Category Archives: Law School

Jeremy Blachman, Are You Having Trouble Paying Attention to This Post?:

“I heard a story about someone at a fine law school that is thinking about starting to take Ritalin (or something like it). Apparently he feels like he hasn't been grasping the material as well as some of his classmates, and hopes that this will help him concentrate better and give him the competitive edge he needs. Or at least restore parity — he apparently says he knows lots of people taking it, and feels like it's not fair for them to get this drug-induced edge, and not him.”

Great. Something new that maybe I should be worrying about. I have no problem with people taking Ritalin if they have a genuine disorder — and know at least one serious person who genuinely believes he does have ADD and the drug helps him. I do worry that the disorder is over-diagnosed, and that some people will shop for doctors willing to prescribe stuff they might be better off without.

Mr. Blachman worries about the morality of it all, expressing dismay

“at the thought that we live in a world where this becomes a choice that people feel an incentive to make. That the pressure to succeed, the pressure to get the slightly higher grade, the pressure to go beyond what you can do on your own — is great enough that someone feels it's worth it to medicate themselves and try to correct for what is perhaps just a natural variation in attention span and concentration.”

Of course, from my point of view it's potentially an even more personal issue: what if I am part of the pressure-inducing problem? Am I helping create a generation of drug-dependant lawyers? I run a tough class, I push people, I demand precision. Would adopting a more touchy-feelie approach be healthier for students? And, just as important, which will be better for their eventual clients?

Perhaps comfortingly, though, as Mr. Blachman describes it, the main pressure seems to be competition with other students. So, so long as I'm even-handed in my pushiness…

Class preparation was an unusually heavy chore this year as I not only taught International Law for the first time, but the authors of my Administrative Law casebook issued a substantially revised (and actually much improved) edition. It taught much better than the old version, but making the best use of it required much more thought than just tweaking my old notes. It was all rewarding work, but it took time.

I'm one of those people who likes teaching new things to keep myself fresh. In 11 years of teaching I've taught Constitutional Law I, Civil Procedure I, Jurisprudence, Internet and the State, Internet and the Market, Trademark, and seminars on E-commerce, Digital Intellectual Property, and Internet Governance. And in the only course I've taught consistently since I started here — Administrative Law — I've used three different casebooks over the years. Perhaps that is why one of my students said I'm one of the most enthusiastic teachers he has. The way he said it, it didn't sound entirely like praise (it was almost, “what's your problem?”), but it made my day.

As the semester winds to a close, the focus of daily activity turns from preparing for class towards writing and then (*sigh*) grading the final exams. Every semester is the same cycle. My students are very good in class — indeed this year's International law students seem exceptionally good — and I get hopeful. Maybe this year will be the year I get a crop of great exams. And there usually are one or two great ones, and a few good ones. But the modal student cannot write a good paragraph, much less sustain analysis over several pages. I blame the high schools and the colleges. Surely it's not too much to expect that the possessors of BA's, and good to excellent grades, from excellent to good colleges, should be able to write? But again and again my hopes are, modally, dashed.

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Last week the Dean of Students office took ten minutes out of each of my two classes to administer our student evaluation forms. In principle this is a good thing. In practice, the verdict is much less clear, an uncertainty exacerbated by reading Michael Huemer and Mary Gray and Barbara R. Bergmann (references via the Invisible Adjunct).

Ideally, students would evaluate a class after they had all of it, including the exam. That’s especially significant in a course like Administrative Law which, for many students, only starts to make sense when they review and find that all the pieces actually do form a coherent whole. And for every class, whether the exam is fair or not seems like it ought to be an issue for students to discuss — and which should be of particular interest to students thinking of taking the course in the future.

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It’s common for academics to bring early drafts to conferences, and to warn readers that the papers shouldn’t be quoted or cited, and that indeed the author may well change his mind. That said, this author’s note from Dan Hunter and Greg Lastowka on their paper Virtual Crimes is unusually robust:

Important Note: This is a very preliminary draft, reflecting certain unresolved and undisclosed disagreements between the two authors and subject to complete and unequivocal disclaimer by both. We warn you only once that Lord Nagafen WILL STRIKE YOU DEAD if you so much as think about citing this or using this as an account of what we think. Additionally, the authors expressly reserve the right to seek redress against any such offenders by the well-established common law procedures of torture, ordeal, and trial by combat

DRAFT International Law Exam Write-a-Question ground rules

1. Your task is to write a question that could form part of the final exam in International Law.

2. Participation in this question-writing program is not optional. The quality of your participation will be factored into your class participation grade.

3. Questions should be no shorter than two sentences and no longer than one page, single-spaced, with ordinary type face and margins. They can be theoretical questions, hypothetical questions, purely legal/interpretive questions, or any other standard law school exam question.

4. In addition, you should append an outline of your suggested answer. In so doing you should note whether you think there is only one possible answer, or whether there are multiple possible (or arguable) answers. You should also note the most relevant cases, treaties, or other readings, i.e. those that one would ordinarily expect a student to discuss/cite in her/his answer.

5. Generally speaking, I tend to prefer questions for which more than one answer is plausible but this is not a requirement.

6. Questions are due by Tuesday Nov. 25, which is our last regularly scheduled class. E-mail submissions to [email] are preferred, but paper turned in in class is acceptable. I will acknowledge receipt of emails, and you should resubmit anything that isn't acknowledged within 24 hours.

7. I will read all the question and separate them into two groups: those that I think couldn't be on the exam, and those that (perhaps with light editing) could be part of the exam (the “possible pile”).

8. If there are two or fewer questions in the “possible pile”, I will so inform the class. I may or may not use one of the questions on the exam.

9. If there are three or more questions in the “possible pile”, I will publish them on the class web page by Dec. 1. At least one of these questions, and possibly more, will appear on the exam, either as an optional or required question.