yale law school classes tier list

00:35:57
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=so9IWQhjP_0

Summary

TLDREl video es una revisión de la experiencia de un estudiante de derecho de Yale en sus dos primeros años de clases, categorizando los cursos en una lista por niveles de experiencia. Las clases fueron evaluadas desde "traumático" hasta "la mejor clase jamás tomada". El narrador comparte su recorrido personal, destacando tanto los desafíos como los aspectos positivos de las diferentes asignaturas, incluyendo ciertos cursos que superaron sus expectativas y aquellos que no. También menciona el uso de "memoji" del iPhone y describe problemas técnicos al grabar el video. A lo largo de la revisión, mantiene una perspectiva personal y honesta sobre las clases, los métodos de enseñanza y su gusto personal, enfocándose en materias como derecho constitucional, procedimientos civiles, contratos, y varias clínicas prácticas relacionadas con el derecho empresarial y ambiental. La experiencia culmina en anécdotas personales e insights sobre su camino en la escuela de derecho.

Takeaways

  • 📚 Procedimiento civil es visto como una experiencia traumática por ser estricto y exigente.
  • 📜 Derecho constitucional fue difícil por la falta de antecedentes históricos de EE.UU.
  • 🔥 La clínica de emprendimiento e innovación resultó ser una experiencia enriquecedora.
  • 💰 Finanzas corporativas aplicadas inicialmente desafiantes, pero finalmente gratificantes.
  • 🌍 Transacciones comerciales internacionales fueron instructivas y bien enseñadas.
  • 🧑‍⚖️ Antitrust fue complicado pero valioso en conocimiento.
  • 😬 Gestión de crisis corporativas fue estresante y decepcionante.
  • 🌿 Ley ambiental y sistemas alimentarios creó un impacto duradero y positivo.
  • 💼 La experiencia clínica en derecho empresarial brindó perspectivas prácticas valiosas.
  • 🛡️ Derecho penal se enseñó de manera teórica, resultando ser solo "aceptable".

Timeline

  • 00:00:00 - 00:05:00

    El presentador está realizando una reseña de sus clases de la escuela de leyes en función de su experiencia personal. Usa "memoji" en su iPhone para darle un tono animado al video y comparte su frustración por haber tenido que grabar el video por segunda vez debido a fallos técnicos. Aclara que sus opiniones son personales y que no mencionará a los profesores para no herir sensibilidades. Comienza la reseña con el curso de "Procedimiento Civil", describiendo un ambiente intimidante debido a las llamadas en frío de los profesores, lo cual dificultaba su concentración y disfrute del curso.

  • 00:05:00 - 00:10:00

    Sigue con "Derecho Constitucional", destacando que fue uno de los peores cursos debido a la ausencia de contexto histórico estadounidense como estudiante canadiense. Menciona que el curso estaba enfocado en debates históricos sobre la Constitución de EE.UU., lo que no le resultó interesante. Destaca las dificultades con las lecturas, las cuales eran extensas y mal redactadas, añadiendo al estrés general del curso.

  • 00:10:00 - 00:15:00

    Al hablar de "Contratos", el narrador describe una experiencia positiva gracias a la metodología y la estructura de las clases, lo que permitió un estudio profundo sin sentirse abrumado. Resalta la importancia del grupo pequeño ("small group") en crear un ambiente ameno y propicio para el aprendizaje, marcando este curso como una experiencia increíble.

  • 00:15:00 - 00:20:00

    Con "Daños y Regulación", se describe una experiencia positiva, aunque no tan destacada como "Contratos", debido a la interacción en el aula y la metodología del curso. La participación activa, facilitada por un sistema de llamadas en frío justo y organizado, contribuyó a su disfrute del curso a pesar de lo chocante de algunos casos estudiados.

  • 00:20:00 - 00:25:00

    El curso "Negociación de Acuerdos Internacionales: El Caso del Cambio Climático" es visto como uno de los mejores. Resalta la enseñanza práctica, el enfoque en acuerdos internacionales y la diversidad de perspectivas al incluir estudiantes de otras disciplinas. Se enfatiza el aprendizaje adquirido sobre la negociación en política ambiental, calificando la experiencia como excepcional.

  • 00:25:00 - 00:30:00

    Sobre "Organizaciones Empresariales", brinda una experiencia estándar pero positiva dentro de cursos de ley básica. Destaca la claridad en las exposiciones del profesor y el buen aprovechamiento de los recursos online tras la transición a clases virtuales, a pesar de no calificar como una "experiencia increíble".

  • 00:30:00 - 00:35:57

    Finalmente, de "Antimonopolio" menciona desilusión ya que el profesor no enseñaba activamente, limitándose a leer directamente del texto. A pesar de lo decepcionante de la enseñanza, el curso se benefició por un examen sencillo y por ser un requisito, colocándolo en la categoría de al menos aprobado.

Show more

Mind Map

Video Q&A

  • ¿Qué curso forzó más a la participante, según su experiencia?

    El curso de procedimiento fue descrito como una experiencia traumática debido a las estrictas llamadas en frío y la gran cantidad de lectura.

  • ¿Por qué la clase de derecho constitucional fue difícil para el autor?

    La clase fue difícil porque se enseñó desde una perspectiva histórica de EE.UU., algo que el participante, siendo canadiense, no dominaba.

  • ¿Qué cursos consideró la participante como las mejores experiencias?

    Destacó los cursos de la clínica de emprendimiento e innovación, la clase de finanzas corporativas aplicadas y sistemas alimentarios y derecho ambiental como las mejores experiencias.

  • ¿Qué cursos tuvieron una experiencia negativa pero se consideraron útiles?

    Los cursos de antitrust y gestión de crisis corporativas se consideraron desafiantes pero resultaron ser valiosos por el aprendizaje adquirido.

  • ¿Por qué el participante disfrutó el curso de transacciones comerciales internacionales?

    Por la excelente manera de enseñar de la profesora, la falta de presión de un examen y los oradores invitados interesantes.

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  • 00:00:00
    hello everyone! today we will be doing a  tier list review of all of my law school
  • 00:00:08
    classes - well, just the law school classes  for my first two years because i'm still
  • 00:00:13
    in my third year and finishing up my last semester. as you can see, i've discovered this cool thing
  • 00:00:20
    on iphone called memoji, which turns your face  into an animated figure. the unfortunate thing
  • 00:00:27
    is i tried to record this video two days  ago. i spent two hours recording it and then
  • 00:00:33
    the whole thing crashed on me and the video  didn't save, so this is actually my second time
  • 00:00:38
    recording it, which brings me a lot of pain, but i  am determined to make this video and to finish it.
  • 00:00:45
    i'll be reviewing my classes in chronological  order from my 1L fall to my 2L spring.
  • 00:00:52
    and full disclaimer: all opinions are my own. i'm  not going to name the professors; i don't want to
  • 00:00:58
    say anything bad about them because honestly all  of my professors have been great people. i just
  • 00:01:03
    wanted to make this video for fun and i thought  you guys might enjoy a little insight into what
  • 00:01:08
    yale law classes are like! i will say that i am  not the model student, so there are definitely a
  • 00:01:14
    lot of classes that i probably would have gotten  a lot more out of had i put more effort in,
  • 00:01:20
    but it is what it is. this is my experience, this  is my journey, and i hope you enjoy the video!
  • 00:01:27
    first up is procedure or, as they call it,  civil procedure in a lot of other law schools.
  • 00:01:32
    so the four courses that we had to take for 1L fall were mandatory. so everyone takes the same classes,
  • 00:01:38
    although sometimes with different professors,  procedure is basically where we learn about the
  • 00:01:44
    civil legal system and how cases are brought to  court and how they move through the court system,
  • 00:01:49
    so it's the very basics of litigation. for example,  how do you bring a case? what kinds of cases can
  • 00:01:55
    you bring in non-criminal matters? what kind of  information do you have to put in your pleadings?
  • 00:02:01
    this course had a ton of information. we had to  do a lot of reading, and it was also at 8am on
  • 00:02:08
    monday, wednesday, and friday, three times a week,  so it was kind of a brutal start to my law school
  • 00:02:14
    experience. i honestly thought it was a little kind  of like hazing; the professor was very strict and
  • 00:02:21
    would cold call a lot. you kind of never knew when  the cold calls were coming, so overall it was very
  • 00:02:28
    terrifying to be in the class. personally i hate  cold calls. i don't think that they do anything for
  • 00:02:33
    my learning. i actually think i learn better  when participation is voluntary, because if i
  • 00:02:38
    don't have anything to say, why would you call  on me to give an opinion? and also i feel like if
  • 00:02:44
    i fear getting cold called or if it if i think  there's a possibility of getting cold called, i'm
  • 00:02:51
    less likely or less able to pay attention in  class, so i really appreciate professors who
  • 00:02:56
    either use a voluntary participation system  or an opt-in cold-calling system. some people
  • 00:03:01
    do like getting cold called because it forces  them to prepare, so i also understand that side.
  • 00:03:06
    so, back to procedure. our professor is honestly  a very endearing person outside of the context
  • 00:03:11
    of this class, but in this class he was just very  intimidating - although he had the lectures down
  • 00:03:17
    to a t, so it almost felt like you were watching a  choreographed stage play and everything was super
  • 00:03:23
    smooth. he was a very good lecturer and i feel like  we got through a lot of very dense information
  • 00:03:29
    very quickly in the span of one semester. that said,  i did not like this class at all; i thought it was
  • 00:03:35
    a very traumatic experience. i did not have fun. i  feel like the readings were not that interesting
  • 00:03:41
    and procedure is just not a subject that interests  me because i know i'm not gonna go into litigation.
  • 00:03:46
    i know i'm gonna be a transactional lawyer so i  didn't really feel engaged with the subject matter.
  • 00:03:52
    on top of that, i was always so scared of getting  cold called that being in the classroom was just
  • 00:03:57
    not a super fun experience. also, it was super  early so i was simultaneously half asleep but
  • 00:04:03
    kept awake by the fear of getting cold called. so,  i would put this class in the traumatic category.
  • 00:04:09
    next up is constitutional law. this is exactly what  it sounds like: we learn about the u.s. constitution.
  • 00:04:16
    this was probably one of the worst classes i've  ever had, ever, and i don't know if it was the
  • 00:04:21
    professor's fault or my fault or a combination of  everything, but this was a brutal experience so i'm
  • 00:04:27
    canadian, and i don't say this as an excuse, but i  pretty much have no knowledge of american history
  • 00:04:33
    nor how the country was founded, what wars it's  been in, its- its- really anything. but the way that
  • 00:04:39
    this course was taught (which makes a lot of sense  obviously because it's about the constitution)
  • 00:04:43
    was through a very historical lens. so we started  with the election around 1800, the thing that
  • 00:04:50
    hamilton was based off of i think? and something  happened there. i- i still couldn't tell you what
  • 00:04:56
    happened, but there was this contested election,  so we started there and then we basically just
  • 00:05:00
    went in chronological order to see the development  of constitutional law in the u.s over time. as you
  • 00:05:06
    can imagine, it was a completely u.s focused course  that required knowledge of u.s history. i remember
  • 00:05:13
    sitting next to my canadian friend in class as our  professor was talking about the new deal, and me
  • 00:05:18
    frantically googling the new deal because i had no  idea what was going on. also, i think constitutional
  • 00:05:24
    law is just one of the least interesting subjects  to me. academically, it is just not an interesting
  • 00:05:29
    topic for me. i feel like a lot of the debates  around constitutional law are quite mundane;
  • 00:05:34
    it's really about, you know, people arguing over  the meaning of a single word or a single phrase,
  • 00:05:39
    and i know that constitutional law has large  implications on society, and i appreciate that,
  • 00:05:44
    but it's really just not for me. so overall, this  goes in the traumatic category because i did
  • 00:05:49
    not enjoy it at all. there was also cold calling in  this class, so i was always scared that i was going
  • 00:05:54
    to get asked a question that i had no idea how  to answer. also, i suddenly remembered, but my god
  • 00:05:59
    the readings! you would think that supreme court  justices are good writers, but that's definitely
  • 00:06:04
    not the case based on some of the opinions we had  to read, which were probably like 50 pages long but
  • 00:06:09
    definitely could have been less than 20. a lot of  the opinions were super rambly and unclear and i
  • 00:06:15
    just wanted them to get straight to the point. i  feel like, in law, a lot of academics or writers
  • 00:06:21
    or judges could learn a lot from the STEM style of  writing - you know, where they put their conclusion
  • 00:06:26
    up front and then they explain how they got to  that conclusion and everything is super clear.
  • 00:06:30
    anyway, moving on. next up we have contracts! so  here at YLS all 1L students are put into
  • 00:06:37
    these groups called small groups, which are a group  of 16 to 20 (i believe) students led by a professor
  • 00:06:45
    who will teach you one of your 1L core subjects. so for me that was contracts you and your small
  • 00:06:50
    group will have the exact same schedule and take  all four classes together, including the one with
  • 00:06:55
    your small group professor. these people will often  become your first friends in law school because
  • 00:06:59
    they are the people you spend the most time with, and the law school tries to do a good job with
  • 00:07:04
    mixing up the diversity of each group. i found one  of my closest law school friends in this group and
  • 00:07:10
    i honestly loved everyone i met in it. we got along really well and i think a lot of that was thanks
  • 00:07:15
    to my small group professor, who really put in a  big effort in trying to make us all feel welcome
  • 00:07:21
    and setting up activities where we would get  to know each other. each small group also has
  • 00:07:25
    two 3L students who will help out with the class  and help out with integrating everybody into law
  • 00:07:30
    school life. these are called coker fellows and i  really enjoyed both of my coker fellows, who were
  • 00:07:35
    very helpful and very nice. back to contracts. so  contract was taught by my small group professor,
  • 00:07:41
    and she took quite an unconventional  approach, i think, to generally teaching
  • 00:07:44
    contract law. contracts is a huge topic and it  really spans a lot of different subject areas.
  • 00:07:51
    my professor decided to use a draft of a book that  she was working on to teach contracts in a simple
  • 00:07:58
    way. this meant that we had a very low amount of  reading in this class. i think we would only do
  • 00:08:03
    one to two cases, maybe three cases, per day maximum,  and all of the cases were pretty short and easy
  • 00:08:08
    to understand. overall, i really really enjoyed this  class. i feel like through the small class size and
  • 00:08:14
    the low amount of readings, we were really able to  dive deeply into each topic related to contracts,
  • 00:08:20
    so even though we might not have covered as much  material as other classes may have, i felt like
  • 00:08:25
    i got a lot more out of it because i didn't  feel overwhelmed with the amount of reading
  • 00:08:30
    and i didn't feel like i had to skip readings  because i just wouldn't have time to do them all.
  • 00:08:34
    i also really loved my professor and i really  loved my classmates, so in the end this was truly
  • 00:08:40
    an incredible experience, and i had a really good  time. i also like contracts as an academic subject,
  • 00:08:46
    given that i'm interested in transactional law. i  think it's just a super fascinating area of law
  • 00:08:51
    and there are a lot of interesting cases and  disputes that happen. my fourth and final class
  • 00:08:55
    that i took my 1L fall was torts. i think it was  called torts and regulation. this was kind of an
  • 00:09:01
    experimental course in the sense that my professor  wanted to do something new with it, so we had our
  • 00:09:08
    class not in the law school building, but in a  nearby physics? some kind of stem building at the
  • 00:09:13
    university. we would all sit at these round tables  in groups of nine. there would be screens all
  • 00:09:18
    around the classroom. my professor tried to make it  very interactive by using polls, so we would pull
  • 00:09:23
    up our phones and answer questions with polls. and  he also had a pretty innovative cold call system,
  • 00:09:28
    which i actually enjoyed, because we were in groups  of nine. each day only a certain number of groups
  • 00:09:33
    would be on call, and then within that group it  was up to their members to decide how the cold
  • 00:09:39
    call system would work. within my group we divided  ourselves into groups of three, and then we would
  • 00:09:44
    basically rotate the days that we were on call. this was super nice because it meant that i was
  • 00:09:48
    really only on call for a few days of the semester,  and even for the days i was on call, i wasn't as
  • 00:09:53
    worried or as nervous because i knew that there  were two other people in my group who could cover
  • 00:09:58
    for me if i didn't know the answer. also i never  felt like the cold calls were mean or unfair
  • 00:10:03
    in any way. i feel like they were quite fair,  and i always felt pretty prepared for the class.
  • 00:10:08
    overall, i really enjoyed torts. i think the cases  were the most interesting; they were all about
  • 00:10:12
    how people get injured in various ways, some of  which were pretty shocking, but they were all very
  • 00:10:17
    interesting and i had a lot of fun learning about  torts. i would say that this was a good experience,
  • 00:10:23
    maybe not incredible, but i think maybe a little  above just okay, and i honestly really really loved
  • 00:10:29
    my professor. i think he was really nice and really  kind and really cared about his students, so even
  • 00:10:33
    though this is in between "just okay" and "incredible  experience," i will put it as an "incredible
  • 00:10:38
    experience" because i really did enjoy the class. starting our second semester, we could pick our
  • 00:10:43
    own classes. other than torts, constitutional law,  contracts, and procedure, which we had to take our
  • 00:10:49
    first semester, the only class that we had to take  at some point before graduating was criminal law.
  • 00:10:55
    we also have two other graduation requirements, namely two major papers that we have to write, but
  • 00:11:01
    those don't have to be attached to any specific  class. the first class i took my 1L spring
  • 00:11:07
    was a class called negotiating international  agreements: the case of climate change. this is one
  • 00:11:12
    of the best classes i have ever taken in my entire  life. it was taught by a leading practitioner in
  • 00:11:18
    the environmental and climate change field  who has negotiated all of the major climate
  • 00:11:25
    agreements for the u.s in the past few decades. she  was an incredible teacher and extremely supportive.
  • 00:11:31
    the class was taught in a seminar style, so each  week we would have readings and then we would
  • 00:11:36
    come to class and discuss them, and we also had a  mock negotiation near the end of the semester. each
  • 00:11:41
    week we would basically go through a different  climate agreement and kind of learn the behind
  • 00:11:47
    the scenes information about how the each of  them was negotiated and how they were structured.
  • 00:11:53
    i learned a ton in this class about what it  means to be in environmental policy, what it
  • 00:11:58
    means to negotiate international agreements, and  the behind the scenes work and negotiation skills
  • 00:12:04
    that are involved. i also really enjoyed this  class because it was a joint class between the
  • 00:12:10
    law school and the school of the environment,  so we had a lot of master's students who were
  • 00:12:15
    doing environmental degrees instead of just  law students, which i feel like added a lot
  • 00:12:20
    of perspective to our discussions. overall, i had  an amazing time and i learned a ton and i really
  • 00:12:25
    really admired the professor. this is definitely  one of the best classes i have ever taken. next
  • 00:12:30
    up is business organizations, or biz orgs. this is  the prerequisite for a lot of business, corporate,
  • 00:12:37
    and transactional law courses that you can take  later on, so i decided to get it over with and out
  • 00:12:42
    of the way early on. it's a pretty basic black  letter course. so what i mean when i say "black
  • 00:12:47
    letter" is that these courses are generally taught  in a lecture format, and there's a lot of reading
  • 00:12:52
    because the main purpose of the course is to  learn the letter of the law or what the law is. the
  • 00:12:58
    opposite of a black letter course would be, say, a  seminar style discussion where the purpose of the
  • 00:13:02
    course may be to do research, write a paper, or to  discuss various theories instead of learning what
  • 00:13:08
    the law is. overall, i did enjoy biz orgs. it was your  standard law course where you learn what the law
  • 00:13:15
    is. you read the textbook, you read some cases, and  then you do a final exam. personally, i enjoyed the
  • 00:13:20
    professor's lecture style; he was always very clear  and concise and rarely got distracted by questions.
  • 00:13:26
    he would also have really, really good powerpoints  that clearly conveyed the information, and another
  • 00:13:32
    major plus was that after we went online halfway  through the semester due to the pandemic, he did an
  • 00:13:38
    amazing job with uploading recorded lectures along  with the powerpoints so that we wouldn't have to
  • 00:13:44
    worry about attending classes live at a certain  time, since we were all in different time zones.
  • 00:13:49
    personally, i loved having recorded lectures  because i could watch everything at 1.5 times
  • 00:13:54
    speed and rewind if i didn't understand certain  aspects of the class. overall, i quite enjoyed this
  • 00:14:01
    course. i think it was a solid introduction to  biz orgs, and i feel like i did learn a lot of
  • 00:14:05
    information and the professor was good. i wouldn't  say that it was an incredible experience because
  • 00:14:11
    it didn't feel that amazing, so i would put it in  the "just okay" category. but overall it was a good
  • 00:14:16
    experience. next up, we have antitrust. wow... this-  this course was certainly something. antitrust
  • 00:14:22
    was exactly what it sounds like: it's about  antitrust law. so for us we took a pretty
  • 00:14:28
    historical perspective on it, starting with  the very, very old antitrust laws in the u.s.
  • 00:14:33
    way back in the day when they had oil magnates and  railroad barons who controlled the entire country.
  • 00:14:38
    the antitrust laws back then were generally  stricter, i think, than they are now, but in the
  • 00:14:43
    modern context you may have heard the antitrust  issue come up with a lot of big tech companies.
  • 00:14:50
    there has been a push recently to use antitrust  laws or to strengthen antitrust laws to prevent
  • 00:14:55
    a lot of these major tech companies like facebook, google, amazon from essentially taking over the
  • 00:15:01
    whole world. so i had pretty high hopes for this  course. i also heard that it was a super chill
  • 00:15:06
    course that didn't require a lot of effort, but  i came away pretty disappointed overall. i don't
  • 00:15:11
    think the professor really did any teaching. we  would get to class and then he would literally -
  • 00:15:16
    and i kid you not - literally open up  the textbook and then read it verbatim,
  • 00:15:20
    even though we were supposed to have already done  the readings beforehand. also, halfway through the
  • 00:15:25
    semester, after the pandemic started and everyone  went home, he literally made two roughly 45 minute
  • 00:15:32
    recordings of his lectures and then sent us a  one-page word document summarizing the rest of
  • 00:15:38
    the course in bullet form - and that was it. did i  get my money's worth for the tuition? hell no! but,
  • 00:15:44
    on the plus side, the exam was very chill, very easy,  and it was a four credit course, so i feel like i
  • 00:15:51
    got a free four credits out of it. so, in the end, this course goes in the :at least i passed" category,
  • 00:15:56
    because it wasn't traumatic, but it certainly  wasn't very good either. the next class i took
  • 00:16:01
    was this course called corporate crisis management. this was an experiential course where essentially
  • 00:16:07
    at the start of the semester we got a scenario  describing a corporate crisis. i think in our
  • 00:16:12
    case - i don't even remember what our crisis was - but i think we were a pharmaceutical company or
  • 00:16:17
    some kind of healthcare related company and then  there was some kind of fraud or accounting fraud
  • 00:16:23
    (maybe) that had been happening, and we were hired as  an outside law firm to help counsel the company on
  • 00:16:28
    what they should do. so the premise of this course  was extremely interesting. it was also co-taught by
  • 00:16:34
    three actual practitioners at a new york biglaw  firm, so i had really high hopes and expectations
  • 00:16:38
    going in. it was a very small class, i think  around 10 to 12 people, and a lot of them were
  • 00:16:44
    2Ls or 3Ls with more experience and knowledge than me. honestly, this class was
  • 00:16:48
    probably the biggest letdown because i had such  high expectations and such high hopes for it.
  • 00:16:53
    overall, i just wasn't feeling the vibe of  the class. i feel like people really didn't
  • 00:16:58
    participate and the professors weren't very good  at encouraging participation. a lot of times i felt
  • 00:17:03
    very out of my element because i didn't feel  like i had the knowledge needed to answer a
  • 00:17:07
    lot of the complex questions and issues that we  were dealing with. however, what was interesting
  • 00:17:11
    about the class was that each week there would  be a new live development in the scenario that
  • 00:17:16
    we were working on, so we would have to react to it  and work in groups to do an assignment each week
  • 00:17:21
    addressing the issue. i feel like this course  has a lot of potential and that we could have
  • 00:17:25
    learned a lot if the professors maybe had been a  little more engaging, a little better at lecturing,
  • 00:17:30
    but overall i think it was just... bad. part of me  wants to put this course in the "at least i
  • 00:17:35
    passed" category, but i think in the end it has to go  in the "traumatic" category, because at the end of
  • 00:17:40
    the semester, we had this kind of mock simulation  where we had to speak with government lawyers and
  • 00:17:46
    we had to pretend that we were an outside law firm  representing the company in trouble. our professors
  • 00:17:51
    actually invited actual government lawyers to  come to be the agency in question. i remember i
  • 00:17:56
    got grilled about something that i had done that  i didn't know the meaning of... so i had put
  • 00:18:01
    "attorney client privilege / confidential information" or whatever as the heading on the documents
  • 00:18:08
    i had submitted to the government agency, and i  had only put this on the document because i had
  • 00:18:13
    seen it on a lot of other documents, and i thought  that this was just a standard thing that you put
  • 00:18:17
    on your document, so i submitted it to the agency  because they requested it, and then one of the
  • 00:18:21
    first questions i got during our simulation was, "so  are you giving up your attorney-client privilege
  • 00:18:27
    by submitting these documents?" and i just froze. i literally had no idea what attorney-client
  • 00:18:32
    privilege was, what confidential information  meant in this context, or what it meant to
  • 00:18:37
    "give up" the attorney-client privilege; it had just  been a standard header that i had been adding onto
  • 00:18:41
    all of my documents up until that point, so i  really didn't know what to say. overall, i think
  • 00:18:46
    it was kind of a traumatic class, and i just  felt like a fish out of water the whole time.
  • 00:18:51
    the fifth and final class i took that semester  was a clinic called the entrepreneurship and
  • 00:18:56
    innovation clinic. so, for a little bit of context,  each semester at the law school we are expected to
  • 00:19:01
    take between 12 to 16 credits - minimum 12, maximum  16. in order to graduate, you roughly have to
  • 00:19:07
    take around 13.5 credits each semester on average  starting your 1L spring. the amount of credits per
  • 00:19:13
    class varies depending on how much time is spent  in class and how much work it is, although i will
  • 00:19:18
    say that credits do not correlate always with the  amount of work involved - case in point: antitrust.
  • 00:19:23
    my 1L spring, i decided to take five courses  total, one of which was a clinic. clinics are not
  • 00:19:28
    exactly your traditional courses; rather, they are  experiential classes where you help real people
  • 00:19:35
    with their real life, real world legal issues. all  of them are supervised by practicing attorneys,
  • 00:19:41
    because as law students we are not allowed to  give legal advice without the supervision of
  • 00:19:46
    a licensed attorney. clinics are a fantastic way to  explore different practice areas and to see if a
  • 00:19:51
    certain practice area is a good fit for you beyond  law school. for me, i took the entrepreneurship and
  • 00:19:57
    innovation clinic, also known as EIC, because i'm  interested in transactional law and this was one
  • 00:20:03
    of the only offerings related to transactional law  at the law school. law school is very litigation
  • 00:20:08
    focused, which makes a lot of sense, but because i  knew early on going into law school that i didn't
  • 00:20:13
    want to do litigation, i wanted to focus most of my  time on transactional law to see if it was a good
  • 00:20:18
    fit for me. if it wasn't, then, well, i'd be kind  of screwed because i really don't know what i
  • 00:20:22
    would do after i graduate, so thank goodness that i  love this clinic and i've stayed in it ever since.
  • 00:20:28
    EIC is dedicated to helping startups and  founders with their legal and business issues.
  • 00:20:33
    it is super fun because we get a huge variety of  clients; i've had clients in the biosciences, i've
  • 00:20:39
    had a food company, a mental health startup. some  of them are run by yale students, some of them
  • 00:20:45
    are run by people in the new haven community, and  some of them are elsewhere, but most of our clients
  • 00:20:50
    i would say are in the northeast of the u.s. like i  said, we basically help startups and founders with
  • 00:20:56
    their myriad of legal issues. i've done license  agreement negotiations. i've helped incorporate
  • 00:21:02
    companies. i've helped draft employment agreements,  founders agreements, such as related to their
  • 00:21:07
    stock vesting. another interesting part of the  clinic is that a lot of times these founders
  • 00:21:12
    will ask you for business advice as well, which  makes a lot more interesting because you're not
  • 00:21:17
    just there kind of as an encyclopedia to answer  their legal questions, but you're also there as
  • 00:21:22
    their general advisor, especially at a time  when they have so few resources to work with.
  • 00:21:26
    overall, the clinic has been one of my favourite  experiences at the law school and i don't think i
  • 00:21:31
    would have enjoyed my time as much if i hadn't had  the clinic. our professor and supervising attorney
  • 00:21:36
    is extremely nice and one of the most supportive  people i've ever met, so this is definitely one of
  • 00:21:41
    the best, if not the best, courses i've taken at  the law school and deserves to go in the top tier! :)
  • 00:21:46
    all right, on to 2L fall! the first class i took  that semester was called applied corporate finance.
  • 00:21:52
    i took this class because i felt like it would be  useful for my practice in the future, given that i
  • 00:21:57
    have no finance background whatsoever. the way this  class was set up was that for the first half of
  • 00:22:02
    the semester, we learned financial concepts about  valuation - so, how bonds work, how to value a company,
  • 00:22:09
    different financial modelling (but very basic  stuff). a lot of that was spent on excel. this
  • 00:22:14
    was honestly a really rough part of the course for  me because i'm really bad at math and i also have
  • 00:22:19
    no finance background, so i really had no idea what  was going on most classes. our professor also spoke
  • 00:22:25
    really, really quickly and would bulldoze through  all of her lectures, so that we basically had no
  • 00:22:30
    time to ask her any questions because she had  so much material to cover every single class.
  • 00:22:35
    there was also cold calling, but it was pretty  much in alphabetical order, so you kind of knew
  • 00:22:40
    when your turn was coming. and the one day i was  actually cold called i actually wasn't there
  • 00:22:44
    in class because i was on a trip to banff last  year (oops) - that was fun. anyway, the second half of
  • 00:22:51
    the semester was where we started applying the law. basically, we would go through a lot of cases where
  • 00:22:57
    we would be able to apply the financial concepts  that we had learned earlier in the semester.
  • 00:23:02
    we did a lot of cases surrounding  creditors' rights, bondholders' rights,
  • 00:23:06
    and ended with mergers and acquisitions and how  judges and courts value a company when there's
  • 00:23:13
    a merger or sale of the company. honestly, as i was  going through the course, i hated it, and i wouldn't
  • 00:23:20
    have made it through the course if it weren't  for two of my friends who were also taking it.
  • 00:23:24
    we formed the study group and were able to come  up with a really good outline for finals, which
  • 00:23:28
    honestly saved me. however, as i was studying  for finals, everything sort of clicked, and i
  • 00:23:34
    don't know if it's stockholm syndrome because  by that point maybe i had been so traumatized
  • 00:23:39
    by my professor's brutal teaching style or  if it was just simply the course had started
  • 00:23:44
    working and all the knowledge had come together and culminated in this kind of understanding of
  • 00:23:50
    corporate finance, but after i finished the course  i honestly genuinely really, really enjoyed it, and
  • 00:23:56
    it was one of the best courses i've taken at the  law school! i recommend this course to everyone
  • 00:24:00
    now who wants to do transactional law, so when  all is said and done, honestly this would go in
  • 00:24:06
    the top two tiers, and since i'm feeling  extra generous today i'm gonna put it in
  • 00:24:10
    the top tier, because it honestly is one of the  greatest classes i've taken at the law school.
  • 00:24:15
    next, i took federal income taxation, which is  the prerequisite tax course for all advanced tax
  • 00:24:21
    courses. i had heard a lot of really great things  about the professor who was teaching it, so i was
  • 00:24:26
    really excited to take this course. overall, i think  it was a really, really good course. i feel like i
  • 00:24:32
    learned a lot and i feel like even though i don't remember any tax now, i think my overall impression
  • 00:24:37
    going through the course was that i was learning a  lot and that the professor really cared about her
  • 00:24:44
    students and really did a good job trying to teach  virtually during a pandemic. all of her lectures
  • 00:24:49
    were super clear and she did a really great job  with her powerpoints and really getting us to work
  • 00:24:54
    through some super dense material. i also really  appreciated that that she had a voluntary on-call
  • 00:24:59
    system, so i never felt like i had to actually  go to class, because i think the class was at
  • 00:25:04
    7am - 6 or 7am - my time, which was just  a brutal time to be awake. so i would always watch
  • 00:25:10
    the recorded lectures afterwards. honestly, i think  the professor was one of the best lecturers i've
  • 00:25:16
    ever had, but overall i didn't enjoy tax as a  subject matter, and i don't think i ever will.
  • 00:25:21
    i'm definitely not cut out to be a tax lawyer; i  think the code is just extremely dry and boring,
  • 00:25:26
    and i feel like tax law changes all the time and i  don't like having to keep up with new developments.
  • 00:25:32
    overall, i think this course falls between  the "just okay" and the "incredible experience"
  • 00:25:36
    category, but because the professor was such a  sweetheart and really cared about her students,
  • 00:25:40
    i'm gonna bump the course up to "incredible  experience." the third class i took my 2L fall
  • 00:25:46
    was called american legal profession. this was a  lecture course, once a week, three hours per class.
  • 00:25:52
    i took it as part of the professional  responsibility requirement for graduation.
  • 00:25:56
    usually people take the course called professional  responsibility, which basically just teaches
  • 00:26:01
    you about ethics, but i thought that american  legal profession would be a more interesting
  • 00:26:05
    route because it was supposed to teach us about  the history of the american legal profession
  • 00:26:10
    and various legal practices. in the end, this course  was okay. i think the professor wasn't the greatest
  • 00:26:17
    at lecturing and that, coupled with a three  hour format and the fact that we were on zoom,
  • 00:26:23
    the lectures just weren't very engaging. the  good part about this course was that it was only
  • 00:26:27
    10 weeks long, so it ended in november, so i was  done with a course early on in the semester. and
  • 00:26:33
    also i stopped going to the lectures halfway  through and would just speedrun the whole
  • 00:26:37
    thing at two times speed on my own time. i think, overall, the material was interesting and i
  • 00:26:42
    do feel like the textbook was actually pretty  interesting to read because there was a lot of
  • 00:26:47
    historical facts and knowledge and data on  the legal industry, but the way it was taught
  • 00:26:52
    was just not the most engaging. so overall i  would put this in the "at least i passed" category.
  • 00:26:58
    on to 2L spring! by this time we were in our third- our second and a half semester of online learning,
  • 00:27:04
    so we had really kind of settled into the rhythm  of it and i was honestly enjoying my time at home
  • 00:27:09
    with my parents and my dog. the first course  i took that semester was called international
  • 00:27:13
    business transactions. this was a lecture  class where the professor would just lecture
  • 00:27:19
    about various topics related to international  business transactions, and we would also have
  • 00:27:23
    a lot of super interesting guest lecturers and  practitioners come in. for example, we learned a
  • 00:27:29
    lot about project finance, which is how major  projects such as stadiums, pipelines, railroads,
  • 00:27:35
    airports are built. we also covered issues such  as corruption and international trade. overall, i
  • 00:27:41
    really, really enjoyed this course. i think that  the professor is one of the best lecturers i've
  • 00:27:46
    ever had and that she truly cares about all of  her students. this course was not small; i think
  • 00:27:52
    it was probably around 70 students, and we all had  to write final papers that were roughly 25 to 50
  • 00:27:59
    pages, depending on how long you wanted it to be. i  was so impressed that she managed to get through
  • 00:28:04
    all our papers and give us feedback on them. honestly, this was one of my favourite courses. the
  • 00:28:09
    professor rarely cold called, and i feel like when  she did, she would either give you a heads up or
  • 00:28:14
    the question would be pretty basic, so i never  felt like i was living in fear the whole time.
  • 00:28:18
    i feel like it was a really great survey course  on international business and i did learn a lot.
  • 00:28:24
    all of the guest lecturers were super interesting  and i always looked forward to watching the
  • 00:28:28
    lectures because it almost felt like a podcast at some point where i could just sit back, relax,
  • 00:28:33
    and kind of absorb whatever information i wanted  to. there was no pressure of having to learn the
  • 00:28:38
    material for an exam at the end because we were  writing papers, so i would honestly put this in the
  • 00:28:42
    "greatest class i've ever taken category" because  it IS one of the greatest classes i've ever taken,
  • 00:28:47
    and i recommend it to everyone i know. next up  is criminal law. criminal law is a requirement
  • 00:28:53
    for graduation and i decided to take it my 2L spring so that i could get it out of the way.
  • 00:28:58
    this class was taught by a philosopher, so  it was definitely very, very theoretical,
  • 00:29:02
    and although criminal law is not criminal  procedure, so we weren't going to be learning about
  • 00:29:07
    topics like bail, or how the criminal justice  system works exactly, or how sentencing works,
  • 00:29:14
    it was, i feel like, even more theoretical than a  usual criminal law class would be. because criminal
  • 00:29:19
    law is a state-based law, meaning each state has  very different criminal laws, we focused a lot on
  • 00:29:26
    the model penal code, which is kind of this  draft law made by a lot of practitioners and
  • 00:29:33
    various academics that some states have adopted to  different variations. i think overall this course
  • 00:29:38
    was okay. i appreciated that it was taught in a  recorded lecture format. so we would basically
  • 00:29:45
    watch recordings beforehand, and then people could  show up to class and have a discussion and ask
  • 00:29:49
    questions. i, of course, being me, never showed up to  class, and also because i was in a different time
  • 00:29:54
    zone, but i would watch all the recorded lectures  at 1.5 or two times speed - sometimes two times
  • 00:29:59
    speed was a little fast - and i feel like i did  learn a lot about criminal law and the criminal
  • 00:30:04
    justice system and how messed up it is. i thought  the exam was pretty fair, although to be honest,
  • 00:30:09
    i only got through the exam because of my two  friends who graciously provided me with their
  • 00:30:14
    outline. overall, the course was, you know, not super  traumatic. it was a decent course, and the professor
  • 00:30:20
    seemed nice enough, so i would put this course in  the "just okay" category. next up, i decided to add
  • 00:30:26
    another clinic to my roster. so at this point i  was still in the entrepreneurship and innovation
  • 00:30:31
    clinic, and i'm still in it, i'm going to be in  it until i graduate, but i thought it might be
  • 00:30:35
    fun to try something new, so i decided to add the  environmental protection clinic to my list as well.
  • 00:30:40
    this clinic operates very differently. it's project based, so when you bid for the class, you bid for
  • 00:30:46
    the specific project, and there was one project  in particular that really interested me - about the
  • 00:30:52
    meat industry and meat processing. i bid for that  project and i was lucky enough to have gotten it.
  • 00:30:57
    this was a very group based clinic, so i was put  into a team of four, myself included. it was three
  • 00:31:04
    law students and one student from the school of  the environment, and what i love about this clinic
  • 00:31:09
    is that all of our clients are wonderful. a lot of  them are non-profit environmental organizations
  • 00:31:14
    doing really great work in the field, and the  interdisciplinary nature of the clinic means
  • 00:31:19
    that you really do learn a lot more than just  the law. for my project, we specifically researched
  • 00:31:25
    the meat processing industry, which, by the way, is  super horrific if you look up anything about how
  • 00:31:30
    animals are raised, produced, and killed in this  country - or anywhere for that matter, but especially
  • 00:31:35
    in the u.s., which is really the pioneer of factory  farming. anyway, the final output of this class was
  • 00:31:42
    a group memo that we then sent to our client, which  was an environmental organization. i feel like all
  • 00:31:48
    the supervisors were incredible and really tried  their best to support us, and our clients were also
  • 00:31:53
    very nice, and i loved all of my group mates, so  this was a truly truly incredible experience. the
  • 00:31:59
    only thing that i would say that doesn't put  this class into the top tier for me is that
  • 00:32:04
    i hate writing papers and i hate doing research. i  don't think i fully understood the extent of how
  • 00:32:09
    much i hate doing research until this semester, because this semester i somehow got myself into
  • 00:32:13
    THREE paper classes, so i had to write three papers,  one of which was this group memo. by the end, i just
  • 00:32:19
    felt super burnt out and super tired and i didn't  want to do any interviews, i didn't want to do any
  • 00:32:24
    more research, but, you know, i chugged along and we made it over the finish line. so i would put this clinic
  • 00:32:29
    under "incredible experience." and we are at the end! save the best for last, of course. i can't believe i
  • 00:32:35
    finally made it through this video and we are at  the end of my 2L spring. the last course i took
  • 00:32:40
    this semester was a course called food systems  and environmental law. straight up want to say
  • 00:32:45
    this is one of the greatest classes i've ever  taken. it was taught by an actual practitioner
  • 00:32:49
    with decades of experience in environmental law.  it was a small course and it was also cross-listed
  • 00:32:56
    with the school of the environment, so we also  had some forestry students with us. i think we
  • 00:33:00
    had around 15 people in the class, maybe? it was all  on zoom, but the professor did an amazing job with
  • 00:33:06
    encouraging class participation and, unlike most of  my other classes, i never felt uncomfortable with
  • 00:33:12
    participating or speaking up. i don't know if it's  because i was more invested and interested in the
  • 00:33:17
    subject matter or if it was just because everyone  was always so nice and supportive and affirming
  • 00:33:23
    with their comments. for this class we learned, as  the course title sounds, about food systems and
  • 00:33:29
    environmental law. this class, coupled with the  meat processing project i had been working on
  • 00:33:34
    for the environmental protection clinic, made me  pretty much vegetarian, or at least aspire to be
  • 00:33:40
    vegetarian. when i'm at home i feel like it's  really hard to be a vegetarian because meat
  • 00:33:44
    is a large part of my culture and my parents eat  it and they're super against me being vegetarian,
  • 00:33:50
    but when i'm at school and when i cook for myself,  i've stopped cooking meat, just because of all the
  • 00:33:55
    stuff that i learned in these two courses. i feel  like there was so much interesting information and
  • 00:34:00
    the readings were never dry. each week, we would go  through a different issue, such as the clean water
  • 00:34:05
    act, the clean air act, or regulation of factory  farms. we also had a lot of interesting guest
  • 00:34:11
    speakers come and give presentations on their work.  the final project for this class was, you guessed
  • 00:34:16
    it, a paper! so i wrote a paper about factory  farming and how a lot of these meat producers
  • 00:34:22
    are massive companies with a lot of market  power and therefore should be held accountable
  • 00:34:26
    for the environmental pollution that results from  their farming practices. however, the problem with
  • 00:34:33
    holding these producers accountable is that a  lot of them aren't actually directly raising
  • 00:34:38
    the animals themselves; rather they will contract  out the work to contract farmers, which are often
  • 00:34:44
    very small family farms, and these farms, even  though they are emitting most of the pollution,
  • 00:34:49
    are fully controlled by their contracts, usually  almost exclusively with only one company, so they
  • 00:34:55
    don't have a lot of choice in how their farm  actually operates. the current state of the law
  • 00:34:59
    makes it such that when you sue a factory farm  or any farm for pollution, you can't really reach
  • 00:35:05
    the major meat companies because they are not the  ones actually raising the animals. my paper kind of
  • 00:35:12
    explored ways to hold these massive meat producers  accountable for the pollution caused by their
  • 00:35:17
    contract farmers, which was a super interesting  project. overall, this class was an incredible
  • 00:35:22
    experience and i feel like i learned a lot and i  actually retained a lot of the information, which
  • 00:35:27
    is surprising. i think part of it is because i was  already interested in the subject matter to begin
  • 00:35:32
    with, so i definitely put in a lot of work in this  course and it really paid off. to the top it goes!
  • 00:35:38
    well, that's wrap! there you have it: the tier list  for my first two years at law school. again, full
  • 00:35:44
    disclaimer: all opinions are my own, so don't  come at me, don't sue me. professors, don't take
  • 00:35:50
    this personally. i hope you enjoyed the video and  that it was somewhat insightful. until next time!
Tags
  • derecho
  • Yale
  • experiencia académica
  • clases de derecho
  • memoji
  • opiniones personales
  • métodos de enseñanza
  • clínicas de derecho
  • antitrust
  • crisis corporativa