The bar exam is coming – late July – 5-6 more weeks.  I can tell because the complaining on facebook and other social media is increasing.   None of the complainers really say the exam is too hard; the complaints are that the passing rate is too low, sort of a back door complaint that it is too hard, or perhaps graded too hard.

My students have heard me say many times over the years that the bar exam is a function of effort.   You will pass the bar exam if you make sufficient effort.  If you have finished law school and got at least Cs in the foundational courses, Contracts, Property, Constitutional Law etc you will pass the bar exam if you prepare properly. Continue reading →

I have commented to my students many times that one reason they  have trouble with Biz Orgs is that they lack a basic foundation in contract law.   Why is this, I wonder?  Students think of contracts as offer, acceptance, consideration, counter-offers, the mail box rule, the mirror-image rule and so on.  It’s really far  more simple than that.  I gave an exam in my UCC class once where a guy bought a computer at Frys.  When paying for the computer, he gave the check-out person a purchase order.  The purchase order had a bunch of terms, which, of course, were completely to the benefit of the buyer.  But the clerk took the form, took his money, and the guy walked out the door with the computer.  Most of the students struggled trying to identify the “offer,” the “acceptance,” etc.   The issue was whether the terms of the buyer’s purchase order were part of the contract.  There is clearly a contract.  There was never any conceivable issue about whether a contract existed.     Continue reading →

I have been reviewing the briefs turned in by students last week.  I have some comments.

For question 2, it doesn’t do anyone much good to know that Hannewald is the plaintiff.   We need to know what part he plays in the case.  In Hannewald, the plaintiff is a creditor.  The defendant is an individual who owns a corporation that Hannewald entered into the contract with.  How can the individual be liable for a debt of the corporation.  Isn’t there “limited liability?”  That is what this case is about.  This is “creditor of corp versus owner of corp.”  That is what question 2 should say. Continue reading →

How to Be the World’s Best Law Student | Warren Binford | Willamette Univ. College of Law | ILT 2015

This is a great article entitled How to be the World’s Best Law Professor.  By Prof. Warren Binford.  Start a great blog and make your students follow it?  No, that is not one of her recommendations.  The article opened my eyes a little.  Now I have to figure out how to at least get a little closer to her ideals.  Here are her main points in my humble opinion. Continue reading →

Law school exams, the bane of my existence.  This is such a good lesson from the blog UCLA Law Prof. Stephen Bainbridge.  Reprinted verbatim.

Exam drafting tips for a new law teacher

Continue reading →

I have started this blog as my latest attempt to figure out a way to communicate with my students as a group.  The past few years I have tried different things but none have worked.  So we will see how this idea goes.

I want to communicate with my students as a group for a number of reasons:

1. I get emails during the semester with questions that I am happy to respond to however the response obviously goes only to the student who sent the email. That is inefficient and sometimes other students will think a particular student is getting “special treatment.”
2. I often give students some instruction during class, i.e., “skip the next case,” or read some additional case, and for the next week I will get bunches of emails from students asking me to clarify that.  This blog will allow me to give the instruction again “on the record.”
3. I often think of things after class that I wish I would have said or forgot to mention at all or said in a clearer way.  Again, I can use this blog to clarify my thoughts on something.
4. I think a lot about how to help my students.  I try to think of ways to help students with the “big picture,” as well as help with specific legal concepts.  I do my best thinking by writing things down.  Explaining something to myself by writing it down helps me clarify the thought to myself.  It often makes me realize that I do not understand something as well as I thought I did.
5. I run across things in the newspapers, or on the television, or on other blogs/websites that I think my students would like to know.  For the most part, what you learn in law school is how it really works.  The rules we study are the same rules that judges use in deciding cases.  When I talk to my biz org students about insider trading and then see an article that highlights what I was talking about, I would like to share that with the students.  This blog should help with that.

What I need from you.

1. Please click “Follow” this blog.  That way you will get an email each time I post something.
2. When a student sends me an email with a question, I will post the question on the blog and then answer it.  I will not state the name of the person who has asked the question unless you instruct me to do so.