Real vs. TV Law School: More Cold Calling, Fewer Murder Coverups

[Ailianna]

When I went to law school, there was no such thing as wifi, and the only people who brought laptops to class were the group in the back of evidence who were watching DVD movies on mute through class. Everyone took notes long hand, exams were long hand, and while there were certainly study groups in my school, there weren't any generational outlines. This was probably partially because my section had 4 profs who were teaching for the first time, and our CivPro prof was writing a case book and giving us chapters out of his manuscript to read (but at least we didn't have to pay for those handouts--and I mean photocopies of pages handed out in class!). It's funny to me to think of a bunch of law students who can't manage without their technology in class. We didn't even have power outlets in class so some of those movie watchers would kill their batteries half way through the movie if they weren't careful.

[Chicago Redshirt]

A few other thoughts about the latest episode:

 

Michaela mentions that the Tillman outline came from someone who won the "Kepler Diploma" (or some such) three years in a row. That just sounds like words strung together to me.

 

The 1Ls were grousing about having to prepare for their torts exam. In my experience, Torts is probably one of the more easy-to-understand 1L classes. Torts covers such areas as negligence, assault, defamation and such. And maybe this is my personal bias, but it was also more interesting because the cases tended to be much more concrete about Person A doing something to Person B and whether there should be liability and what should the proper remedy be.

 

The Shooting Star/"I'm not the Shooting Star" thing was very Shondaland dialogue. I don't know if I ever experienced people having that sort of meltdown prior to exams. Like I think someone upthread said, after grades came back and a bunch of high-achieving people ended up getting less than the As they'd grown accustomed to, that happened.

 

For those who don't know, law school classes are graded on a curve generally. 

[Stinger97]

I've seen people take notes longhand, and I have no idea how they do it.  And honestly, sometimes its almost like the constant thinking will be too much, and I just have to take a quick mental break to look at shoes online for a minute or two.

 

A minute or two? Girl, you're more disciplined than me. I think I spent 75% of my business associations course reading Buzzfeed articles. 

 

That said, in 2014, people are probably not going to bother carrying around hard copies of their outlines, generally. They'll just have them on their computers. 

 

Folks typically create the outlines on their computer, but then print them out for the exam (since most 1L finals are open book). I know at my school, we use a program called Exam4, which allows you to input and upload your answers to the program, but locks all other programs on your computer so that you cannot access the internet, etc. So, with Exam4, an open book exam limits you to only your notes in hardcopy. 

[Chicago Redshirt]

^True, eventually they will print them out for classes that allow you to bring in outlines (some law school exams, in my experience at least, are closed book).

 

More of what I meant was it's doubtful that Michaela would have had opportunity to steal a hard copy outline from Laurel's bag, since people are probably not going to generally be toting the hard copy outline out days in advance. 

 

I'd also say that those outlines looked to be humongous -- like easily 100+ pages -- and therefore of limited use in an exam because you probably wouldn't be able to find what you need in the 3-hour time frame you had for the exam.

[RealityGal]

A minute or two? Girl, you're more disciplined than me. I think I spent 75% of my business associations course reading Buzzfeed articles. 

 

 

Folks typically create the outlines on their computer, but then print them out for the exam (since most 1L finals are open book). I know at my school, we use a program called Exam4, which allows you to input and upload your answers to the program, but locks all other programs on your computer so that you cannot access the internet, etc. So, with Exam4, an open book exam limits you to only your notes in hardcopy. 

I was just trying to impress you all :) 

 

But the one time I was always on the internet is when a student starts asking one of those questions that they are only asking to either try to stump the professor, or impress us all with their brilliance.  I just couldn't with all that.  They were the ones making up super complex and nonsensical hypos "okay but what if you detrimentally relied on the contract, but then, you got in a car accident, but the consideration from the other party was just that they showed up, but they touched some downed power lines and now they are dead, can you sue the estate?"

 

There is one guy that loved doing that, and the professor was too nice to tell him to shut the fuck up, so I was getting Amazon packages every week.

Edited October 18, 2014 by RealityGal

[rumidha]

Wow, so much nostalgia going through this thread. Anyway, here are my thoughts on the whole real life vs reel life thing. I think the fear of being called on in class is universal, Shondaland classroom or no. I liked the little detail of there already being a decent amount of reading on the first day itself. From 4.04, yes, it's ridiculous that everybody is walking around with hard copies of the most uselessly big outlines I've ever seen. Re. the competitiveness, I've actually seen/heard of both. My school, or rather, my section specifically, we were all nice to each other, there was never this agenda of trying to screw over other students. The other sections didn't really have that camaraderie. There was an urban legend about another school in the area that people were slitting pages out of library books so that other students wouldn't be able to access that info. Also, I will say this about Annalise's classroom. With the exception of how many students it fits (200 instead of the up to 100 I had), my lecture halls looked exactly like that. There certainly wasn't enough table space for everything you needed, so your laptop would go on the table itself and your casebook would be propped up in your lap.

The rest of this (1Ls really don't work at all, Annalise playing fast and loose with ethics and evidence rules, the really intense personal space violations with Annalise and Wes, EVERYTHING ELSE, oy) have been well covered by everyone else. This show is so very, very ridiculous, but I can't imagine not watching.

[Tigershark]

 

 

Outlines are passed down from student to student not unlike what was in the show, at least in my experience. Even though many of my profs said that the benefit of outlines is actually working through the cases and doing the summaries yourself, it's easy to want to take the shortcut.

That said, in 2014, people are probably not going to bother carrying around hard copies of their outlines, generally. They'll just have them on their computers.

In fact, it would be fairly rare that anyone in law school wouldn't have a computer on class to take notes (or more likely, Facebook or otherwise surf the net). In the classroom scene there are definitely a lot of computers, but some people, like Wes don't have them.

 

One of my friends who graduated nine-years before me sent me some her 1L outlines.  I think she passed down her Civ. Pro. outline to everyone she ever met, because everyone in my section had a copy of it that they got off some outline bank somewhere.  It was just a good summary of the professor and his class that it was considered to be the gold standard for outlines, at least for that class.  Ironically, she got a C- in that class.  She was a really good student and graduated in the top 10% of her class, but just did not do well on that exam.  

 

I had hard copies of everything (I graduated in 2013).  I retained and comprehend things a lot better when reading a hard copy versus a computer screen.  For most of my 1L classes, I took notes by hand.  I really like taking notes in the margin of casebooks, right next to the case being discussed because I don't have to write as much and can circle and star the important points from the case rather than paraphrase them.  I switched to using a laptop my 2L year when I had two professors who did everything on powerpoint, and would email the slides to the class ahead of time.  It was much easier to follow along when I had the slides in front of me and I could take notes in the notes section.

Edited October 22, 2014 by Tigershark

[helenamonster]

From the 01-08 episode thread:

 

Similarly, getting a copy of an exam -- or several exams -- that a specific professor used before helps because it gives you a sense of what kinds of questions the professor might ask. (One professor can teach a given subject very differently from another professor, be interested in different things and grade very differently.) And it lets you practice writing the kind of answers they might be looking for. Oftentimes, the professor will make available model answers, or review answers to the old exams during office hours. And hypothetically, law school classes aren't entirely about rote memorization, but applying legal reasoning to facts and then reaching a conclusion.

 

I had a question for current/former law students (I figured this could also be the thread where those of us not well-versed in the law and law school goings-on could ask questions). I'm an undergrad, and at my school, I'm fairly certain getting your hands on an old copy of an exam to study would be in direct violation of the academic integrity policy. I have professors who put up study guides for exams, but never have I had one put up last year's exam for us to study from. Do law schools exams usually change year-to-year so seeing the old one is not much of a problem?

[Chicago Redshirt]

Law school exams are fairly different from other exams that at least I have taken. They generally are essay exams that consist of somewhere between 3-8 hypothetical scenarios that ask the students to determine how the law should apply in them. Some professors give open book, take-home exams, some give multiple-choice, some might have papers, and some give mix-and-match essays/multiple choice. But the standard approach is for you to have three hours in class to do an essay exam.

 

Generally speaking, a professor is going to write a new exam each year for his/her class, in part because there may be changes in the law in the course, and in part because they like coming up with new hypothetical situations. A fair amount of mine liked to rip situations from the headlines. Also, the test Professor Smith might have for a contracts class might be very different than a test that Professor Jones might have for a class on the same subject.

 

As far as I know, there was no issue about academic integrity in terms of obtaining old exams and using those to study. At least at my law school, and I suspect at most law schools, some professors even had copies of their past exams on reserve at the library.

[helenamonster]

Thanks for answering! I assumed that when Connor pulled out the old exam that he (and, by extension, Laurel and Wes) would be cheating. Good to know that even people who dispose of bodies and engage in various other law-breaking activities still have a sense of academic integrity.

[RealityGal]

From the 01-08 episode thread:

 

 

I had a question for current/former law students (I figured this could also be the thread where those of us not well-versed in the law and law school goings-on could ask questions). I'm an undergrad, and at my school, I'm fairly certain getting your hands on an old copy of an exam to study would be in direct violation of the academic integrity policy. I have professors who put up study guides for exams, but never have I had one put up last year's exam for us to study from. Do law schools exams usually change year-to-year so seeing the old one is not much of a problem?

Yes, most of my professors change up the exam every year and will release a few past exams for you to write/study from.  Most of the time its a fairly recent exam (within the past year) and maybe a few from a couple of years back.  But older exams may reflect law that has changed or been updated or that they think will be tested on the bar.

[xtwheeler]

There was an urban legend about another school in the area that people were slitting pages out of library books so that other students wouldn't be able to access that info.

I can confirm this is not just urban legend. My first year of law school, someone had cut out all of the cases for our Legal Writing and Research assignments from the book. I personally experienced this. We had to borrow the books from the professors library (i went to school in the dark ages; while Lexis and Westlaw existed, we still had to use books for LW&R.)

But, I went to a law school known for being extremely competitive and, well, full of conniving assholes.

[Calamity Jane]

I don't know much about law school, just what my son told me about his experiences, but I think most people in professions could say similar things about how badly TV portrays their field.  As a teacher, I roll my eyes or laugh every single time a classroom/teacher/principal is part of a show.  Too many things to list, but one of the worst is when teachers just walk out of their classrooms, leaving no adult in charge, much less a certificated person.  Grounds for revoking your credential if anyone gets hurt, and for being fired even if nothing happens.  

 

Possibly all jobs are just as poorly depicted, although I doubt it.  

[Azaelia]

One thing that puzzled me was - do graduate/law schools usually have sororities? That seems very undergrad to me. Or was Lilah supposed to be an undergrad, and I missed that? What about Rebecca? My initial impression was that she was another student, but now I'm questioning whether she just happened to have an apartment near the campus. 

 

 

As a teacher, I roll my eyes or laugh every single time a classroom/teacher/principal is part of a show.

 

 

I have no idea why, but it seriously seems to me like people who write movies and shows have never been in an actual school before. Because you're right, often it's very unrealistic. (Although I did have a teacher who would leave us for fifteen minutes at a time, but we all knew she wasn't supposed to do it.) Is it that they've been out so long, they forget and rely on tropes from other movies?

 

I DO think that to a point, portraying less realistic scenarios is easier, of course. Using your school example, showing kids doing five hours of homework doesn't make for an engaging show. At the same time, I do notice how realistic versus unrealistic they are.

Edited January 31, 2015 by Azaelia

[Chicago Redshirt]

My understanding is that Lila was an undergrad. Since she was taking/had recently taken a class with Sam, she was almost certainly not a law school student. 

 

Rebecca was a bartender and a "townie," although townie doesn't seem appropriate since this is taking place in Philadelphia rather than a small college town.

[Chicago Redshirt]

The latest episode featured the concept of "a pass," and I think explained it fairly well. If you absolutely didn't know the answer to something, you could say "pass," and the professor would presumably move on to the next target. For those of you who may have watched "Spartacus," it's like missio, though -- it's supposed to be extremely disgraceful and embarrassing.

 

This being "Murder," they took it to the extreme. No student would pass on a question he could BS his way through. I forget the actual question Anni asked, but it was something that I'd bet someone whose law education is watching reruns of "The Practice" could probably spit out something.

 

Similarly, a law professor isn't going to waste time on a student who admits he doesn't have a clue. There are plenty of other folks that she could pick on, and she could just hammer Wes in private.

[FozzyBear]

The latest episode featured the concept of "a pass," and I think explained it fairly well. If you absolutely didn't know the answer to something, you could say "pass," and the professor would presumably move on to the next target. For those of you who may have watched "Spartacus," it's like missio, though -- it's supposed to be extremely disgraceful and embarrassing.

This being "Murder," they took it to the extreme. No student would pass on a question he could BS his way through. I forget the actual question Anni asked, but it was something that I'd bet someone whose law education is watching reruns of "The Practice" could probably spit out something.

Similarly, a law professor isn't going to waste time on a student who admits he doesn't have a clue. There are plenty of other folks that she could pick on, and she could just hammer Wes in private.

The question was the best strategy for a defendent accused of killing someone they new (or something to that effect. I forget the exact wording) and yeah, my Law & Order degree could get me a BS answer on that one.

[pennben]

The latest episode featured the concept of "a pass," and I think explained it fairly well. If you absolutely didn't know the answer to something, you could say "pass," and the professor would presumably move on to the next target. For those of you who may have watched "Spartacus," it's like missio, though -- it's supposed to be extremely disgraceful and embarrassing.

 

This being "Murder," they took it to the extreme. No student would pass on a question he could BS his way through. I forget the actual question Anni asked, but it was something that I'd bet someone whose law education is watching reruns of "The Practice" could probably spit out something.

 

Similarly, a law professor isn't going to waste time on a student who admits he doesn't have a clue. There are plenty of other folks that she could pick on, and she could just hammer Wes in private.

 

Oh, when I was in law school, one professor loved nothing more than dragging the ass of the person that wanted to pass, it was kind of fantastic.  However, I do note, as far as I am aware, none were involved in murder and covering it up, so that could explain different responses!:)

[jhlipton]

Oh, when I was in law school, one professor loved nothing more than dragging the ass of the person that wanted to pass, it was kind of fantastic.  However, I do note, as far as I am aware, none were involved in murder and covering it up, so that could explain different responses!:)

 

Also, Wes et al, are taking the Exact Same Class for a second time (would any law student do that, EVER?).  Why would he "pass"?

[pennben]

I see that as last year, they took HTGAWM I, this year they are taking HTGAWM II, an advanced course.  Like a multiple year course, as in Constitutional Law I, Constitutional Law II.  I wouldn't be surprised to learn there may be a 3,4,5 of HTGAWM advanced classes at that particular university:)

[PrincessTT]

Also, Wes et al, are taking the Exact Same Class for a second time (would any law student do that, EVER?).  Why would he "pass"?

 

I think that they're still in the same year... There were 3 months from the day they started Anni's class until the night that Sam was murdered, then a bit of time from the murder until the finale and then 10 days from the finale to the premiere.

 

I don't know how things work in the US but here uni students get a couple of months off in the summer, and the students on the show haven't had that. 

[secnarf]

Also Michaela mentions to Laurel "I won't know you next year" - to me, this implies that a) they are still in their first year and b) this gig with AK is only supposed to last one year.

[jhlipton]

I think that they're still in the same year... There were 3 months from the day they started Anni's class until the night that Sam was murdered, then a bit of time from the murder until the finale and then 10 days from the finale to the premiere.

 

I don't know how things work in the US but here uni students get a couple of months off in the summer, and the students on the show haven't had that. 

 

I kind of wished they had addressed that.  A simple "welcome back" would have told us that this is the same class after a break.

[Chicago Redshirt]

I'm also of the impression that they are still 1Ls.

 

The standard 1L curriculum consists of some combination of:

Torts (or various sorts of wrongdoing that is not so serious as to be considered necessarily criminal: accidents plus intentional injuries like batteries, intentional infliction of emotional distress, wrongful death, etc.)

Contracts

Criminal Law

Property

Civil Procedure (or a look at the rules of the civil justice system)

Constitutional Law

Legal Writing

 

My 1L year, students took two semesters of ConLaw, Legal Writing and Contracts. In addition, one semester was Torts and CivPro, and the other semester had Property and CrimLaw.

 

I wouldn't be surprised if students at some law schools took two semesters of Criminal Law or one semester of CrimLaw and one of CrimPro.

[RCharter]

Oh, when I was in law school, one professor loved nothing more than dragging the ass of the person that wanted to pass, it was kind of fantastic.  However, I do note, as far as I am aware, none were involved in murder and covering it up, so that could explain different responses!:)

Oh yes -- I felt like the professors were sort of obligated to pick students who weren't doing very well to brief cases.  Embarrassing them when they asked to "pass" was their way of putting the rest of the slackers on notice that they better do the reading.  

 

The most confusing and comical briefs were the ones done by students who were trying to read from a case brief they just pulled up online.  Sometimes it would be an earlier version of a case and you would be sitting there like "really?  I do not think thats what this case is about!"  Or they would have really, really long pauses as the professor asked a question because they were scrolling around the Wikipedia page trying to find the answer.  Good times, good times.

[secnarf]

Is the concept of "pass" a law school thing, or an American thing?

I have never enountered it in 8 years of university education. When I was watching the episode, I just interpreted it as this other prof allows them to pass if they don't know something (and has actually told them that pass is an option), while other profs, including AK, do not have this "rule". I had no idea that it was a common thing, but based on the discussion here, it seems to be.

[Chicago Redshirt]

It is at least a common American law school thing.

 

Most American law schools, I feel safe to say, use the Socratic method. The idea behind the Socratic method is that people learn most by answering questions (as opposed to just being lectured or writing papers or what have you, although I feel safe saying that every law school has classes of those natures as well.)

 

I haven't heard of "pass" being a thing in non-law school, because most non-law school classes don't use the Socratic method.

[RCharter]

Is the concept of "pass" a law school thing, or an American thing?

I have never enountered it in 8 years of university education. When I was watching the episode, I just interpreted it as this other prof allows them to pass if they don't know something (and has actually told them that pass is an option), while other profs, including AK, do not have this "rule". I had no idea that it was a common thing, but based on the discussion here, it seems to be.

 

I think its a law school thing like ChicagoRedshirt said because of the Socratic method.

 

And I don't really think its a thing there either, I just think students say it when they are called on and they don't know the answer.  Its universally accepted shorthand for "I didn't really read the case and I can't brief it."

 

Some professors will have a policy about "passes" in that they will tell you up front that you can have one pass for the entire semester without hassle or harassment, or there are no "passes" at all (which is a little silly IMO, because you literally can't force a person to talk, especially about a case they know nothing about), or if you have too many "passes" it might impact your grade.  

 

Most of my professors didn't have any "pass" policy, but law school is already a judgmental place full of type A overachieving personalities.  So, a lot of people are embarrassed by the idea of looking foolish in front of the class.  And than there are always the professors that will do everything in their power to, as someone else said, drag a student for passing.  And than sometimes  you'll really hit gold when a professor gets multiple people "passing" and they lose their temper and yell at the entire class.  That was always entertaining, because it was such high drama.

Edited September 30, 2015 by RCharter