Note to Self:
In a class that is a year long, such as Legal Research and Coloring, telling the professor how you actually feel about the class will result in her opening the class with this statement:Prof: "Yesterday, I read through the course evalutations from last semester. I haven't decided whether to go back to practicing law or hang myself."
Yikes.
Labels: 1L
posted by The Lioness @ 10:59 AM
13 Comments:
... Wow. That's so wide open, that I'm not even going to go there.
Hahaha.
To be fair, it's not the LRW instructors who are at fault. The law school needs to put some money into the program to hire more instructors. LRW classes of 100 people are always going to suck. And that damn assignment book the LRW profs. use is ridiculous.
I really think that the law school administration is making a mistake by letting the LRW program get so bad. So far as I can tell, virtually every other law school in the country has a better writing program than UT. In fact, when I was interviewing for 1L summer jobs, an interviewer actually told me that, in his experience, UT students have really bad research and writing skills. It was embarrassing.
That said, I suppose that order in the law school universe would be forever destroyed if anything were done to actually make the educational experience better and more useful.
Also, note to Dean Sager (if he ever reads this):
I know that there'll probably never be a big change in the LRW program, but if you get ambitious, improving LRW would make a lot of people very happy.
Seriously? There are 100 people in your legal research and writing class? We had 18. That is awful. How can they give you any individual feedback?
There are some 3L teaching assistants that provide some feedback, but there's really only one point in the semester at which we receive any serious face-to-face feedback.
That is great. I do think that most of the writing profs know how we view the class. Hell, they know the work required and the fact that the class is only worth one credit. How much effort do they really think we are going to put into it?
Anon is right. All the LR&W profs want to have a better system, but with 100 students in each class it's simply impossible for there to be individualized feedback. The biggest problem is that improving the LR&W program won't (generally) bring more students here, won't (generally) improve our standings in USNWR, and legal research and writing profs (the only profs that actually teach something practical) are widely regarded as the red-headed step-children of legal academia.
Until the administration actually starts listening to the LR&W profs and puts more money into the program it will pretty much stay the same.
Oh, and don't knock the research book too much, imagine if 1Ls just got sent out into the library to do research without a foundation for it. All memos would be written by using terms & connectors searches.
Finally, there's something my school (Colorado) isn't the worst at. When I was a 1L, each Legal Writing teacher had two sections of 20 students. And each teacher has two 2/3L assistants.
there's a lot of things that could be fixed with the LRLW program, but the 1-credit thing is definitely the most glaring problem, in my mind. making it a 2- or 3-credit class would at least create some sort of incentive to work on it.
but when my LRLW prof assigns about as much weekly work as my contracts prof, which class is going to get most of my attention, the 4-credit class or the 1-credit class?
and as long as we're on the subject, what could we do with that extra hour or two? COMPARATIVE TEXAS LAW. in both my property and my crimlaw classes, the profs tend to teach to the generic course material but test on comparative texas law. and many of us will be working in texas -- those that won't would benefit from learning the process for whatever state they're in.
on that same note, citation work could be compressed down to about a third of what it is now and tested in a multiple-choice exam. it's not as if i'm not going to just look that shit up when i'm actually in practice. memorizing it doesn't do jack. let the LRLW profs come up with a big "how to cite" flowchart and be done with it. waste. of. time. take that time, give us a Brian Garner book and John Trimble's book, and let us practice our writing skills.
jesus, this isn't fucking rocket science, sager.
i'm pretty sure that schiess would teach a 8-hour course if they'd just let him.
on the other hand, if no one showed up to his class, he'd probably just gleefully talk about comma placement and the brilliance of Foreigner.
<3
Schiess likes Foreigner?
Just in case he's reading:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5_qhnWByA4&mode=related&search=
Plus, just wait till you graduate and you find out that you've been taught citations using the wrong book...
Plus, just wait till you graduate and you find out that you've been taught citations using the wrong book...
all the more reason for the classes and profs to put together usable, collaborative "cheat sheets" -- could be broadened to encompass different citation standards. as i said, i'm probably just going to use the manual no matter what i've been taught -- might as well teach to that.
Post a Comment
<< Home