Overall most important post-1L course?

[What do you think is overall the most important non-1L course and why?]

What do you think is overall the most important non-1L course and why?

Evidence

UCC/Commercial Law

Trusts and Estates

Basic Tax

Administrative Law

Business Organizations/Corporations

Other (please specify)

[wrhssaxensemble]

Any thoughts?

[Dr. Balsenschaft]

Literature and the Law - Because it reminded me of how useless my undergrad liberal arts education was.

[uh huh.]

I think it totally depends on what specialty you think you're going into, or at least what types of tasks you think you prefer doing (litigation/research work, as opposed to drafting/corporate work).  Frankly, I took evidence and found it highly useless, but then again, I'm not a litigator.  I think that any practitioner could benefit from a UCC/Article 9 class.  And I think I've gotten the most mileage from my Real Estate Transaction class - I bring that outline up at least once a month.

[Matthies]

Personally I think any advanced legal writing class. You can never get enough practice writing and that’s what most of your day in practice will be spent doing.

[,.,.,.;.,.,.]

Personally I think any advanced legal writing class. You can never get enough practice writing and that’s what most of your day in practice will be spent doing.

Assuming litigation, no?

[Matthies]

Personally I think any advanced legal writing class. You can never get enough practice writing and that’s what most of your day in practice will be spent doing.

Assuming litigation, no?

More so transactional, but litigation as well. Lawyers write stuff, memos, briefs, complaints, compliance reviews, letters to clients, that is their work product – writing.

[CTL]

Why admin law?  Just curious.

[vap]

Although you don't need to really take a course, doing an externship for credit is a great idea.

I also agree with Matthies about advanced writing courses.  Any non-doctrinal or non-seminar course that is practice-oriented is probably a good idea.

Conflict of laws is also interesting, and I think it would be very difficult to learn this material in practice.  And, as someone has pointed out to me, it generates a lot of billable hours.

From the courses you listed, I voted Evidence (but I guess only if you want to litigate).

[linquest]

I'd say the most important courses are the ones most likely to show up on the bar exam: Evidence, Trusts and Estates, Business Organizations/Corporations.  UCC/Commercial Law is lower since you usually learn what you need in 1L Contracts class.  Tax is tested in some states.  Administrative Law can be really important depending on what kind of law you're going to practice though.    

[jacy85]

I agree with Matthies.

But for doctrinal courses, I'd say Business Associations/Corporations for anyone.  I'm a litigator and have been so glad to know a bit about corporate structure and the very, very basics of securities law.  It's even more important on the transactional side.  Evidence is also very important for litigators.

There really isn't a hard and fast rule on anything.  Even if you dont' take these courses, you can learn what you need to.  And with no information about what your interests are, it's hard to say.  Someone who is 100% sure they'll be a transactional attorney doesn't really need evidence, but someone who is going to head into a DA or PD's office and practice non-white collar crim law doesn't really need Biz Associations.  So it's all relative.