Going To Law School

more than anything else while ilx was down i missed burt_stanton subtle-bragging about the girls at law school who want to sleep with him

They don't really, and I haven't had sex in about a year, so I wouldn't get too bent out of shape over it.

sounds like you already are

What's the best torts hornbook? My torts professor is totally amazing, but he's so good at coming up with weird hypos and poking holes in the law that I lose track of what the black letter rules are and I suppose I ought to know them for the exam

This is slightly harder than I thought it would be. I'm slightly tempted to just drop out and go back to writing.

Here's a dark secret I learned: 25% of the class is made up of part-time students, most of whom don't work ... they just have two classes a semester. Whether it's coincidence or not, almost all of the students on law review and top 10% are part-time students. What a scam. or should I say, scamola.

No, I think scam's right.

Wait, really? I haven't found that to be true at my school -- the only part-timers I've met are working, and the only law review/top-10% people I know so far are full-timers.

So far I find the endurance harder than the material itself. But I'm kind of enjoying the stoicism of it.

I mean if that's true (xpost) they really ought to have slots reserved for part-timers and full-timers -- it doesn't make sense to have the two competing on grades.

Yeah, it's pretty lame the way it works. I guess Carbozo does it so that they can keep their LSAT average up (it's only full-time), but they can collect tuition by the 25% of students who are part-time. I suppose they recognize people out there are too smart to go to that school if they get a 165 on the LSAT (which can get you into a lot of top 20-25 schools not in big city areas).

Also even kids on law review are having a tough time finding work, apparently.

Not sure I follow your reasoning here. Why would Cardozo want to give the allegedly less smart, lower LSAT part-time students an easier shot at making law review and top 10 percent?

I'm sure they could care less; higher LSAT average + tons of tuition money = happy administrators.

Well yeah, but dumber, lazier "top graduates" = weaker school reputation.

Doesn't seem like law review kids are getting hired anyway. Now I'm beginning to see the light, jdunderground. now I am.

It's called a recession.

What's the best torts hornbook?

Prosser and Keeton on Torts

womp whomp. The big issue is that Wall Street will "never be the same", which means the structure of NYC metro legal life will never be the same, since the two are linked inseperably, though the work itself, and through the tax dollars it brought (which created government and public interest law work). Though maybe there'll be a new boom in regulation law and regulation fighters at law firms. Regulations, t hat's the ticket.

Posner. Something to do with Posner. Go with that.

Fuck a Posner.

Yeah, but when the economy gets bad enough, nothing is the same. There are fewer jobs in every field. The government hires fewer teachers, people do fewer renovations on their homes, people buy less shit, etc. Nothing is really safe.

seriously, this is the one to read

http://west.thomson.com/productdetail/3263/22092568/productdetail.aspx

yes, Prosser and Keeton is the classic torts 'hornbook' that everyone has heard of (Dobbs is an alternate choice), but that is not necessarily what hurting is looking for. it may be a huge collection of valuable additional material (that hasn't been updated for 20 years) for an efficient/dedicated student to use as supplement to the textbook, and maybe torts is the kind of class that calls for such effort, but hurting may in fact be looking for a briefer 'study aid'. in most classes, a book from the examples and explanations (or the understanding...) series can be useful, provided that you don't try to use the books as a shortcut for your real work and do concentrate on the example questions and try to look a little bit to other sources as well, but torts (or contracts?) might be the class in which these aids have the least utility. i found this book to be a somewhat useful compromise, though my example is not necessarily one to follow.

My torts prof is one of the reporters on the 3rd restatement of torts -- he's a leading authority, and the book, which he co-wrote, is very very good. Except that it's so fucking smart about questioning what are normally considered common law rules that sometimes I lose track of what I'm supposed to be remembering.

He also has a real penchant for bad opinions that he can make fun of in class.

um gabbneb he asked for a hornbook. prosser is a hornbook, one that is used all the time, by actual lawyers.

please keep in mind as well, gabbs, when it comes to secondary sources, there are many different avenues to take. I was just offering one solution.

I just know that I've been using Glannon for Civ Pro and it makes an enormous difference. Sometimes I feel like the class and text are more like "Civ Pro 300: Issues and Problems" and the Glannon book is like the 100 level Intro to Civ Pro course.

So I guess I'm looking for a similar experience for Torts. I don't want something that oversimplifies the material, just something where you don't lose the forest for the trees.

i would also do these things: a) go to your library and ask what they would recommend or b) ask your professor and c) ask around in general, other students, then look through the books and see what makes the most sense for you and what you want out of the book.

um gabbneb he asked for a hornbook. prosser is a hornbook, one that is used all the time, by actual lawyers.

law students often use the term 'hornbook' loosely to refer to study aids that are not denominated (or actually) hornbooks, such as the glannon book hurting cites for civ pro (an equivalent of which for torts is the book i linked to upthread). and what is useful for lawyers in their practice is often quite different from what is useful for law students trying to learn the law.

i was just answering the question, as it was asked, to the best of my knowledge. i am well aware of all of these things that you mention in your post. i am sure you are a wonderful lawyer.

you're not well aware of what it's like to be a first-year law student. and i'm suggesting that given this fact, you might leave the advice to those who are. asking the professor, for instance, might well be bad advice, to put it mildly.

you might want to drop the condescending attitude. i'm sure hurting is smart enough to separate out good ideas from the bad on this thread.

there's no one "right" answer to hurting's question, and i have never suggested I know what it's like to be a first year law student. i just know what it's like to work in a law library. if hurting doesn't like my advice, he doesn't have to listen to it. nor do you. so shut the fuck up.

you might want to drop the condescending attitude

or i might not. i'm merely returning the favor. however, in this situation, no condescension is required.

glannon also wrote the torts examples and explanations if that's what you mean. i used it for exam studying and i did a good job in torts.

yeah, i forgot about that at first, but vaguely remember one of the glannons (i'm pretty sure it was civ pro) seeming/being more useful than the other, though maybe i was just put off by the lack of correspondence in the cases and in any event ymmv.

a quick persual suggested that the torts glannon didn't go deep enough maybe?

OK whatever what I want to know is how burt stanton is in smarty-pants law school writing like this:

I'm sure they could care less

I just thoughtlessly wrote "OTM" in the margins of my Civ Pro casebook.

Justice Rehnquist OTM.

I was just advised not to use a hornbook for my torts guy (by another faculty member here) because he disagrees so strongly with the traditional characterizations of so many cases and even with some of the 2nd restatements.

then that class is one where your exam should be regurgitating every personal opinion this guy has on torts

you want to understand the material, but you want to express it in the terms set forth by your professor, not another source

xp

Classic or douche: Asking a lot of questions because you don't want the professor to get to the case you haven't read yet and you know she'll fall for it

'things you were happy to have forgotten all about' for $200

torts (or contracts?) might be the class in which these aids have the least utility.

This is true IMO. Civil Procedure is much easier to summarize in a widely-available commercial study aid because Civil Procedure is (a) statute-based and (b) most schools emphasize the federal rules of civil procedure.

By contrast, Torts and Contracts are (a) common-law subjects and (b) entirely state-law based.

I was just advised not to use a hornbook for my torts guy (by another faculty member here) because he disagrees so strongly with the traditional characterizations of so many cases and even with some of the 2nd restatements.

― Everything is Highlighted (Hurting 2), Friday, September 26, 2008 11:23 AM (5 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

then that class is one where your exam should be regurgitating every personal opinion this guy has on torts

― cutty, Friday, September 26, 2008 11:26 AM (5 hours ago) Bookmark

OTM. Yeah, your professors know that you're going to have to learn the black letter law of torts for the bar. That's probably not what they're teaching.

If you want "Torts 100" it sounds like you want a study aid or commercial outline, not a "hornbook." If so, you kind of do want something that oversimplifies the material. That way you can focus instead on what your prof is trying to teach you. You can look at something like Glannon or Gilbert Torts in a Nutshell if you want the "Torts 100" version.

Seriously, don't try to get it from the Restatement. The Restatement is neither succinct nor, technically speaking, is it always correct. "The" Restatement is only an attempt to restate the common law.

Relating to the "Shit Bin" thread, I'm totally getting some "GET OUT NOW!" vibes with Car0d0z0. Will NYC legal life really be affected by this whole unprecedented Wall Street catastrophe?

It seems like nobody wants to even touch this subject ... I try to talk about it to the other students and they're like, "no no no no no it's all going to be OK, don't worry, it all goes back to normal." But ... will it? ?? ??????

no. you will be living in a cardboard box soon, with copies of the Federal Reporter for your blankets

it will be fine

OK, good.

Ok, I fucking hate the way civil procedure is taught at my school and I am sick of it. The "development" of current rules/case-law (which we learn by studying law that is often no longer good) is hardly interesting or useful enough to spend as much time as we do, and to make things worse we read the cases OUT OF FUCKING ORDER (both chronological and as presented in the book). It's a boring enough subject to begin with. Teach us the rules and concepts we need and move on. It is NOT USEFUL to me to know that supplemental jurisdiction developed out of things called "ancillary" and "pendent" jurisdiction that the courts were all confused about anyway, let alone to spend a week and a half on it before learning the current law.