to go to UVa because, according to a post I read on the interwebz, the gals there are the best looking in the T-9.

^^^
Not a recommended angle.

[Doritos]

I think you should write a why UVA and just let your PS stand on its own. It's not really a major undertaking, "essay" is giving it a lot when it should be no more than one page double spaced. Just think about a few attractive aspects of UVA and separate those ideas into paragraphs then write it out. It worked for my ED application at least. I'm not saying it's the only way to go about it of course. I don't think it can hurt though, and it will take 20 minutes.

*caveat - if you write it poorly, it will probably hurt you.

I want to go to UVa because, according to a post I read on the interwebz, the gals there are the best looking in the T-9.

^^^
Not a recommended angle.

Make sure you reference "T-9" frequently.

[albanach]

I want to go to UVa because, according to a post I read on the interwebz, the gals there are the best looking in the T-9.

^^^
Not a recommended angle.

Indeed, that could imply Duke has something on UVa. Best stick to T14.

[quakeroats]

I want to go to UVa because, according to a post I read on the interwebz, the gals there are the best looking in the T-9.

^^^
Not a recommended angle.

Indeed, that could imply Duke has something on UVa. Best stick to T14.

Did someone say Duke?

[oneforship]

I want to go to UVa because, according to a post I read on the interwebz, the gals there are the best looking in the T-9.

^^^
Not a recommended angle.

Indeed, that could imply Duke has something on UVa. Best stick to T14.

Did someone say Duke?

[5ky]

I want to go to UVa because, according to a post I read on the interwebz, the gals there are the best looking in the T-9.

^^^
Not a recommended angle.

Indeed, that could imply Duke has something on UVa. Best stick to T14.

Did someone say Duke?

I'll admit, I lol'd.

[quakeroats]

I want to go to UVa because, according to a post I read on the interwebz, the gals there are the best looking in the T-9.

^^^
Not a recommended angle.

Indeed, that could imply Duke has something on UVa. Best stick to T14.

Did someone say Duke?

I'll admit, I lol'd.

I just hope the mods didn't see that. I'm not supposed to post in a UVA thread without adding, "All hail Mr. Jefferson's University! The finest public school in Central Virginia!"

[albanach]

Did someone say Duke?

Yeah, I misspelled Cornell. Sorry about that.

[vanwinkle]

I just hope the mods didn't see that. I'm not supposed to post in a UVA thread without adding, "All hail Mr. Jefferson's University! The finest public school in Central Virginia!"

The thread is meant for prospective and current students to discuss UVa. You are clearly neither, and trolling in the on-topic threads isn't welcome. You've been doing it for a while, though, so it needs to stop.

Post in this thread or another UVa discussion thread again, even if it's just to respond to this post, and get banned.

Everyone else can carry on.

[showNprove]

I love how Student Records is busy reminding us that northing's changed re: the Capital Post-Conviction Clinic instead of clicking a button to run the automated lottery.

[Cavalier]

I'd love to see someone run for SBA President on the "fire Cary Bennett" platform. Obviously SBA would have no authority to do such a thing, but it would at least help draw attention to student records' inexcusable delay at doing course selections and posting grades (yes, I know a lot of it depends on the professors, but they also sit on grades for weeks at a time as evidenced by the long periods where zero grades post). My friends at other law schools all get their grades much earlier than we do, and most already have the courses for next year. As of April 2010 Cary Bennett made nearly a six figure salary (LinkRemoved), so I think we can be a bit more demanding of him.

[joeshmo39]

I want to get some advice from some rising 3Ls on extracurricular stuff. Some of this information may out me but, my anonymity on the forum us suspect by now anyway.

Next year I definitely plan to do libel show and my secondary journal. I'm also on trial ad and extramural moot court. I've already scheduled a moot court tournament, it's in November (dangerously close to finals, but that's life). I may do a trial ad tournament depending on how things shake out. I'd like to, but I did a lot of mock trial in undergrad so I feel like I gain less from trial ad than I do any other activity. I guess the main issue then is how time consuming in the internal Lile competition. If I did one extramural tournament in the fall, plus Lile, plus cite checks, plus OGIs, would my head explode? Do employers care at all about Lile? Has it helped anyone at any point in life after OGI? Was it rewarding for those who competed? Keeping with advice I've received on this forum, I'm not going to put Lile on my OGI resume so that I will have more time to decide. However, I'd like to get some input ahead of time.

[5ky]

I haven't been able to figure this out, perhaps someone can enlighten me. Why is course selection so exceedingly difficult and complicated? Does student records always never know when the dates of registration will be until a week before? You'd think that by now, they'd have a system somewhat down.

[showNprove]

I'd love to see someone run for SBA President on the "fire Cary Bennett" platform. Obviously SBA would have no authority to do such a thing, but it would at least help draw attention to student records' inexcusable delay at doing course selections and posting grades (yes, I know a lot of it depends on the professors, but they also sit on grades for weeks at a time as evidenced by the long periods where zero grades post). My friends at other law schools all get their grades much earlier than we do, and most already have the courses for next year. As of April 2010 Cary Bennett made nearly a six figure salary (LinkRemoved), so I think we can be a bit more demanding of him.

I predict that the next e-mail im my inbox will be a message from Cary Bennett telling us that the 2L course selection must be pushed back because of unexpected technical difficulties with the 3L lottery. Which of course is code for "we forgot how to do the same thing we did last year and screwed everything up. All 360 students were accidentally enrolled in Feminism and the Law."

[showNprove]

I haven't been able to figure this out, perhaps someone can enlighten me. Why is course selection so exceedingly difficult and complicated? Does student records always never know when the dates of registration will be until a week before? You'd think that by now, they'd have a system somewhat down.

Actually, a lot of the initial delay is caused by having to confirm classes with professors. The system is complicated on purpose: if there is no opportunity to make a mistake, Cary Bennett will not have an excuse to send us another e-mail.

[Cavalier]

I want to get some advice from some rising 3Ls on extracurricular stuff. Some of this information may out me but, my anonymity on the forum us suspect by now anyway.

Next year I definitely plan to do libel show and also my secondary journal. I'm also on trial ad and extramural moot court. I've already scheduled a moot court tournament, it's in November (dangerously close to finals, but that's life). I may do a trial ad tournament depending on how things shake out. I'd like to, but I did a lot of mock trial in undergrad so I feel like I gain less from trial ad than I do any other activity. I guess the main issue then is how time consuming in the internal Lile competition. If I did one extramural tournament in the fall, plus Lile, plus cite checks, plus OGIs, would my head explode? Do employers care at all about Lile? Has it helped anyone at any point in life after OGI? Was it rewarding for those who competed? Keeping with advice I've received on this forum, I'm not going to put Lile on my OGI resume so that I will have more time to decide. However, I'd like to get some input ahead of time.

I don't think your head will explode; your extracirriculars sound manageable. The Lile brief needs to be written in the first half of September, in the middle of callback season, and the arguments will take place before fall break, so there won't be any overlap between that and your extramural moot court. You may want to hold off on the trial ad tournament though. Libel doesn't really involve much until the Spring. I don't know what your secondary journal involves, but I can't imagine the cite checks are a huge time commmitment. How much you take on depends on what your goals are with regard to grades; if you want to land a position besides a 2L summer associate gig (e.g. a clerkship or a government job), you probably want to keep your gardes as high as you can which means you should leave enough time for classes. On the other hand, if you're just hoping to start in big law, grades probably aren't as big a deal.

You should definitely stick to your plan of not putting Lile on your resume though. That way you can drop if you necessary. If you find that OGI isn't going as well as you hoped, you want to be able to devote as much time as possible in September to finding a job, and so you won't want to be bound to write a brief and do two oral arguments. You won't be losing a resume bump by excluding it.

[omg]

I want to get some advice from some rising 3Ls on extracurricular stuff. Some of this information may out me but, my anonymity on the forum us suspect by now anyway.

Next year I definitely plan to do libel show and my secondary journal. I'm also on trial ad and extramural moot court. I've already scheduled a moot court tournament, it's in November (dangerously close to finals, but that's life). I may do a trial ad tournament depending on how things shake out. I'd like to, but I did a lot of mock trial in undergrad so I feel like I gain less from trial ad than I do any other activity. I guess the main issue then is how time consuming in the internal Lile competition. If I did one extramural tournament in the fall, plus Lile, plus cite checks, plus OGIs, would my head explode? Do employers care at all about Lile? Has it helped anyone at any point in life after OGI? Was it rewarding for those who competed? Keeping with advice I've received on this forum, I'm not going to put Lile on my OGI resume so that I will have more time to decide. However, I'd like to get some input ahead of time.

That is a packed schedule, but if you go into it with your eyes open, you can definitely do it. Last fall, I did 15-credits, Lile, cite checks, and OGI's, and I was fine (grade- and sanity-wise). I didn't also do additional tournaments like you might, but I'm on a journal with very extensive cite checks and also commute an hour to and from school every day, so I was plenty busy, haha. I found Lile to be very rewarding and would recommend it to anyone willing to put in the time (which isn't much but isn't negligible). I do think that employers care about it to some extent, though not as much as, say, grades and law review. However, the fact that you already do trial ad and extramural moot court probably means that it wouldn't add as much to your resume. But I say go for it : )

[joeshmo39]

Could people who have been through Lile say a little bit more about the commitment? How long were the briefs? If I remember correctly, it's one problem and so one separate brief each semester of your 2L and 3L year. Am I getting that right? How long are the briefs? I know the moot court brief for the tournament I went to last year was about 40 pages, a lot of research, a lot of editing. It was rough. Not sure I could do that twice in a semester with everything else going on.

[itsirtou]

anyone have a page with graduation requirements? or can you direct me to one?

[bgdddymtty]

anyone have a page with graduation requirements? or can you direct me to one?

Ask and ye shall receive vague information.

[omg]

As to Lile:

I don't remember what the specific word limits for each round were, but...

In each round, you write one brief and then perform two oral arguments. You have two weeks from the date you pick up the packet to write your brief. Especially in the first round, if you devote one weekend entirely (or the equivalent thereof) to the brief, you will be fine. The second round requires more work because the brief is longer, you are consulting with a partner, and the competition is fiercer. More specific information below. Most people (even the very successful ones as far as I know) only prepare for each oral argument the evening beforehand, or sometimes only for an hour or two right before.

Round 1: My brief was 13.5 pages of substance (not including cover page, table of contents, prayer for relief, etc.). I'm sure that that hit right up against the word limit. In this round, they actually give you all of the citations that you're allowed to use, so the research is very confined. (There were maybe 15-20 cases, so there is a decent amount of background reading if you want to do it all, but I don't think that anyone actually cites to all of them in their briefs.)

Round 2: Here mine and my partner's brief was 28 pages of substance, which, again, I think was right at the word limit. Again, you have a partner for this round, so it's not too much more work than Round 1. Because they always (I think) have two distinct questions presented, each of you takes charge of one half of the brief and argument. Research and citations are totally open in this round, which I found allowed for more creativity and felt quite freeing.

Rounds 3-4: You probably don't need to worry about these now, as they take place during 3L year and only the top 16 people move on to Round 3. If you are one of those people, my intuition is that you really like moot court and don't mind putting in the time commitment. That said, I'm sure that there is a much greater commitment, although I don't know precisely what it is.

[5ky]

For the soon-to-be 1Ls: I think this should be a list of the schedules/professors for the different sections. You won't know which section you're in until right before orientation, but until then you can sit around and decide which section you'd like to be in. CivPro/Contracts/Torts are 4 credits, Crim is 3.

Section A
Civil Procedure -- Mitchell -- TWF (8:30-9:50) (A/B)
Torts -- White -- TRF (10:00-11:20) (A/L)
Criminal Law -- Coughlin -- MWR (2:10-3:10) (A/C)
Contracts -- Choi -- MWR (3:40-5:00) (A)
-----
LRW -- Moran -- T (2:10-3:10) (A)

Section B
Civil Procedure -- Mitchell -- TWF (8:30-9:50) (A/B)
Torts -- Duffy -- TRF (10:00-11:20) (B/J)
Criminal Law -- Bonnie -- MTW (2:10-3:10) (B/I)
Contracts -- Dooley -- MWR (3:40-5:00) (B)
-----
LRW -- Stewart -- R (2:10-3:10) (B)

Section C
Civil Procedure -- Heytens -- TWF (8:30-9:50) (C)
Torts -- Sprigman -- TRF (10:00-11:20) (C/K)
Criminal Law -- Coughlin -- MWR (2:10-3:10) (A/C)
Contracts -- Hynes -- MWR (3:40-5:00) (C/E)
-----
LRW -- Buck -- W (10:00-11:00) (C)

Section D
Civil Procedure -- Nelson -- TWRF (8:50-9:50) (D/I)
Torts -- Armacost -- TWF (10:00-11:20) (D/H)
Criminal Law -- Low -- MTWRF (2:10-3:10) (D/G)
Contracts -- Verkerke -- MWR (3:40-5:00) (D)
-----
LRW -- Buck -- M (1:00-2:00) (D)

Section E
Civil Procedure -- Spencer -- TWR (8:30-9:50) (E/G)
Torts -- O'Connell -- TWRF (10:00-11:00) (E)
Criminal Law -- Harmon -- MW (2:10-3:30) (E/J)
Contracts -- Hynes -- MWR (3:40-5:00) (C/E)
-----
LRW -- Stewart -- T (2:10-3:10) (E)

Section F
Civil Procedure -- Ortiz -- MTR (8:30-9:50) (F/L)
Torts -- Abraham -- TWF (10:00-11:20) (F/G)
Criminal Law -- Brown -- MTR (2:10-3:10) (F/K)
Contracts -- Kordana -- MWR (3:40-5:00) (F)
-----
LWR -- Stewart -- F (1:00-2:00) (F)

Section G
Civil Procedure -- Spencer -- TWR (8:30-9:50) (E/G)
Torts -- Abraham -- TWF (10:00-11:20) (F/G)
Criminal Law -- Low -- MTWRF (2:10-3:10) (D/G)
Contracts -- Setear -- MWR (3:40-5:00) (G)
-----
LWR -- Buck -- M (10:00-11:00) (G)

Section H
Civil Procedure -- Rutherglen -- MWR (8:30-9:50) (H)
Torts -- Armacost -- TWF (10:00-11:20) (D/H)
Criminal Law -- Bowers -- TF (2:10-3:30) (H/L)
Contracts -- Johnson -- MWR (3:40-5:00) (H/I)
-----
LWR -- Stewart -- T (8:50-9:50) (H)

Section I
Civil Procedure -- Nelson -- TWRF (8:50-9:50) (D/I)
Torts -- Barzun -- MTR (10:00-11:20) (I)
Criminal Law -- Bonnie -- MTW (2:10-3:10) (B/I)
Contracts -- Johnson, Alex -- MWR (3:40-5:00) (H/I)
-----
LRW -- Moran -- F (10:00-11:00) (I)

Section J
Civil Procedure -- Garrett -- MWF (8:30-9:50) (J)
Torts -- Duffy -- TRF (10:00-11:20) (B/J)
Criminal Law -- Harmon -- MW (2:10-3:30) (E/J)
Contracts -- Johnston, Jason -- MWR (3:40-5:00) (J/K)
-----
LRW -- Moran -- T (8:50-9:50) (J)

Section K
Civil Procedure -- Woolhandler -- TWF (8:30-9:50) (K)
Torts -- Sprigman -- TRF (10:00-11:20) (C/K)
Criminal Law -- Brown -- MTR (2:10-3:10) (F/K)
Contracts -- Johnston, Jason -- MWR (3:40-5:00) (J/K)
LRW -- Buck -- W (2:10-3:10) (K)

Section L
Civil Procedure -- Ortiz -- MTR (8:30-9:50) (F/L)
Torts -- White -- TRF (10:00-11:20) (A/L)
Criminal Law -- Bowers -- TF (2:10-3:30) (H/L)
Contracts -- Geis -- MWR (3:40-5:00) (L)
-----
LRW -- Moran -- W (10:00-11:00) (L)

----------------------------------------
A few observations:

I'll leave it to others more knowledgeable, but for professor picks, it looks like section A has a pretty great draw. Mitchell/Coughlin/Choi is a powerhouse trio.

It appears they've done away with the 3-section classes? Good/bad, I suppose. I didn't mind the 100 person class.

[itsirtou]

anyone have a page with graduation requirements? or can you direct me to one?

Ask and ye shall receive vague information.

shoot, that's all I found too.

I was just wondering because a) I actually don't even know how many hours we need to graduate, and 2) what courses 2Ls can sign up for tomorrow that fulfill "upper level graduation requirements"