Category Archives: Law School

In-class dialog, sometime earlier this week:

Prof: There is no curve in this class. Nothing would please me more than to give everyone an A in this class. It would feel like I was a great teacher.

Student: You couldn't do that.

Prof: Sure I could. I have tenure.

[very great laughter from all students]

Student: No. I meant you can't do that.

Prof: They couldn't stop me. But of course you'd have to earn it.

Student: I meant you aren't able to do that.

Prof: Oh. It was a psychological observation.

Do they know me that well already?

Citechecking Just Got A Little Easier reports that a majority of the major law reviews have agreed in principle to try to limit articles to 70 pages after a web-based survey of law faculty found that 90% of the almost 800 responding faculty “agreed that articles are too long”.

I think the survey, which I filled out, was a very blunt instrument and this conclusion verges on a mistake. While it's true that some, maybe even many, law review articles are needlessly long — most often because they reinvent the wheel for the benefit of student editors — I think it's also true that some of the best articles are long for a reason: they describe something complex or genuinely new.

So, while I agree that one might wish to have a presumption that articles should be shorter than they are, I think a blanket rule of this nature would be unwise. (Of course, having written this and this and this, I would say that….)

I'm glad the law reviews haven't committed themselves to an iron-clad rule, but I'm worried that this will become an insurmountable bar in practice — especially for more junior scholars, who are the ones most likely to have something genuinely new to say, and who have the most need to say it in a way that is fully footnoted thus preemptively insulating themselves from certain types of criticism by their more senior colleagues (and believe me, I've been there).

Full text of the statement from the flagship law reviews at Columbia, Cornell, Duke, Georgetown, Harvard, Michigan, Stanford, Texas, U. Penn., Virginia, and Yale follows.

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Here is a classroom etiquette question…or is it an administrative law question in disguise?

1. Is it appropriate for students to chew gum in class?

2. Suppose an instructor believes that chewing gum in class is not appropriate. Assuming the relevant Student Handbook is silent on the issue of food (and gum) in class, and that there are no relevant precedents in formal disciplinary proceedings, what notice if any is required to make it fair to discipline students for this? Is there anything else you would need to know before answering this question?

3. Is your answer the same or different for gum chewers who blow bubbles in class? Why?

4. “In class” could mean a lot of things: high school, college, law school, bar review, traffic school. Would your answer to #1 & #2 be different in any of these circumstances? Why?

[Edited & updated — first version didn't make enough distinctions between open-book and take-home exams] In the comments to an earlier item, a UM law student asks, reasonably enough,

If L.S. isn't just about the rules (which I agree it shouldn't be), then why are there closed book exams at our school? When is a lawyer ever in a situation where they must have a law memorized for that one moment in time (except for oral arguments; but even then they have a legal pad in front of them with cases)? We are taught how to read a case and do research in LRW. More advanced research was taught to me in editing and bluebooking PPL law review assignments. My torts teacher kept things very theoretical in class and on the exam…basically if you had common sense and a very basic knowledge of torts you did well, so long as your writing ability was above the class curve. I am enjoying L.S. for the most part; but I'm not lying to myself and saying success here equals success in the real world. School and jobs (maybe being a law professor is out of this realm) teach incommensurable subjects.

I thought the issue deserved its own item: As one of the few faculty members at UM who insists (over mild Decanal objections to the take-home aspect) on giving open book take home exams for some of my classes (but not all), this is a question near and dear to my heart. After all, I've argued that “life is a take home exam” — and I even believe it.

Nevertheless there are some good reasons for closed book in-class exams, and I give those too in some courses. These reasons are strongest in the first year, but to varying degrees they also apply in upper level courses.

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TalkLeft: Light Touch: A Law Student's Ad
Very Easy Job: Watch Me to Make Sure That I Study For Law School

Reply to: ****@nyu.edu
Date: 2004-11-04, 5:48PM EST

I'm a first year law student but I've been having terrible concentration problems. I need someone to sit with me while I study and make sure that I'm studying. Otherwise I'll waste hours surfing the internet or just thinking about random things. You can be reading the newspaper or doing your own work while you do this, you just need to be sitting at a starbucks table or other location with me. You DO NOT NEED TO KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT LAW SCHOOL to do this job.

I'll pay more for people that can tutor me in Civil Procedure, Contracts, or Torts.

And this translates into practice how exactly?

My research assistant should have been studying for his finals, but instead he posted a pointer to a very funny, and overly true, law review article about finals. See Barsk, Law School Professors Have Humor Too (citing C. Steven Bradford, The Gettysburg Address As Written By Law Students Taking An Exam, 86 Nw. U. L. Rev. 1094 (1992)).

Update: Prof. Bradford's list of publications and presentations contains a promient disclaimer:

WARNING: THE SURGEON GENERAL HAS DETERMINED THAT READING WORKS BY PROFESSOR BRADFORD RESULTS IN LUNACY AND MAY CAUSE COMPLICATIONS IN PREGNANT WOMEN. DO NOT OPERATE A MOTOR VEHICLE WHILE READING, AS READING MAY PRODUCE EXTREME DROWSINESS.

I bet he's a hoot in class.