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Written by Jason R. Wolfe
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Monday, 03 December 2007 00:56 |
Choosing classes while in law school can be an important decision that the student should undertake with some thought. What you study in law school will not only be useful for passage of the bar exam but also may broaden the potential employment horizon later on down the road.
There are some classes that regardless of how you fell about them, you will have to take them. Standard classes for law students include torts, contracts, constitutional law, property and civil procedure for good reason too. Torts and contracts represent a large majority of real world disputes that any lawyer should be aware of. Constitutional law is important because that is the document upon which our entire system of government is based. Property, like torts and contracts, also occupies a large segment of actual disputes and civil procedure is the basic rules for playing the game.
Beyond those core classes there are a huge number of options that the student may take advantage of in pursuing a legal education. From natural resources to criminal procedure and from trusts and estates to land use the types and subjects are enough to challenge and interest any student out there.
So how do you choose a class? Should classes be chosen based on the interest of the student or based on what may be on the bar exam? Should you choose clinics and internships or lecture style classes? Valid questions all but the answer ultimately lies with the individual student.When I was in law school many of colleagues took the “bar classes” while others, including myself took classes that were of interest to us or those subjects where we through we wanted to practice.
There are pros and cons to both methods some of which I will lay out here. First bay taking bar classes you may limit your ability to take something a bit more interesting than say, secured transactions. Additionally, most reputable bar preparation companies will cover everything that you will need to know for the bar exam, so you can get by without devoting an entire semester to the difference between consumer goods and equipment.
The benefit to taking bar classes is that you are able to study those subjects in a much more thorough way than the three hour lecture you will get for the bar. Your exposure to those subjects, like secured transactions and commercial paper for instance, will be more in depth and detailed than those of us who waited for bar review. You will then be able to thumb your nose at people like me who can barely remember the difference between order paper and bearer paper.
As I indicated earlier, I skipped many bar classes and opted for subjects that interested me and that I wanted to learn more about. I spent a good deal of my law school experience in classes like environmental law, land use, real estate and water law. The thought being that once I began my career as a lawyer it would be in one of those areas.
Good arguments can be made for both rationales and whichever way you choose to pick your classes will depend on your school, your interests and your time. There are a couple of classes that I took and enjoyed and would encourage any law student to take. First criminal law and procedure is fascinating not only for the cases you get to read but also because you then are able to point out the errors in legal T.V. dramas.
A basic real estate class is useful so that when it comes time to buy a house, you know what you are signing and the various obligations of the buyer and the seller. Finally, trusts and estates is a useful class because while it may be a dry subject it will be valuable once you have graduated in what is known as “friends and family law.” This is when your friends and family come to you say something like this – “You know, we have always meant to get a will drawn up. Now that you are a lawyer, can you help us?” By taking trusts and estates you be able to help out your friends and family. For free probably.
Just keep in mind that you are in law school to learn as much as you can in three years. So make certain that you maximize your opportunities to do so and take the classes that will mean the most to you, even if its commercial paper.
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