Mine as well. It was an elective, and I keenly regretted electing it. The prof was one of the best at my school - but there just isn’t much you can do, IMHO, to make this stuff interesting.
Second-worst was a seminar on criminal sentencing - it should have been excellent, but the prof was very old, and essentially phoned it in, had the students teach the material.
Definitely Tax. It was a compulsory second year course, taught by the driest practitioner on the face of the earth, for three hours first thing Friday morning. Gak.
Conflict of laws boring?!? what’s up with you guys? spindle-shaped submarines, and cases that begin: “Berta, a Moldavian Jew, while fleeing the Nazis, meets and marries Albrecht, a Roman Catholic Bavarian, when they are both on an Argentine ship bound for Israel…” I mean, it just doesn’t get better than that!
In all seriousness, Commercial Transactions (Sale of Goods allied with Bank Act security and Personal Property Security) was my least favourite class, due to the subject matter, the prof, and the time of the class, all combining to my worst mark in three years and a god-awful hang-over the day after marks came out. Of course, the irony is that I’ve since argued several cases involving secured transactions…
Federal Income Tax taught en français was actually a lot of fun.
I was never able to find a correlation between my grades in my courses, my enjoyment of my courses, and my ability in my courses. It was all pretty random.
As it turned out, my most enjoyable course in law school was a grad course in environmental science in the geography department, and although my practice focus is family law, I never took a course in it in law school. I figured that law school was my one shot at taking courses in areas that I would never have the opportunity to learn much about after law school (e.g. public international law).
^
I agree with Muffin. I disliked Land Law immensely in my second year, yet it was my highest scoring subject of the year. Wonder why such things happen, in other disciplines if you dislike something and or find it hard, you don’t do well in them, unlike law.
OTH, I have also in practice founf myself quite enjoying doing cases in areas I disliked at school, I have argued several Trust cases and obviously I deal with Civil Procedure daily.
Mine was “Foundations of the Regulatory state”, a required class at my Alma Mater, taught by the dryest Professor in history. It was simultaneously boring, incomprehensable and useless. I don’t think I would have gotten through it except one of my classmates discovered that the entire class was simply going through one of the Professor’s published papers. (Every lecture covered about a page, all the readings were the footnotes, etc.)
Civ Pro.
The best way to learn this is by doing - moots and other such exercises. That can be kinda fun (if nerve-wracking); it was how the subject was approached in the bar ad courses; it is how it is done in numerous trial advocacy prefessional development programs. But did we do that in class? No we did not - our prof more or less had us reading the rules, an exercise as entertaining and informative as reading the telephone book. :rolleyes:
This except for the professor. Professor sucked and I suck.
Really, you can divide my law school grades into two categories: does not involve numbers (got an A) and involves numbers (got a C and hated).
Criminal law, although this was because of the lecturer’s incompetence, rather than the subject matter itself.
Well, I was exactly the opposite of you and Muffin. I really liked first-semester contracts and got the highest grade in the class. I didn’t really like second-semester property and I didn’t do so hot.
Not a big fan of remedies. BizAss, but only because of the professor.
Mine was Jurisprudence (required at my alma mater at the time – hope it’s not any more). It wasn’t the professor – I had him for Torts too, and enjoyed that as much as anyone enjoys that sort of thing. Jurisprudence was just a completely useless tour through semantic debates among law professors, as far as I could tell. I think I did well enough in the class.
Loved the future interests in real property, though, like lezler. Along with the puzzle-like qualities, it pushed my English history buttons. By far my favorite, but I don’t do anything in that area now, of course.
I know I took Conflicts, but I don’t remember a thing about it. Could it have been that traumatic?
Constitutional Law. I’m not much into theory, and this class just seemed like repeated arguments over politics and value judgments. As well as endless discussions of the state of the dormant commerce clause at various points in the lives of my grandparents. If memory serves, I thrived in the statutory cases: UCC, bankruptcy, tax, corp tax, T&E.
I recall my professional responsibility course as being very nitpicky. Although I liked the professor, all I remember of the material is, don’t sleep with your client at the office, and don’t pay a juror from your trust account.
Constitutional Law - yawnfest.
International Law - what is it and where do I find it?
CivPro without a shadow of a doubt. No way it should be a first year course, seeing as it is pretty much the only course I actually use as a litigator. But boring as all hell.
Runner up was Corporations. I never had any interest in transactional law, so just took this as a filler (didn’t take any tax or wills & trust type classes). The rest of my selections were almost exclusively constitutional or criminal courses, together with antitrust, which is what I ended up doing…
Wills and Estates.
::shudder::
Look on the bright side. At least you didn’t have to sit through Barbri wondering “What in Christ’s name is she talking about” for that part of it…
Even though I know it’s important and I’m glad I took it: Admin Law. You know what? I just don’t fucking care whether it’s a “day planner” or a diary.
ADA “statutory interpretation”, then civ pro.
Where did you go to law school? This was one of the options for our statutory interpretation (2nd semester 1L) class as well. The original professor who taught it (and was fantastic, it was worth taking anything from him) left at the end of my 1L year in 2003.