I finally got a look at the course offerings for next year. Now I have a dilemma: what classes to take?
In the spring, I'm planning on taking Trademark, Telecom Law, and Tax.
Tax??? Is there anything more boring? Perhaps not, but the professor is really good and kept corporations from reaching the vast levels of boringness I'm sure it was otherwise capable of attaining on its own. And lots of people recommend taking tax, so I will. Even though it pollutes my schedule with Friday morning classes. I used to think I didn't mind them, but now that I've had Fridays off, it's hard to go back.
The question is what else to take. My choices:
Negotiation.
Trial advocacy (advanced).
Wills and Trusts.
Indian Law. Edit: interesting, but not a high priority.
Consumer law. (So I'd really be able to complain about Verizon.)
Administrative law. Edit: can't take, schedule conflict.
Secured transactions.
Criminal procedure.
I'm also looking into an independent study, either along with one of the above, although potentially instead of. Thoughts? Things I'll need to consider are unit count (I can do a 4 unit class - but will I want to?), whether it's a bar course (and if that's a good or bad thing since I'll do a bar review course), or whether it's something I should know anyway.
By the way, I've gone ahead and made a "Law school - the process (3L)" category to accomodate this post. I won't start using it until the summer though. I am not done with the 2L thing yet...
Comments (4)
I would take either consumer law or crim pro, if I were you, whichever has the better professor. These are both classes that I think you would find "fun", and neither should be especially time consuming (as compared to negotiation or trial advocacy). I have never in my career used crim pro (and never will), but really loved the class. Also, for you, consumer law and crim pro are good backstops career-wise, as I could see you going into either field if the dream IP job doesn't turn up.
I would reccomend taking administrative law instead of tax because you are so interested in the regulatory process (and regulations). It will complement your telecom and antitrust coursework nicely. Tax is much more useful for transactional lawyers than litigation types (and, frankly, a little bit of tax doesn't go very far-- folks either specialize in tax or avoid it).
I would think twice before doing independant study. You already have a lot of non-traditional courses (ie trial advocacy, etc), and adding more probably isn't the best idea, especially if you are trying to get into big league IP litigation. Also, classes like negotiation, trial advocacy and independant study are more likely to get you into time crunches like the ones you have had this semester.
Just my two cents...
Mark
Posted by Mark | April 20, 2005 10:47 AM
Posted on April 20, 2005 10:47
Good food for thought.
I'll ask more questions about the admin-tax thing. Admin would probably work into my schedule better, but I don't know anything about the professor. Whereas I'm excited about taking tax with this one. As a result, I'm also more enthused about the material. I might also learn what I want to know about regulatory law from the telecom class anyway.
If I do independent study it would be to learn some First Amendment doctrine. I really want to learn some of that, and there aren't really any structured opportunities that I can pursue to do it.
From what I understand, the trial advocacy class doesn't really have a time crunch factor until the end. I don't know about negotiation. I would suspect the Crim Pro, knowing the professor, to be a lot of work (it's also not straight crim pro). The consumer law workload I also couldn't guess, but the professor is great (he's the guy who sings in class).
Posted by Cathy | April 20, 2005 12:13 PM
Posted on April 20, 2005 12:13
Oh, I can't take admin - it conflicts with telecom law.
Posted by Cathy | April 20, 2005 12:20 PM
Posted on April 20, 2005 12:20
There's a good chance I'll take tax with Walker too (though I'm not certain), so that could be a good time.
Other than that, I think you'd enjoy Crim Pro. I took it this semester with Rossman, and I really enjoyed it, though I don't think he's teaching it next year. But it's really interesting, and all about justice, which you seem to be fond it. It's really made me hate Rehnquist, too.
Other than that, I haven't taken any of the classes involved...
Posted by Mike | April 20, 2005 12:39 PM
Posted on April 20, 2005 12:39