Public Law a filter course?

[King of Queens]

Jesus christ this course is way more complicated then all my other classes and it's exam is the only one worth 80-90%, the others are around 10-20%.

Its also the only 1 semester class. Is this designed to weed out people early?

[MiceInRice]

Many people will say that Public was their least favourite 1L class. I struggled with it too. I think it's dumb that it's set up as a separate course from ConLaw and that each is worth 4 credits while the year long courses are worth 6.

Just do what you can and try not to stress too much about it. Almost everyone will get a B anyways. The lowest mark I saw in my year was a B- and that was maybe 20% of the class.

[craigfeldspar]

On 12/3/2021 at 7:26 PM, King of Queens said:

Its also the only 1 semester class. Is this designed to weed out people early?

This is a unique take, but I don't think it holds true. 

I think your prof has a substantial impact on your perspective in this course (which is a blanket statement that can apply to every law school course). I only bring this up because my 1L public law prof was easily one of my top 5 teachers of all time, articulate and learned.  So my public law course/exams followed a coherent structure, making the adjustment to 1L an easier transition. 

I do not think the class is designed to weed people out, at least to any degree more so than any of the other mandatory 1L courses. You likely just have a difficult prof, my 1L tutee for example is learning almost a completely different public law course than I did. 

I'm sorry to hear your experience with the course has been less than ideal, but I do agree with the majority in that you should prioritize the public law exam over your other December exams. The December exams in the other courses are just like your public law midterm, they are practice exams with little to no repercussions. Those other exams, if you do well on them, great you're on the right track keep doing what you're doing - if you perform poorly it truly doesn't hurt you instead it gives you a chance to prepare better for finals. Personally I bombed the tort December exam (67%), but it didn't matter since the final exam was worth the rest of the grade (85% of final course grade), I made the necessary adjustments and ended up with an A. 

Outside of the regular tactics, reading the cases / discussing or collaborating with peers, might I suggest a personal strategy that helped me considerably in public law (but also to learn how to write law school exams properly), study your recent SCC decisions (I found post 2000's decisions to be better formatted/structured). Do your best to write/structure your exam answers to how the more recent SCC judges concisely explain their reasoning and arrive at their conclusions. Frankly by adopting this strategy, I never had a different game plan for any of the classes, same strategy to approach all law school exams. 

[Electricity]

On 12/3/2021 at 7:26 PM, King of Queens said:

this course is way more complicated then all my other classes

Who's your prof? How'd your final go? 

[King of Queens]

11 hours ago, Electricity said:

Who's your prof? How'd your final go? 

I'd rather not say my prof as it'll be too obvious who I am. But the final went better than expected, mainly due to some blind luck that an older final I did a practice exam on had similar facts (down to the legislation and industries) and need the same doctrines applied. Also, somehow the essay was almost what I expected it be and I wrote one out beforehand as practice. 

Who's what would have happened it wasn't precisely what I prepared for.

[King of Queens]

2 hours ago, King of Queens said:

I'd rather not say my prof as it'll be too obvious who I am. But the final went better than expected, mainly due to some blind luck that an older final I did a practice exam on had similar facts (down to the legislation and industries) and need the same doctrines applied. Also, somehow the essay was almost what I expected it be and I wrote one out beforehand as practice. 

Who's what would have happened it wasn't precisely what I prepared for.

As you can see, my ability to write coherent sentences has gone out the window at this point in the exam period.