CU Law Profiles
Featured Questions & Answers

Take at least one class each year that is totally outside the area in which you think you want to practice. You?ll have a more rounded education, you will meet different professors and you?ll learn new and different things. Few people wind up practicing in a specialty so narrow that knowledge of others legal topics doesn?t give them a bigger perspective. I?d also suggest that you take advantage of the resources of the law school and law library. Learning good research skills now can make a tremendous different in both your time and your bottom line when you?re in the workplace.

Consider all the variables--your interest in the subject, who is teaching it, its usefulness to your career plans. Don't follow a narrow career path.

Take the courses that interest you. Do not worry about taking courses that are on the bar exam, because you will take a bar refresher course to cover that material. Take as wide a range of courses that interest you as possible, because you never know what might tickle your fancy, and you will likely never have another chance to study some of these issues, at least not in the depth that they are studied in law school.

Choose subjects that interest you, but also choose the core courses that you may need to practice law, such as Administrative Law.

Take at least one course in an area of the law that you know you will never revisit because your career is going in other directions. If you know you?re going to do tort litigation, take a course in environmental law. If you know you?re going out to save the environment, take a course in antitrust or patents and copyright. If you know you?re going to represent defendants in criminal cases, take a course in employment discrimination. If you know you?re going to litigate civil liberties cases, take a course in tax law. And whatever you do, take Complex Civil Litigation. (For a third time, I must hope my colleagues will indulge my enthusiasm for a course that I teach.)

I would avoid being overly concerned about career tracking. The main goal of law teaching is to give students the intellectual tools to analyze legal problems. This is much more important than the memorization of black-letter doctrine in specific subject areas. Take courses that sound interesting; take courses from professors whose classes you enjoy; and keep an open mind about your career options. If you do, you may discover a latent interest in the environment or labor or (to plug my own area) criminal justice!

Branch out. Take some weird courses. Take courses from professors who help you learn the best. Resist taking courses simply because they're on the bar exam.

Strive for a balanced course load of basic core/bar courses, peppered with classes/seminars that you want to take simply because they interest you.

Get a well-rounded legal education. Take a course that pushes the envelope for you personally, and get a practical grounding in a subject by taking a clinical course.

Don't worry about the bar exam. A review course will teach you what you need to know.

Remember that this is a university program not simply a vocational school; take courses that interest you and that exercise your appetite for critical reflection, not just those that you imagine will be important to your career.

1. Know what you want.
2. Seek the advice of experts.
3. Develop a plan.
4. Implement the plan.
5. Review and renew the plan

Take courses in the area of law that you would eventually like to practice.

After asking various people what classes I should take, I?ve come to a compromise. I?ve decided to take some subjects because I am interested in them, and some subjects because they are on the bar.

Take professors that you enjoy learning from, subjects that you are interested in (this is a good indicator of whether or not you will be good at it and it will also make it easier to pay attention), and another consideration is what is tested on the bar exam.

Choose classes that interest you, even if they are out of your comfort zone and even if they are not on the bar exam.

We will not learn all the substance we need to know in law school. Knowing that choose classes you are interested in taking. Don't choose based on what others say you must take or what is on the bar. Take advantage of this time to study things that you want.