In continuing with the theme of reliving my first year of law school, I will discuss Civil Procedure.
Civil Procedure I and II are not the same (I believe I talked about this before). Civil Procedure I is about the legal theories which set the background for civil procedure in federal courts. Civil Procedure II, on the other hand, is nothing but specific rules which define how cases are performed in federal courts.
Many of my classmates liked Civ Pro II over Civ Pro I. The reason: theory. Application of a theoretical concepts can be difficult at times as compared to application of specific rules.
Of course, civil procedure II is not necessarily "easier" than civil procedure I. Civ Pro II did contain some theoretical concepts. First, the concept of Res Judicata and its cousin, Collateral Estoppel, are not necessarily the easiest concepts to apply to a fact pattern! Second, although based on a rule, the application of Twombley and Iqbal can be head spinning!
Now, I crushed Civ Pro I; but, I do not feel like I crushed Civ Pro II (still awaiting grades at this point). And it wasn't that I didn't know what I was talking about either. It had to do with the actual exam. I'm not sure I did my best or that the exam actually tested what I knew. But, as Professor Klein likes to say, "it's in the box."
So moving onto Professor Klein. He is a very nice professor. Is he the best? Probably not. Is he the worst? Most definitely not!
Professor Klein has some quirky mannerisms; but, who doesn't. When lecturing (yes he lectures more than he socratic-method teaches), he paces back and forth, puts his fist on his forehead, pauses and sits down in a chair (momentarily) and repeats. It can amusing at times.
He also likes to tell stories. But, his stories are entertaining and enlightening. His stories actually have meaning and are usually related to the message he desires to get across. His classes do not drag!
In office hours he is very open to discussing your view (he will in class too). He is easy to talk with; but, at times I think he begins to answer your question without fully understanding your question. In other words, he hears what he wants to hear and answers the way he heard the question. Like I said, he does this sometimes.
In summary, Civil Procedure I and II are not alike. Civ Pro I is more theortetical while Civ Pro II is more procedural. Professor Klein teaches by lecture more than by socratic method. He has some quirky habits but the habits make the class vice distract from the class.
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Saturday, May 7, 2011
1L Review: Legal Skills I & II and Prof Hargrove
This upcoming week I begin my internship. This internship is for experience. I will not get paid or get academic credit. I intend on touching on the benefit of an internship to the law school experience. But for now, I will continue my review of first year courses.
Tedious and time consuming best describe Legal Skills during the 1L year.
Legal Skills I is about learning to do legal research and to write like an English professor (at least if you have Professor Hargrove). The memorandum written for the project is an objective-based writing project. In other words, you do not argue for or against a legal stand; instead, you argue both.
The gist is to write both sides of an issue to give someone else the law and the interpretation of the law. Then applying the law to the legal issue of a client, what arguments for and against the client arises. The most difficult part of the writing is the English professor portion.
Legal Skills II is more writing like an English professor plus the aspect of writing a persuasive appellate brief. The project is an appeal of a ruling and you, as the lawyer, are trying to persuade an appeals court to rule in your favor on the issues. This is very challenging.
The other different aspect of the course is the 1L Legal Skills competition. Everyone is required to stand in front of a three-person panel and argue a side of the issue. I should point out, the legal skills project is the same for all the sections. This competition is very challenging. But rewarding, even when you don't win, place, or show.
Many of my classmates hated the competition. These classmates were predominantly those who have no desire to be a trial or appellate lawyer. They desire to be transactional lawyers or something else. Do not fear the competition. It is a lot of fun.
The brief was time consuming though. I rewrote my brief more times than I did my LS-I project. A word limit existed for the project. Paring down the arguments so that the arguments were strong but not wordy was challenging. The most infuriating aspect of this process was when this process occurred. The edits of the project occurred while studying for finals. Last semester I felt it was easier to finish the legal skills project while studying than this semester.
Maybe one of the differences was the length of the project. Last semester we word limited but the limit was less than this semester. Last semester's project was approximately 10 pages. This semester's project was 2 to 3 times that length. The project required a cover page, table of contents, list of authorities used in the brief, and other formatted-style pages. Did I mention this was time-consuming?
Moving onto Professor Hargrove. She is a trip. A recovering comedian, she attempts to bring humor to law school to make learning interesting. Her attempts are not appreciated by all of the students. I found her classes informative and fun. It's all in the perspective.
Now some will say she seems scatter-brained. Her classes sometimes don't flow, she seems to be behind her syllabus (if she actually follows it), and her posts in the forum sometimes seem mean or aggressive.
If you speak to her during office hours, you will find a very bright and intelligent professor. Her passion is teaching young lawyers how to write, and not how to write like lawyers and judges of the past, but, instead, how to write like lawyers should. She is not scatter-brained; she is not boring; she is not crazy. She is very enjoyable to learn from.
Some of my classmates complained about how she doesn't give good feedback to them. You can talk to them and find out what feedback they sought. Realize some things don't have feedback. See if they were asking about something which doesn't require feedback. I received a lot of feedback and felt I improved in my writing and my legal analysis. I can attribute this to her feedback and her teaching.
Another complaint about her is her tendency to play favorites. But she doesn't do that. Okay, maybe she does, a little. If you do not visit her during office hours or converse with her via email or speak during class, she is not apt to respond to you. If you want help, seek her help. Some people don't understand this. If you don't seek help and don't do the things she asked you do, you cannot complain about her when your grade doesn't reflect what you thought it should.
Realize, this is my opinion about Professor Hargrove. I like her; others may not. Not everyone is perfect and she does have her flaws. But if you work with her, she will work you. And you'll be better for it.
In summary, Legal Skills is time consuming and tedious and frustrating at times. The legal skills competition is fun. Professor Hargrove can be eccentric at times, but is fun to learn from, if you're willing to seek her out.
Tedious and time consuming best describe Legal Skills during the 1L year.
Legal Skills I is about learning to do legal research and to write like an English professor (at least if you have Professor Hargrove). The memorandum written for the project is an objective-based writing project. In other words, you do not argue for or against a legal stand; instead, you argue both.
The gist is to write both sides of an issue to give someone else the law and the interpretation of the law. Then applying the law to the legal issue of a client, what arguments for and against the client arises. The most difficult part of the writing is the English professor portion.
Legal Skills II is more writing like an English professor plus the aspect of writing a persuasive appellate brief. The project is an appeal of a ruling and you, as the lawyer, are trying to persuade an appeals court to rule in your favor on the issues. This is very challenging.
The other different aspect of the course is the 1L Legal Skills competition. Everyone is required to stand in front of a three-person panel and argue a side of the issue. I should point out, the legal skills project is the same for all the sections. This competition is very challenging. But rewarding, even when you don't win, place, or show.
Many of my classmates hated the competition. These classmates were predominantly those who have no desire to be a trial or appellate lawyer. They desire to be transactional lawyers or something else. Do not fear the competition. It is a lot of fun.
The brief was time consuming though. I rewrote my brief more times than I did my LS-I project. A word limit existed for the project. Paring down the arguments so that the arguments were strong but not wordy was challenging. The most infuriating aspect of this process was when this process occurred. The edits of the project occurred while studying for finals. Last semester I felt it was easier to finish the legal skills project while studying than this semester.
Maybe one of the differences was the length of the project. Last semester we word limited but the limit was less than this semester. Last semester's project was approximately 10 pages. This semester's project was 2 to 3 times that length. The project required a cover page, table of contents, list of authorities used in the brief, and other formatted-style pages. Did I mention this was time-consuming?
Moving onto Professor Hargrove. She is a trip. A recovering comedian, she attempts to bring humor to law school to make learning interesting. Her attempts are not appreciated by all of the students. I found her classes informative and fun. It's all in the perspective.
Now some will say she seems scatter-brained. Her classes sometimes don't flow, she seems to be behind her syllabus (if she actually follows it), and her posts in the forum sometimes seem mean or aggressive.
If you speak to her during office hours, you will find a very bright and intelligent professor. Her passion is teaching young lawyers how to write, and not how to write like lawyers and judges of the past, but, instead, how to write like lawyers should. She is not scatter-brained; she is not boring; she is not crazy. She is very enjoyable to learn from.
Some of my classmates complained about how she doesn't give good feedback to them. You can talk to them and find out what feedback they sought. Realize some things don't have feedback. See if they were asking about something which doesn't require feedback. I received a lot of feedback and felt I improved in my writing and my legal analysis. I can attribute this to her feedback and her teaching.
Another complaint about her is her tendency to play favorites. But she doesn't do that. Okay, maybe she does, a little. If you do not visit her during office hours or converse with her via email or speak during class, she is not apt to respond to you. If you want help, seek her help. Some people don't understand this. If you don't seek help and don't do the things she asked you do, you cannot complain about her when your grade doesn't reflect what you thought it should.
Realize, this is my opinion about Professor Hargrove. I like her; others may not. Not everyone is perfect and she does have her flaws. But if you work with her, she will work you. And you'll be better for it.
In summary, Legal Skills is time consuming and tedious and frustrating at times. The legal skills competition is fun. Professor Hargrove can be eccentric at times, but is fun to learn from, if you're willing to seek her out.
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
1L Review: Torts I and Prof Bowermaster
Continuing with the 1L year in review:
Torts I
What to say about this class? This has to be the most hated of all the classes of 1L students. Many will complain about Legal Skills; but, LS is tedious; Torts is torture.
The first portion of Torts was not that bad. Intentional torts are close to their counterparts in criminal law, so much of intentional torts was review. A new concept was introduced but because it is similar to another concept, difficulty did not lie too much in the new concept. (Of note, the new concept was called "conversion." I'm sure you can gain a good picture of what it deals with.)
Where the difficulty arose was in the multiple choice questions. Professor Bowermaster conducted a review session at the end of the intentional torts section with some multiple choice questions. And these questions were borderline between difficult and extremely difficult. The painted picture at the end of the review session basically told everyone, "you don't know torts."
Then negligence came into the picture. And everyone was turned onto their heads. Conceptualizing the new concepts was a chore. Trying to understand what the judges were getting at was a chore. Understanding torts is a chore.
And to be honest, I'm not sure the casebook and the course were developed to help understand the concept. I used the Criminal Law theory taught by Professor Campbell to help with Torts. I tried to put the concepts into organized boxes. Unfortunately, trying to organize the boxes was difficult because the course was not structured to do this. I eventually was able to box the concept but it took some time and a lot of effort.
The tutor for Torts was not very helpful. Although tutors did well in the subject, tutors are not always the best at teaching the subject. Now, I don't want to bash our tutor. He did the best with the subject and tried to help. Unfortunately, the setup of tutor sessions did not always lend itself to allowing him to help others understand the concepts. I'm still debating how much was him, how much was the handouts, and how much was the subject. (I'm hoping you are getting the picture: Torts blows.)
The final exam was difficult for this subject also. Professor Bowermaster believes in asking some tough multiple choice questions to cull from everyone their true understanding of Torts. She believes this will expand the distribution of grades in the class. My only complaint about the exam was the call of the question for her essay. In my opinion, the call was too broad. Prof Bowermaster limits the essay length to 11,000 characters (this includes spaces, returns, commas, etc). The call of the question was so broad that it could not be answered in 11,000 characters. You had to pick and choose the best arguments. For 1L students, this might not be the best test of our understanding of the subject. Maybe a 3L. Maybe someone taking the bar exam. But, not so sure a 1L will have the grasp of the subject to prioritize the essay question topics. (In her defense, she did give us hints and warnings about the exam. Of course, I realized this while taking the exam; not before!)
Turning to Professor Bowermaster.
I like her. Some students do not. She is very nice and she works to help you understand the course. Obviously, this works for some but not for others.
One of my complaints about her is her specificity with answers. She will ask leading questions to get you to say what she wants to hear - word for word. If she wants to hear the word "malcontent," she will attempt to get you to say the exact word. She is not satisfied with another word which means the same thing. But, if you can get used to this habit, you should do fine with her.
Her teaching method is very close to the Socratic method, but like many of the other professors at Cal Western, she strays from the typical law school teaching method occasionally. Listening to my classmates go through the motions with the concepts while answering her questions helped in my understanding.
The biggest complaint came at the end of the course. The last couple of weeks felt rushed to get through the material so I found it difficult to grasp that material sometimes. Of course, when you couple rushing through a difficult subject as Torts with the final push to finish the Legal Skills project and the amount of studying required for upcoming finals, the stress created can be over bearing at times.
While it would've been nice to slow down slightly, I'm not sure we could have. There is an agenda and we must accomplish the agenda. Much like the real world, sometimes efforts must be cut back to accomplish a task. While the task is not perfect, it is accomplished. Better to be done than to be not done trying to obtain perfection. There are trade offs in life. Get used to them.
Torts is difficult at times. You must stay on top of the subject. Outline constantly. Seek the professor during office hours (Professor Bowermaster is very helpful one-on-one). Take essays and multiple-choice questions constantly. Use the knowledge and concepts you are learning and torts will be easier. But, Torts will always be the most hated class.
Torts I
What to say about this class? This has to be the most hated of all the classes of 1L students. Many will complain about Legal Skills; but, LS is tedious; Torts is torture.
The first portion of Torts was not that bad. Intentional torts are close to their counterparts in criminal law, so much of intentional torts was review. A new concept was introduced but because it is similar to another concept, difficulty did not lie too much in the new concept. (Of note, the new concept was called "conversion." I'm sure you can gain a good picture of what it deals with.)
Where the difficulty arose was in the multiple choice questions. Professor Bowermaster conducted a review session at the end of the intentional torts section with some multiple choice questions. And these questions were borderline between difficult and extremely difficult. The painted picture at the end of the review session basically told everyone, "you don't know torts."
Then negligence came into the picture. And everyone was turned onto their heads. Conceptualizing the new concepts was a chore. Trying to understand what the judges were getting at was a chore. Understanding torts is a chore.
And to be honest, I'm not sure the casebook and the course were developed to help understand the concept. I used the Criminal Law theory taught by Professor Campbell to help with Torts. I tried to put the concepts into organized boxes. Unfortunately, trying to organize the boxes was difficult because the course was not structured to do this. I eventually was able to box the concept but it took some time and a lot of effort.
The tutor for Torts was not very helpful. Although tutors did well in the subject, tutors are not always the best at teaching the subject. Now, I don't want to bash our tutor. He did the best with the subject and tried to help. Unfortunately, the setup of tutor sessions did not always lend itself to allowing him to help others understand the concepts. I'm still debating how much was him, how much was the handouts, and how much was the subject. (I'm hoping you are getting the picture: Torts blows.)
The final exam was difficult for this subject also. Professor Bowermaster believes in asking some tough multiple choice questions to cull from everyone their true understanding of Torts. She believes this will expand the distribution of grades in the class. My only complaint about the exam was the call of the question for her essay. In my opinion, the call was too broad. Prof Bowermaster limits the essay length to 11,000 characters (this includes spaces, returns, commas, etc). The call of the question was so broad that it could not be answered in 11,000 characters. You had to pick and choose the best arguments. For 1L students, this might not be the best test of our understanding of the subject. Maybe a 3L. Maybe someone taking the bar exam. But, not so sure a 1L will have the grasp of the subject to prioritize the essay question topics. (In her defense, she did give us hints and warnings about the exam. Of course, I realized this while taking the exam; not before!)
Turning to Professor Bowermaster.
I like her. Some students do not. She is very nice and she works to help you understand the course. Obviously, this works for some but not for others.
One of my complaints about her is her specificity with answers. She will ask leading questions to get you to say what she wants to hear - word for word. If she wants to hear the word "malcontent," she will attempt to get you to say the exact word. She is not satisfied with another word which means the same thing. But, if you can get used to this habit, you should do fine with her.
Her teaching method is very close to the Socratic method, but like many of the other professors at Cal Western, she strays from the typical law school teaching method occasionally. Listening to my classmates go through the motions with the concepts while answering her questions helped in my understanding.
The biggest complaint came at the end of the course. The last couple of weeks felt rushed to get through the material so I found it difficult to grasp that material sometimes. Of course, when you couple rushing through a difficult subject as Torts with the final push to finish the Legal Skills project and the amount of studying required for upcoming finals, the stress created can be over bearing at times.
While it would've been nice to slow down slightly, I'm not sure we could have. There is an agenda and we must accomplish the agenda. Much like the real world, sometimes efforts must be cut back to accomplish a task. While the task is not perfect, it is accomplished. Better to be done than to be not done trying to obtain perfection. There are trade offs in life. Get used to them.
Torts is difficult at times. You must stay on top of the subject. Outline constantly. Seek the professor during office hours (Professor Bowermaster is very helpful one-on-one). Take essays and multiple-choice questions constantly. Use the knowledge and concepts you are learning and torts will be easier. But, Torts will always be the most hated class.
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