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J Miracle posted:Forcing class to run late with their bullshit questions and being oblivious to everyone hating their guts is probably the definitive gunner trait. I applaud your prof for at least attempting to nip it in the bud even if it failed.
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Jun 8, 2011 16:10
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After first semester I would routinely walk out of class when it was "over." Even if I had nowhere to be. Even if it were the professor talking. It made me feel empowered.
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Jun 8, 2011 16:48
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Over half of our summer associates are from Harvard and Stanford.
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Jun 8, 2011 17:11
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Just got an interview invitation from a BigLaw firm, for a position in my field. This has never happened before, I wonder if I'll make it past the first round?
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Jun 8, 2011 17:47
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srsly posted:After first semester I would routinely walk out of class when it was "over." Even if I had nowhere to be. Even if it were the professor talking. It made me feel empowered. This. Except if a prof I actually liked were still speaking. Also, I pride myself on being the only jerk in a class of 100 who's willing to call other students out for keeping us late. It's usually more effective when you yell at them in front of a large group of people. My law school reminds me of my high school. E: I also have to echo what everone else is saying about grades. I'm a rising 3L. Each semester, once finals roll around, I invariably find myself more worried than I was last semester because of my diminishing effort. My GPA has increased every single time. In fact, my very first semester, I studied my rear end off and got the worst grades I've even gotten in my life. The very worst was on the test I thought I did the best on (Civ. Pro.), not to be confused with the test I thought I bombed (Con. Law I). Got the only A+ of my law school career on that puppy. You just can't make this stuff up. Blakkout fucked around with this message at 18:27 on Jun 8, 2011 |
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Jun 8, 2011 18:20
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Blakkout posted:E: I also have to echo what everone else is saying about grades. I'm a rising 3L. Each semester, once finals roll around, I invariably find myself more worried than I was last semester because of my diminishing effort. My GPA has increased every single time. In fact, my very first semester, I studied my rear end off and got the worst grades I've even gotten in my life. The very worst was on the test I thought I did the best on (Civ. Pro.), not to be confused with the test I thought I bombed (Con. Law I). Got the only A+ of my law school career on that puppy. You just can't make this stuff up. My law school bliss came when I found the perfect balance of zero work and acceptable grades, as opposed to "some" work and good grades. I didn't buy the textbook for Admin law and went to maybe half the classes. I spent a total of eight hours typing up an outline from a hornbook, following the topics of the syllabus as a rough guess as to what I should know. B+ baby. Compare to 1L property, where I memorized loving everything and got a B-.
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Jun 8, 2011 18:52
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It's weird to me that so many of you people are ascribing some level of arbitrariness or randomness or weirdness to that fact that as you progressed along in school it took you less effort to learn the material and get decent exam grades. It's almost like you were accruing skills and habits that stayed with you from class to class.
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Jun 8, 2011 19:53
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J Miracle posted:It's weird to me that so many of you people are ascribing some level of arbitrariness or randomness or weirdness to that fact that as you progressed along in school it took you less effort to learn the material and get decent exam grades. It's almost like you were accruing skills and habits that stayed with you from class to class. We're comparing exam results from the same semester.
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Jun 8, 2011 20:00
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J Miracle posted:It's weird to me that so many of you people are ascribing some level of arbitrariness or randomness or weirdness to that fact that as you progressed along in school it took you less effort to learn the material and get decent exam grades. It's almost like you were accruing skills and habits that stayed with you from class to class. Grades are curved, so no.
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Jun 8, 2011 20:05
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evilweasel posted:We're comparing exam results from the same semester. Well, the last couple people at least were saying how their GPAs went up over time and their effort put in went down. But I guess if people get something out of believing that their grades were completely a roll of the dice then have at it, it seems to me there's no end of other people willing to tear your accomplishments down, no need to convince YOURSELF that your improved GPA is meaningless, random, and arbitrary. yronic heroism maybe the people who's grades improved...actually learned better than some other people in the class? I don't see how a curve makes the premise invalid.
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Jun 8, 2011 20:49
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J Miracle posted:yronic heroism maybe the people who's grades improved...actually learned better than some other people in the class? I don't see how a curve makes the premise invalid. I learned better in the sense that I learned not to rely on the professor or textbook and instead I bought the drat hornbooks.
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Jun 8, 2011 20:55
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It's true, there is some learning involved. Once I wrote a B or B+ exam no matter what work I did, I kept writing B+ exams. It meant that I was free to not buy books or do readings (though I still went to class...didn't really take notes though) and still write a good exam. I was convinced I failed my last exam and still got a goddamn B+ using a years-old summary I found online. edit: i'm convinced law school exams are like high school math tests in the sense that if you show your work it doesn't matter if you put in the wrong number as long as the structure is correct. It's too late for me but you dudes should try Law School Exam Mad Libs and see if it works.
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Jun 8, 2011 20:58
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J Miracle, I'm guessing you have not been through law school?BigHead posted:I learned better in the sense that I learned not to rely on the professor or textbook and instead I bought the drat hornbooks. Giving you a big heads up for bar prep because all that is is reading a giant BarBri hornbook. Or at least that's how I'm doing it. We'll see how it goes. edit: Christ that's a stupid unintentional pun. yronic heroism fucked around with this message at 02:29 on Jun 9, 2011 |
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Jun 8, 2011 21:40
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yronic heroism posted:J Miracle, I'm guessing you have not been through law school? Oh no you didn't 
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Jun 8, 2011 21:53
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yronic heroism posted:J Miracle, I'm guessing you have not been through law school? Look, I'm not saying ability to do better on exams automatically accrues based on time spent in exams like barnacles on a ship's hull (which would mean that a curve would render any ability increase meaningless because everyone would get it), I'm saying if you find yourself doing better with less perceived effort it might be because you actually got better at what you are doing rather than just the whim of arbitrary exam gods.
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Jun 8, 2011 22:25
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During the last two years of law school, my effort put towards schoolwork declined every year, but... Second semester 2L year, I got the exact same GPA as I did first semester 2L year (but better than 1L year). Second semester 3L year, I got the exact same GPA as I did first semester 3L year (but better than 2L year). 
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Jun 9, 2011 01:10
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I always attributed my less effort, same or better grades trend on my increasing reliance on smarter people's outlines (and having them right from Day 1 of class) rather than whatever I came up with my 1L year all on my own or whatever my peer advisors passed on to us which were often not even the same professor. Not going to class/doing the reading and still having all the information all in pretty outline form waiting for me regardless was a wonderful thing.
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Jun 9, 2011 01:28
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yronic heroism posted:J Miracle, I'm guessing you have not been through law school? yronic heroism, I'm guessing you're not the kind of person who does well guessing the answers on exams?
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Jun 9, 2011 02:16
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Okay, apologies to JM, looks like you are a law student. Like I said, I skipped most of the 2010 lawthread.prussian advisor posted:yronic heroism, I'm guessing you're not the kind of person who does well guessing the answers on exams? I do okay, no matter if I'm guessing or not. That is most classes. Doing okay and not caring.
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Jun 9, 2011 02:27
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yronic heroism posted:Okay, apologies to JM, looks like you are a law student. Like I said, I skipped most of the 2010 lawthread. He's the law student. He's so good at craps that he's consistently been number one (or two) all three years at his totally random law school.
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Jun 9, 2011 03:52
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P's in the two classes where I used outlines, did all the past exams and went over them with the professor in office hours, organized the study groups, even did past exams from other schools H in the class where we just watched My Cousin Vinny and gave each other quizzes on SurveyMonkey all semester pretty much convinced the effort I put in is about as determinative of my grade as the solar winds and the alignment of the planets
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Jun 9, 2011 04:03
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I find the complaints about getting the same grades regardless of how hard one works as sort of missing the point of studying. At least for 1L year, since that is all to which I can speak. It's not just how much you study, it's how and what you study. Studying "smart" or whatever you want to call it - knowing the material in terms of using it effectively on the exam - is what really counts. Certainly that takes a lot of work, but that amount of work is only part of the equation. By way of example, I know 1Ls who studied more or less the exact same amount but their grades were consistently at opposite ends of the spectrum. The difference in the grades isn't because of the hard work they did but how they approached that work (coming to this conclusion after listening to multiple persons inexplicably using me as a sounding board for their grade-time woes). I also experienced this disparity in my own grades. I used a very poor study method for Torts Fall semester. A basic memorize everything approach. It was useless on the exam. I changed my approach to studying for all of my other courses and have had a better class of different grades without having memorized a drat thing for any exam. I retained an awareness of the issues (1 page checklists are the best) and where to find them in the outline so that I could - and did - look up every issue that I needed to address. What you know is simply not as important as knowing how to use the information in the exam format. Not that I think that the student is in complete control of their academic fate. I do agree with the OP that there are several factors outside the student's control. The professor's personal preferences to writing styles, the type of exam format/questions, how well a student's brain is working on the day of the exam, how well the other students in the class will be doing on exam day, etc. all play a part in the final grade. But from my own experiences and observations, these outside factors only influence the half-letter grade (or so) window of variance from the grade which the student's work product would achieve on its own. So if you're an A student, you might get a B+ thrown into the mix because of an "off" set of factors, but you'll be averaging an A or A- depending upon your skill/luck with these outside factors. You get to be an A student not from studying super hard, but from studying super hard in the right way. And that's how it works regardless of what [letter grade] student you're studying to be. I make this conclusion with the reservation that my observation as to what explains the disparity between working hard and not getting good grades might only apply to 1L year. I can't explain the rise in grades coinciding with continually less work input. But if all the students with average grades from 1L year are going up then the students with the good grades from 1L year must go down per the curve. Maybe it's because the 2Ls who did well 1L year are no longer giving any fucks, or are simply burnt out from overextending themselves with Law Review or whatever. I'm sure I'll have thoughts in a year's time, but I stand by my theory for 1L as above.
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Jun 9, 2011 04:23
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Most people do not have it in them to be law professors, sorry. Finding the way to study the "right" way with minimal guidance from instructors is certainly not how most higher ed works. Most non-law classes are about showing up, doing the reading, and turning in the work.
yronic heroism fucked around with this message at 04:36 on Jun 9, 2011 |
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Jun 9, 2011 04:31
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Okay? I'm not commenting on the appropriateness of how I see 1L grades work, how 1L law school is structured, or that people should become "law professors" (I don't know what that means). People ITT were expressing about how they think law school grades are completely random because of no "working hard = better grade" correlation. Whether they actually believe that, were being facetious, or some combination of the two I cannot say. But I am merely putting out there that I don't think grades are random just because there exists this seeming lack of direct correlation between hard work/grades. It's just that grades aren't based off of pure hard work. Edit: Basically, I didn't see the conversation as a commentary on the value of the system itself, just how it works. And I didn't intend for my post to comment beyond that. I actually don't know how I feel about the system because I don't know how well it is has done in teaching me apparently the only thing attorneys will admit law school is supposed to imbue: how to "think like a lawyer." I hate that phrase. It can't be said without sounding like a douche. Green Crayons fucked around with this message at 04:57 on Jun 9, 2011 |
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Jun 9, 2011 04:52
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Green Crayons posted:You get to be an A student not from studying super hard, but from studying super hard in the right way. Except most of us found our grades were the same between studying super hard and literally not studying at all. I don't claim to be an A student though - I was a straight B+ student. My only real discrepancy in grades was my first semester, and I think there is a component of not really knowing what a law school exam would look like vs. knowing, but in terms of studying super hard vs. studying super hard in a smart way, that's something a lot of us never deal with. My comparison is going to class, reading, making my own outlines while maybe using another couple as a guide and studying (though I was never a super hard studier) my 1L first semester vs. never showing up to class beyond seating chart day and never opening a book and relying on someone else's pre-made outline two days before the final to catch me up to speed on the entire course and finding that I definitely do much better when using the outline. I definitely agree that studying smart is important, but law school is interesting in that studying smart doesn't necessarily involve class or reading or homework or anything beyond a few days cramming off someone's notes who is smarter than you.
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Jun 9, 2011 05:04
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Yeah, I don't think we're saying some people don't consistently get better grades than others, just that we don't see a point of searching for the holy grail of study habits when anything short of that doesn't offer a sure payoff on the individual level. So if we say grades are "random" we're not asserting it as a statistical truth.Green Crayons posted:Okay? People who consistently get A's are the "law professor" type. Also people who write a really long detailed analysis of this stuff, no offense. quote:I hate that phrase. It can't be said without sounding like a douche. There's hope for you yet. 
yronic heroism fucked around with this message at 07:53 on Jun 9, 2011 |
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Jun 9, 2011 05:12
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HooKars posted:I definitely agree that studying smart is important, but law school is interesting in that studying smart doesn't necessarily involve class or reading or homework or anything beyond a few days cramming off someone's notes who is smarter than you. 1L law school exams want a very specific mindset which isn't easy to switch to. Or, at least that's how I found it to be -- Fall semester felt like 15 weeks of attempting to put square pegs into round holes. So the hard work helps accelerate the process of figuring out how to work smart without having to wait until the end of 1L year. In this sense, I suppose the hard work isn't essential if a student's mind is already tuned in to answering exam questions the "right" way. But absent such a situation and without the hard work, I have no idea how one discovers the the "holy grail" (thanks yronic) of smart study habits. By the end of 1L year, you've either: figured out how exams work (through hard + smart studying or natural ability + smart studying) and are maintaining your high grades; you've been clued in from pure repetition of similar exam formats as how to best address the exam format so you might be getting better grades over time by adopting smart studying; or you're stuck in whatever median-esque grade strata you started off at because you haven't changed how you answer exams for whatever reason (I would imagine the biggest group). I guess there is a fourth category of folks who progressively do worse each semester, but I don't know if this category exists beyond a "no longer cared" rationale. The point being, by the end of your 1L year if there isn't a change in the way you're going to use the material on the exam ("studying smart"), then it doesn't matter how hard (or not) you decide to work. The hard studying - apart from giving any student a general understanding of the jargon and legal mechanics of the specific course - is meant to clue the (1L) student in on how to study smart. My guess is that any upwards trend in grades after 1L (absent a concerted effort to "study smart") has more to do with other student's studying habits and the lack thereof than one's own. yronic heroism posted:Also people who write a really long detailed analysis of this stuff, no offense. 
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Jun 9, 2011 06:04
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Possible opening (long story, lots of politics, position may already be given to someone else but who knows) here in child support, pm me extremely soon if interested. Have to have passed a bar somewhere.
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Jun 9, 2011 06:47
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Green Crayons posted:I agree. Calling low grades a result of "randomness" isn't really accurate in my mind. The best analogy I can think of is golf; it's you against the field. You can't really do anything to affect how the field plays (well I guess you could, but let's not go there), all you can do is put in your best effort. The better golfer (student) will score better on average, but sometimes a couple randos will just be tuned in that day or have studied the unexpected material the professor chose to emphasize in the exam. A few people is the difference between an A/A- and an A-/B+ in a class with a steep curve. edit: A student ranked above me is transferring to Harvard or Columbia! Booyeah, I'm going up a spot.
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Jun 9, 2011 07:03
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Green Crayons posted:I'll try to keep it shorter and mostly on LP topics in the near future. Nah, it's cool lawbro. But most of us are probably gonna keep it to petty bitching about gunners and giving sexual favors for job interviews. And lots of liver damage.
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Jun 9, 2011 07:58
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So we still haven't got grades back for one of my classes yet. The professor was an adjunct and it was her first class. She was an awful lecturer. She put everything she was going to say in the class on powerpoints and just read them for an hour and a half. Awful to sit through and since she put the powerpoints online almost nobody came after the second week. It was a graveyard in there. The rumor is that she got offended/we suck and she tried to give C's/D's/F's to like half the class and the reason for the delay is the administration is trying to convince her to, you know, not do that. I'm a little worried.
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Jun 9, 2011 08:46
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Nero posted:So we still haven't got grades back for one of my classes yet. The professor was an adjunct and it was her first class. She was an awful lecturer. She put everything she was going to say in the class on powerpoints and just read them for an hour and a half. Awful to sit through and since she put the powerpoints online almost nobody came after the second week. It was a graveyard in there. For what it's worth, I ran into the opposite situation with another professor. He was an adjunct, we loved him, he loved us, and he gave our class a very high curve. So high the registrar essentially wouldn't allow him to log it in. In the end he folded, several weeks late, and the curve wound up being almost dead on the school recommended curve. So, if you're lucky, that'll happen to you.
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Jun 9, 2011 09:00
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I was recently asked in an interview as to why my undergraduate grades are better than my law school grades. I blamed the restricted competition field and 100% finals.
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Jun 9, 2011 13:21
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What a stupid question, I'm assuming the guy is a lawyer so he should know the answer is as simple as undergrad being easier.
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Jun 9, 2011 13:35
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Penguins Like Pies posted:I was recently asked in an interview as to why my undergraduate grades are better than my law school grades. What kind of firm wants to see your undergrad grades? Or was this question based off GPAs that you listed on your resume?
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Jun 9, 2011 13:39
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entris posted:What kind of firm wants to see your undergrad grades? Or was this question based off GPAs that you listed on your resume?
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Jun 9, 2011 15:01
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Ersatz posted:My firm asks for undergrad transcripts, but that's because we're an IP boutique and it's important that our attorneys understand their technical fields. Asking why law school grades are lower than undergrad grades is just goofy though. Yeah, it's pretty common when interviewing for IP positions. I had the opposite problem though, and had to explain why my undergrad grades were lower than my law school grades.
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Jun 9, 2011 15:26
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Microsoft really needs to stop taking these cases as a patent infringer to the Supreme Court and losing. First AT&T, now i4i...
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Jun 9, 2011 15:39
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Baruch Obamawitz posted:Microsoft really needs to stop taking these cases as a patent infringer to the Supreme Court and losing. First AT&T, now i4i... Did MS make inequitable conduct arguments based on the sale of the closest prior art >1 year before filing?
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Jun 9, 2011 15:57
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gvibes posted:Goddamit Weil/Gibson. Good luck proving a deliberate decision to deceive post-Therasense. Also, I wonder if the finding of validity in view of a particular reference would carry over to the determination of invalidating the patent only "where the patentee’s misconduct resulted in the unfair benefit of receiving an unwarranted claim." If the patent is not found invalid by a clear and convincing standard over art that the patentee should have cited but didn't, does that imply that the reference, even if cited, wouldn't have prevented the patentee from receiving their claims, and thus the patentee hasn't received an unwarranted claim? I guess not, since the PTO standards are different since you're not dealing with the presumption of validity, but it seems strange that you can render the patent unenforceable based on a deceitfully uncited reference by arguing that the patent should be invalid (i.e., the patentee received claims they wouldn't have if the art had been cited), even if you can't invalidate the patent because of the higher standard. Edit: Thinking about this a little more, I guess it makes sense that if you can prove that the patentee knowingly withheld information from the patent office, then you get a lower standard to prove the patent is invalid than you would have if you were just making a straight up invalidity argument. NJ Deac fucked around with this message at 18:28 on Jun 9, 2011 |
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Jun 9, 2011 18:20
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