Anyone still looking to buy a parking permit? I may have one that I don't need - pm to work out the logistics

No, I think it's safe to say they're rather disoriented. That said, all they needed to do was: 1) send an email indicating how to set up your case email, 2) send one giant email, only to case emails, with a link to the online stuff and a note explaining what was going to be mailed physically and what wasn't, and suggested dates for return of each item, if applicable. Zero confusion.

So do you have any idea what this "Registration Data Form" is?

I haven't received the "registration data form" either. Hopefully it will come within the next few days.

I just received it in my personal e-mail a few minutes ago.

any unlucky souls get section b? 820 contracts?

I did....why is this "unlucky"?

...

I'm in B too! It will be odd to have that break in the middle of the day, but hopefully I'll use the time productively.

Also it would've been nice if they could've slid contracts over to start on Monday so that Friday was totally open instead of mostly open.

I'll be in B as well, time to fire up the coffee pot.

Last year, my roommate was trying to tell me how he had a hunch that section B had the best students. Again, this is just all pure speculation.

1. Since Case wants to raise their bar pass rate. They give the worst students the best teachers and vice versa.
a. evidence- foreign students are never introduced into section b classes. Only in sections A and C.

2. more kids are on big scholarships in section b than any other section.

3. The best LLM students who transition to JD are put into section B.

4. For the elective class 2nd semester, the cali award winner for all the elective classes were from section b.

Well then this makes me feel really good about myself.

I'd believe it though. They claim they don't try to stack scholarship students, but, they probably do. It also sucks if we get the worst teachers (I'm going to choose not to believe this part), and really sucks that we have to wake up so damn early.

This worries me...I've heard rumors about schools "section stacking" so that some of the students with large scholarships will ultimately lose them.

Thexfactor: Do you know of any students from section B losing their scholarship?

This is the first year scholarships have had GPA stips so they would have had no reason to stack last year.

Not true. I had a stipulation on my scholarship.

remember 2 tips.

1. study early
2. pay attention in class

For Core:
Mercer loves to have things her way. So always check with her.
She will be swamped a couple days before papers are due so start early.

We (me and another group of students at an ASD) were told that this was the first year with the 3.15 GPA stip and that before this year the only requirement was "good academic standing." So you had stipulations beyond "good academic standing?"

Austin is an old fella who has already "checked out" in my opinion. He doesnt like answering questions.

For Torts: Strassfeld covered half of the material that we were suppose to cover. Sucks for us on the bar exam....... He tried to cram 1/4 of a semesters worth of materials in 2 class periods.....
Funny guy though.. and semi entertaining.

Crim law: No complains on my part. Very organized and structured. Some people complained that he is a hard-ass. Also, his "version" of criminal law is kinda a little bit off from the mainstream philosophy so you might have to relearn stuff for the bar exam.

All in all... it was a semi-enjoyable semester. Friends are prob the most important part. My favorite part was goofing around with a couple of friends on the bridge between contracts and torts.

Get friends that you can depend on. Get a group of 6-8 friends you hang out with socially and 2-3 friends that you can study with.

Attending AEP is always a good idea. Remember.. don't panic if you do poorly on your first memo. I did average/below average on my first memo and still did well in the class. Just make sure you understand where you went wrong.

Check Case's bar pass rate. They have a pretty low rate in OH. A low bar pass rate reflects poorly on the 1L professors.

This year we had about 15 law firms participate in Early OCI and about 5-10 firms in the later rounds. THe majority of these firms are pretty big firms. The good news is that Cleveland actually has a decent amount of big/medium law firms. like 6-7 in the top 250 firms in the US. Then there are some decent medium firms too. So recruiting at Case isn't that bad. Generally speaking, you need to be about top 25%-30% ITE.

I was between 8-15% and got almost all the interviews that I applied to. I had a buddy who is also top 5% and had the same. Case is a really transfer happy school ( i transferred).. I think about 7-8 people on LR transferred. About 20-25 transferred overall.

Top 10% of case grades on to LR minus transfers. So roughly the top 15%-20% of the class makes it into LR.

Guys you are at a great "hidden" gem. Recruiting is bad at all schools. Obviously almost all of you guys would be going to fordham/bc/wustl/gw if you had gotten in. However, outside of that group, I think Case actually has a pretty good recruiting program for it's rank. Im glad I chose Case over Wake.

Again, these "tips" have to do with what I experienced. Your experience will vary.


PM me if you need any more information. I will do whatever I can to help.

Guys I am sorry. I just checked my scholarship and it says 2.33 GPA on mine. So I guess that is the good standing. I just heard from my friend that he said he needed a 3.0. Sorry about that.

Thank you for all the great info. It is nice to get the "inside scoop" on the profs ahead of time!

again sorry for the wrong information on the scholarship thing.

This year top 10% was 3.68
25% was 3.4
50- 3.133
75- 2.8

I would be interested in any evidence of section stacking, but I don't see it as being likely.

Good post on the professors and thanks for the percentile breakdowns.

I think our year had a slightly higher top 10% breakdown. Last year top 10% was 3.62 i think....

Thanks for your very detailed posting. It was of great help in getting a sense of who the professors of my section really are.
I just have two questions.

If the professors are, as you remarked, "checked out", "off from the mainstream" and unable to cover the materials on schedule, does that make preparing for the final exam any more difficult? How did you prepare for the finals yourself? Did you rely on materials besides casebooks and supplements recommened by the professors?

And second, when I saw the Criminal Law syllabus the grading system seemed a bit unsual to me in that 20% of it came from in-class participation and quizess, instead of 100% from the final exam as usual. Have these quizzes and participation requirements imposed any additional burden on preparing for your class?(when one has more than enough worry about the final exam?)

Again, thanks for your insightful posting and I really appreciate for kindly giving such valuable piece of information to new students.

A little bit. For crim law I didnt use a hornbook or syllabus. I did however, study from a couple of old outlines. The crim law exam is a 24 hr take home test. I gathered 3-4 outlines together and meticulously thought through each question.

He will assign a couple of optional practice questions from his book. DO THEM! The questions in the book are very similar to the real exam questions.

For the quizzes, they aren't very hard, but you need to read all the cases. I took the quizzes very seriously. I think generally speaking, the people that did well on the quizzes did well on the exam.

Class participation- he will have a "hitters" list where you will be up to bat 1 time per semester. He will direct questions at the hitters for the week. However, in reality everyone answers questions. I really had to "fight" to attempt to answer questions.

For contracts + torts, I bought both an E+E book and the hornbook recommended on TLS. THey seemed to help. You will need the extra help in Torts. Remember- torts will likely be open book. However, that DOES NOT MEAN "open your book... or even your outline" I got tricked first semester with the "open book exam" You should have an 1 page "hitters list" with definitions and basic stuff like that.

contracts will be closed book. Austin will give you a lot of practice exams so you shouldn't worry too much about that.....

Again, this is all from my experience. Your experience will vary.

Remember guys: Start early!

Good luck!

Thank you for answering my questions so promptly. If you don't mind I would like to ask a few more of them.

1. How does the criminal law exam look like? I am asking this because I wondered how the first one-third part of the course(theory on punishment, the process and staturatory interpretation of crminal law, etc.) could be tested on a traditional issue-spotting exam. Is his exam any different from the usual essay exams one might expect to see on the finals?

2. By the "optional practice questions", are you referring to the problems included in the casebook? If so, how did you go through them? I once heard the biggest problem of the notes and questions in casebooks is that they have no answers(which is why the E&E series are so popular).

3. This may sound overly blunt, but are the professors of section B really the "worst" among the three sections as have been pointed out?

4. What about study groups? How many students join them? Are they really necessary or just optional?

5. As for networking, what would you recommend for 1L students?(particularly for 1L internship)
Are there any organizations or extracurricular activities you think worth participating in?

6. Finally, is there any truth in typical law school horror stories?(having to study 24/7 with little time to spare, cutthroat competition with pages torn out from books on library reserves and so on)