A Day in the Life

Students Helping Students

One of the most common topics about which we receive questions here in Admissions is the level of competition at the Law School.  The answer I usually give is that our students are competitive with themselves but not each other, and are, in fact, more than happy to help one another wade through Fed Jur or Con Law I.  A great example of this is a session organized by the Law Women's Caucus (LWC) to help 1Ls choose the best elective for the Spring Quarter.  All 1Ls choose one elective from a selection of seven to eight 2L/3L classes, including Legislation (taught by Professor Gersen '04), Health Law (taught by Professor Malani '00), Economic Analysis of the Law, and Copyright (taught by Professor Picker '85), as their fourth class.  To aid the 1Ls in this process member of the LWC held an informal session where the upperclassmen shared their experiences and opinions on specific classes and about the way to choose classes more generally.  One of the 1Ls in attendance, Michelle Sowemimo ('10), shared her thoughts on the session:

"I found the session EXTREMELY helpful to understanding more about the electives beyond what was already available on the website.  The 2Ls and 3Ls who gave advice did an excellent job of balancing both the pros and cons of each elective.  This gave me a clearer idea of what each elective would entail.

I think being able to choose electives in the first year will really help me to start narrowing down my academic interests.  I also didn't realize until the session that I would be in classes with 2Ls and 3Ls which I think is also a great asset!"

Thanks, Michelle!  For more information on academic support services offered by the Law School contact Maureen Sheehan '04, Associate Director of Student Affairs, who is a great source of guidance about crafting your course schedule not only for the 1L  year but for the entirety of your law school career.

The 2007 University of Chicago Legal Forum Symposium: Law In a Networked World

The University of Chicago Legal Forum is one of the Law School's fantastic student-edited journals that includes articles by academics and practitioners as well as comments by students.  The Legal Forum is unique from the other journals in that each year the editorial board chooses a new legal topic on which to focus that year's volume.  Past issues have examined immigration law and human decision-making processes in the legal context.

Each fall the Law School hosts the The University of Chicago Legal Forum Symposium, a two-day conference preceding publication of the upcoming year's edition, during which the various scholars present talks and participate in panel discussions with their colleagues on the current year's topic.  Not only is Legal Forum a great opportunity for our students to immerse themselves in a single area of law but it is also a fantastic way to interact with the top scholars in that field.  This year's Editor-in-Chief, 3L Devon Hanley, gives us a recap of this years event:

"The University of Chicago Legal Forum Symposium, 'Law In a Networked World,' took place on October 26th and 27th at the Law School.  Participants, all leading scholars in their fields, gathered to discuss how law is and should be evolving to address advances in communications technology.  The discussion among the panelists was lively and stimulating, and I thought the entire symposium was very successful.

On Friday, October 26th, we opened the symposium with a panel discussion of the varying aspects of regulation in the networked world.  Professor Frank Pasquale of Seton Hall Law School, took up one side of the net neutrality debate, presenting "Internet Nondiscrimination Principles."  Professor Christopher Yoo of the University of Pennsylvania Law School, argued the other, perhaps less orthodox side, in his presentation "Network Neutrality, Consumers, and Innovation," positing that deviations from network neutrality might actually benefit consumers.  Professor James Speta of Northwestern Law School professed himself tired of the ongoing net neutrality debate and discussed regulation, and hopes for reform of the U.S. spectrum allocation policy.

The keynote address on Friday by Cindy Cohn, Legal Director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation ("EFF"), spoke to a theme that would run through any of the weekend's presentations, the rise of the power of intermediaries.  Ms. Cohn presented examples of this phenomena in some of the cases EFF recently handled (you can listen to her address here).

Saturday morning, Professor Susan Friewald of the University of San Francisco Law School discussed the impact on the Fourth Amendment protection for e-mail, in the wake of the Sixth Circuit's June 2007 decision in Warshak v. United States, a case in which an amicus brief was filed by Professor Friewald as was a brief by fellow participant Cindy Cohn's organization, EFF.

Professor Paul Ohm of the University of Colorado Law School explored an area between the extremes of perfect privacy and complete surveillance, arguing that we want to be somewhere in the middle, perhaps with privacy tools that are very good, but difficulty to use or obtain.  Professor Jonathan Zittrain of Oxford University and of Harvard Law School, discussed what he foresees as the next wave of threats to privacy arising out of Web 2.0, or an internet environment dominated by user-created content.

The final panel contained, as one speaker put it, 'those of us who don't fit in any other panel.'  Generally speaking the participants' papers related to changing forms of participation and content on the internet, and the problems and questions those changes create.  Professor Danielle Citron of the University of Maryland Law School, presented a proposal for open source code information systems for administrative decision-making, arguing that such a change would enhance our ability to have transparency, accountability and the input of experts.  Professor Brett Frischmann of Loyola University Chicago School of Law, explored how the emergence of the digital networked environment, and some of the pressure for government regulation to which it gives rise, may reveal how the First Amendment functions from an economic perspective.  Professor Orin Kerr of George Washington University Law School, a visiting professor here at the Law School last fall, discussed how, if at all, criminal law should apply to players in the virtual worlds of computer games such as Second Life.  Professor Tim Wu of Columbia Law School discussed the possibility that copyright rights should be vested in authors instead of distributors.

Overall the symposium was very entertaining and thought-provoking, and both the participants and attendees seemed to have a good time.  In light of the paper talks and the conversation between participants, we look forward to a great volume 2008, which should be out in time for next year's symposium!"

Chicago's Best Ideas: "The Second Amendment: The Constitution's Most Mysterious Right"

One of the unique things about U of C is the Law School's commitment to educating our students not only about the law but also how the legal education they receive in the classroom interacts with current events in society.  Each year the Law School hosts the Chicago's Best Ideas series, or as we affectionately call them around here, CBI's.  The CBI's are an opportunity for individual faculty members to discuss broader issues born and developing right here at the Law School. 

The inaugural CBI lecture, held last week, featured Professor Cass Sunstein, who delivered a speech entitled "The Second Amendment: The Constitution's Most Mysterious Right" to a standing room only crowd full of curious and engaged students (Update: an audio recording of Professor Sunstein's talk is now available).

Here are few quotes from our students about the event:

Curtis Strong, a 1L, summarized the talk as follows: "From the founding fathers and all the way down to the NRA, Professor Sunstein let us all in on a dirty little secret: no one really knows what the Second Amendment means.  Paradoxical as it may seem this was one of the most enlightening talks I've heard in a long time."

2L Brett Reynolds shared with us a similarly enthusiastic perspective:

"Professor Sunstein's lunch talk was given to a completely packed house in one of our largest lecture halls.  This is one of the things I like most about the Law School -- it's the kind of place where students actually want to spend their lunch hour attending a talk about important legal issues.  At the end of the talk there was time for questions and those who did ask questions didn't shy away at all from challenging Professor Sunstein's argument, suggesting a different view, or asking for elaboration on a point.  It's great to see faculty who are true giants of the legal scholarship be just as engaged and responsive to questions from the students as they would be to their faculty colleagues when presenting formal papers."

Another one of our 1L students, Catherine Kiwala, who is also a student in Professor Sunstein's "Elements of the Law" course, or "Elements" in the Law School shorthand, shared her thoughts below.  Elements is an introductory 1L course, unique to U of C, that teaches our students to begin the process of approaching legal issues with an eye towards critical analysis and creative solutions to a variety of legal quandaries.  Past and current students routinely comment on how helpful Elements was to learning how to "think like a lawyer" and what a uniquely interesting way it is to start your legal education.  And now here are Catherine's thoughts on the connection between the classroom and the CBI:

"It's stimulating and illuminating, but most of all incredibly exciting, to listen to your first quarter Elements professor apply the same sort of thought patterns and analysis to a topic totally different from what you're covering in class.  Because we have Professor Sunstein for Elements, we don't just witness top-notch intellect in action at public talks; week in and week out we have front-row seats for it.  We're not listening to and absorbing legal scholarship; we're actively participating in discussing and creating it in class and in our conversations during lunch and after school.  When we are in class the temptation is to take down every word so you don't miss a thing and your fingers literally can't move quickly enough over the keyboard.  But I never fear though because my classmates are really nice and we help fill in each other's gaps in order to make sure we take away all the pillars of complex ideas we discuss in class."

The Clinic Experience: Intensive Trial Practice Workshop

One of the most amazing experiences I had during my time at the Law School was my participation in the Mental Health Project, just one of the many Clinical Programs offered to our students.  As you saw in a recent post about the Civil Rights & Police Accountability Project our students are making real world contributions to the legal community every day.  As a 3L participating in any of the clinics students have the opportunity to obtain a student license that allows them to practice in Illinois courts under the supervision of their clinical professor.  Our 3L students frequently participate in litigation, doing everything from depositions to motion practice to first-chairing hearings and trials. 

In order to receive their student licenses 3L students participate in the Intensive Trial Practice Workshop which occurs immediately before the beginning of the Fall Quarter.  For two weeks the students spend 6 hours a day learning trial preparation, trial advocacy, and trial strategy through simulation exercises, lectures and demonstrations by clinic faculty and practicing lawyers and judges.  The course culminates in a simulated jury trial with a sitting state or federal court judge presiding over the proceedings.   

As a clinic alum who took the course I can attest to the "intensive" part of the course's title, however contrary to what may be the popular connotation of that word, my experience in the workshop was "intensively" edifying, exhilarating and just plain fun!  Not only did I have the opportunity to learn from the practicing attorneys' (many of whom were alums!) smooth demonstrations at the end of a day of attempting to hone my skills to resemble that expertise, but I also learned so much from my peers.  Much like the 1L year where everything is new and sometimes a little intimidating we bonded over the shared experience of being, well, a little clueless.  Amazingly by the time the actual trial everything (for the most part!) came together and suddenly I was on my feet with 12 sets of eyes watching my every move from the jury box just 8 feet away, doing my best to passionately and articulately tell my clients' story and convince those 12 high school students to find for my clients.  The thrill of hearing the foreperson read the verdict finding in our favor was phenomenal!  The entire rest of the day I was abuzz with excitement. 

More importantly than the thrill of victory, however, was the fact that I was then able to immediately apply those skills to use in my work in the Mental Health Project.  We represented an individual who had been civilly committment for many years and who was now seeking release from the state psychiatric hospital.  After many postponements the release hearing finally happened in March of my 3L (conveniently coinciding with Winter Quarter exams!) and once again I was on my feet, except that this time a real person's life would be profoundly affected by my work.  As first chair I was the one who repeated all the steps of the mock trial except that this time my task was to convince the judge alone, which I found to be a much tougher task.  Although we ultimately did not prevail, the skills I developed during both the workshop and the hearing put me leaps and bounds ahead of my peers when I began practice and helped me seek out and receive the opportunities to do substantive work early in my career. 

The Trial Advisor Perspective

As an admitted litigation "junkie" and an enthusiastic clinic alum you can only imagine how excited I was when the Faculty Director of Clinic Programs, Professor Randy Schmidt, stopped me in the hall to ask me if I would like to serve as a trial advisor for this year's mock trials, held this past Saturday at the Circuit Court of Cook County.  Working with my advisees in the week leading up to the trial and watching their and their opposing counsel's very impressive work this past Saturday reminded me once again how fantastic my clinic experience was.  I could endlessly elaborate on all the great things about the Workshop and the Clinic overall, but I thought I would share some of this year's participants reflections on their experience.

The Student Perspective

Maria Phillis, a student in the Mental Health Project had this to say:

"The trial was the best part of the workshop.  It was an incredible rush to get up in front of a jury and present a case.  The feedback that the jury gave was extremely useful.  It made me think about how the presentational techniques we learned affected the way the jury saw the facts and the ultimate outcome of the case.  It will definitely have a positive impact on the way I prepare for my December jury trial for the Mental Health Project."

Adrienne Schwisow, another clinic student commented, "I really had a lot of fun, and learned so much, both from [the mock trial] and from the whole class.  In fact, I would even venture to say that I am inspired!"

As you can tell the Clinical Programs at the Law School are an excellent way for our students to supplement the critical, analytical thinking and writing skills honed from classes and learn to apply those skills to the real world early in their legal careers, to benefit those who would otherwise go without representation.

Chicago Professor in the News!!

I just finished my first week of recruiting and was in Washington DC, Virginia and North Carolina.  It was a one night one state trip but I did see a lot of prospective students.  As I was unpacking and going through my mail when I got home, I was watching CNN and to my delight I saw one of our clinical faculty members, Professor Craig Futterman, on Anderson Cooper 360 commenting on the Law School's recent success in checking instances of police brutality.  Professor Futterman teaches in our Edwin F. Mandel Legal Aid Clinic and specializes in civil rights lawsuits, focusing on matters involving police brutality and racial discrimination.  Anderson Cooper was reporting on some of the ongoing cases involving the Chicago Police Department.  Professor Futterman, who heads up just one the many Clinical Programs available to our students, the Civil Rights & Police Accountability Project, comments "the work of our students in the Clinic has contributed to public understanding of and discourse around fundamental issues of justice in law enforcement and our criminal justice system.  Our students have helped to make visible conditions of institutional denial and impunity that have allowed human rights violations in our own backyard to go unchecked and unseen.  The efforts of our students will ultimately prevent the abuse of the most vulnerable in our community, as well as make the job for the vast majority of good police officers out there safer and more effective".  As you can see Craig and our students are doing very interesting work in reforming the system, and the Police Accountability Project is just one example of the excellent ways in which the Law School’s Clinical Programs not only educate our students but also allow them to begin practical application of that knowledge to improve the legal system.

Sampling An Elective Course

The Spring Quarter started this week and the students are returning after a relaxing spring break for the final quarter of the year.  One of the GREAT parts of our curriculum is that during this quarter first years get to take an elective class in addition to their core classes which include Criminal Law, Contracts, Civil Procedure and Legal Research and Writing.  The offerings this year include American Legal History with Professor LaCroix, Copyright with Professor Picker, Health Law with Professor Malani, Parent Child and State with Professor Buss, Roman Law with Professor Epstein , Trade Secrets with Professor Strahilevitz and Trademarks & Unfair Competition with Professor Landes.  First years choose one of these electives and will be taking these classes with second and third year students.  As you can see, there are a broad range of topics being covered and this gives first years an opportunity to start sampling different areas of interest. 

American Legal History is survey course that examines major themes and interpretations in the history of American law and legal institutions from the earliest European settlements through the Civil War.  Parent, Child and State examines the legal rights of parents and children and the state's authority to define and regulate the parent-child relationship. Among the topics discussed are children's and parent's rights of expression and religious exercise, termination of parental rights and adoption, paternity rights, the state's response to child abuse and neglect, the role of race in defining the family, and the legal issues raised by the development of new reproductive technologies.  Another popular course is Roman Law, a seminar that develops a skill in analyzing legal problems according to the processes of the Roman civil law, in contrast with those of the common law.  No knowledge of Latin is required!! 

This sampling of elective course will hopefully give you an idea of the number of exciting choices students get to make during their second and third years when there are no required courses.   

Clinic: Immigrant Children's Advocacy Project

We at the Law School are very proud of our clinical programs. We have two umbrella clinics - the Mandel Legal Aid Clinic and the Institute for Justice Clinic on Entrepreneurship. The Mandel Clinic essentially functions like a public interest law firm - there are different departments (we call them projects) and in each, faculty supervise students working on real cases. Students get real hands-on experience in meeting with clients, drafting documents, deposing witnesses, and arguing cases in court. In later posts we'll tell you more about the IJ Clinic and the other projects of the Mandel Clinic, but we wanted to tell you a bit about our newest project - the Immigrant Children's Advocacy Project (ICAP).

ICAP joined the Law School this past fall, and is headed by Maria Woltjen, who has worked in children's advocacy law since 1991. ICAP is a human service and policy advocacy program dedicated to advocating for the best interests of immigrant and refugee children who are alone in the United States. Law students and bilingual volunteers working for ICAP are trained to serve as friends of the child or Child Advocates. Their role is to figure out what brought the children to the United States and advocate on their behalf. The Advocates get to know the children, help sort out their story and help identify their eligibility for asylum or special protective visas. The Advocates help ensure the best interests of these most vulnerable children. Students working in the ICAP project are bilingual in languages including Spanish, Hindi, and Mandarin.

Stay tuned for spotlights on other clinical project soon!

1L Experience: First Quarter Exams

Our 1Ls finished their first round of exams a little over a week ago, and after the Dean of Students sent them off with a champagne toast, we contacted some of them and asked how the exam period had treated them. 1L Emily Throop, author of the November 28, 2006 post declaring that students are actually having fun here at The University of Chicago Law School, reports that she is still enjoying law school, exams and all:

"Well, exams are over, and despite the periods of freaking out that myself and my fellow 1Ls survived, exams were not that bad. In fact, if I may say so at the expense of being crucified by law students across the country, they were kind of fun. Ok, well maybe that’s a bit of a stretch. Exams here are not the uber-competitive, impossible tasks that one hears about in law school legends. First year exams are all open-book, which means you can use ANYTHING: outlines, notes, casebooks, hornbooks, commercial outlines, old exams, anything. Of course, by the time the exam comes along, you basically know the material, but it’s always nice to have items to reference. There is no stress about memorizing tiny details, because you can always look them up. Our profs are so nice about the whole process. They realize we will be a little worried (to say the least) about exams, and hold review sessions, hand out outlines, and tell us their main advice is to relax and enjoy ourselves! It can be stressful to pack a whole quarter of info into 3hrs, or 8 in the case of a take-home, but you will have all the tools you need to succeed. And, due to our quarter system, we only have two exams this quarter. All in all, it was a gentle, a little bit scary, but also a little bit fun initiation of law school exams."

Yes, Emily, law students across the country would probably react strongly to your characterization of exams as "fun," but I get what you're saying. I always found that my classes in law school didn't really come together for me until I sat down to study for exams. It was always a cool feeling to look back on the quarter and realize that I had actually learned something . . .

1L Experience: In Classes and in the Classroom

In our continuing series of posts by members of the class of 2007, we bring you 1L Christopher Trendler. Chris chose to focus on what classes are like here at the Law School: "Even though I've only been a student for a couple of months, I can definitely see that there is something different in studying law at the University of Chicago.  Ideas are everywhere.  From classes to the Green Lounge, from meetings of the many different student organizations to sitting with the dean and chatting at coffee mess, every idea is welcome. Especially innovative ideas.  One of the most interesting classes Chicago has is called Elements of the Law - a class idea that originated at the Law School.  Professor David Strauss is teaching us the different methods of reasoning judges use in making decisions, and how the law relates to other academic disciplines, like psychology, economics, business, political science, etc.  In this class, the professor will often ask us about the different ideas we might have about a particular judicial decision and encourage us to draw on our knowledge we might have from studying a subject in undergrad or working in a field for a couple of years.  It's so interesting to hear my classmates' perspective, and many times, the discussion will continue in the hallway after class.  The idea dialogue also continues openly with professors.  I've thoroughly enjoyed attending the Law School's "Best Ideas" lectures during lunch, where we can hear and debate a professor's ideas and cutting edge research.    For instance, last week Dean Levmore talked to us about single subject rules in state laws and how these relate to the legislature, as well as in litigation.  We were able to hear his arguments, and then respond with questions and other ideas we might have.  This free and open exchange of thought that is so prevalent here is one of the many reasons my first two months at Chicago have been incredibly rewarding."

The Quarter System

I was talking to some 1Ls last night, and the beauty of the University of Chicago Law School’s quarter system came up – the 1Ls were so glad that their first quarter would end with only two exams and loved the way the quarter system works to ease 1Ls into law school life. Interestingly, however, prospective students often seem wary of the quarter system if they are used to semesters at their undergrad institution, and sometimes view it as a drawback, rather than a draw. So I thought I’d blog a little about the quarter system, to give you a feel for the pros and cons.

For those of you who haven’t picked this up elsewhere on the website, our law school runs on a quarter system that includes three academic quarters a year (during the summer “quarter” our students generally work to gain experience in various legal fields). Students typically take four courses per quarter, although the credit requirements allow most students to take fewer than four during one or two quarters. Students often pick the first quarter of their second year (when they are interviewing with law firms and/or jumping into work for the student run journals) or the last quarter of their third year (when they just want to graduate and be done!) as three-class quarters.

Pros So what will the quarter system mean to you if you come to law school here? Two huge pros: 1) You ease into exams during your first year; and 2) You get to take many more classes than at a semester-based program.

Easing Into Exams Your first year, your class schedule is set for you. Some of your first year classes will cover one quarter, others will cover two. In your first quarter, you will have two one-quarter classes and two two-quarter classes. So at the end of your first quarter, you only take two exams – in the one-quarter classes - which account for only 6 of the year’s 40 credits. Let’s face it, law school exams are stressful, they are probably different from any other exams you’ve ever taken, but what could ease the stress better than only requiring you to take two during your first exam period? After your second quarter, you will again only take two exams – although these will be exams for two two-quarter classes, and will count for 12 of the year’s 40 credits. So the pressure ramps up a bit – but by then you’ve been through one round of exams and learned a lot about how to study for and take them. Of course, nobody likes the end of the third quarter – when you take two one-quarter exams and two two-quarter exams – but trust me, nothing bonds a 1L class better than making it through Spring Quarter of your 1L year. And wouldn't you rather deal with the stress of four exams at the end of your third quarter, rather than at the end of your first semester?

More Courses The other major advantage of the quarter system is that you get to take more classes. Taking 12 classes a year rather than 8 gives you the opportunity to throw in some really interesting courses, along with a broad basic legal curriculum. For example, even though I had no intention of doing IP law, I took IP courses from Professor Lichtman just because I thought he was a great prof. I also took some cool seminars on Health Law and Higher Education Law, and courses on Women's Legal History, just because they interested me. This was in addition to a full complement of Evidence, Trial Advocacy, Class Actions, Conflicts of Laws, etc. etc. that I thought would prepare me for practice as a litigator. (In hindsight, because most of my clients ended up being corporations, I wished I had taken Corporations, Secured Transactions and Bankruptcy, but that's a subject for another day . . .)

Cons And the cons? Some prospective students worry that our quarter system will cause problems when they look for summer jobs, because our Spring quarter ends later than other schools. But the employers who recruit our students are used to our schedule and are happy to accommodate our students in their summer programs -- the later start is pretty much a non-issue. I only really see one con to the quarter system – because you are taking more classes, you take more exams. For me, this was not a problem. I’m a last minute person, a friend of the all-nighter, and an exam period for me was a very intense one-week experience. I generally did the reading and went to classes all along during the quarter – then during reading period and exams, I would sleep very little, devote a day or two to each class, review my notes, make an outline, and go take the exam. I was actually glad that the material was broken up into three ten week blocks – less material to review and outline during each reading period. If, however, you are the type of person who likes to spend a month, rather than a day or two, preparing for each exam, you may feel like you are perpetually preparing for exams. So that’s the downside. In my view – and I think in the view of most of the students here – the pros far outweigh the cons. If you’re worried about it, however, put it on your list of questions to ask the students here when you come visit.