Meeting W/ An NWCU Law Alumni Attorney

Thanks for posting this! Did you not participate in class during 1L? Or just not as much as 2L & 3L?

I do not know if I would ever need to be worried about grades after graduation, but I am keeping it in mind.

I was also planning to relocate for law school. I've already lived in the Bay area once while going to school. I didn't really venture out to Sacramento but I have a feeling it's a little bit more rough. Being in Sacramento could be good in terms of accessing the school's law library, but then again I could also go live near Berkeley and have access to one of the best law school libraries in the country.

On the other hand I also noticed last night that NWCU does allow for two electives which could also be externships. There's an attorney I've known as an acquaintance professionally for over a decade in the San Fernando valley. He used to give a lot of people in my previous industry legal advice or would occasionally represent them, and also helped me out once on something that got resolved quick. I would definitely be interested in doing an externship with him. There's also an organization in LA whose founder is an attorney and has offered to help me with some other things but I could see potentially externing under her. Last, there's an organization in San Francisco that focuses on prosecuting for the only thing I would be interested in prosecuting for, so I could potentially extern with them. Ideally I would probably like to do all three but I might have to just pick two, one for 2L and one for 3L if I go with NWCU. I would also love these to be paid externships though and I'm not really sure if I could make that happen. I might be lucky just to be able to get the experience I want.

I had reached out to him prior, I think last week, but had not heard back. If he gets back to me I will try asking him. I can try asking the school directly, but I am a bit concerned about that may not pan out.

 

For 1L, I spent a lot more time reading the law (cases, rule outlines, etc.) but not much writing of actual exam. I did participate in some of the online class but it was passive. The 1L grader was exceptionally tough. Also, some of the professors teaching 1L was not that good (I cannot mention names here). That's the reason I recommend learning the law from Barbri and Themis for free upon registration and then focusing on writing.

To get the JD, the student has to maintain a minimum 2.0 GPA so while grade is not that important one has to make sure there is a good safety margin.

Ray Haden posts a lot of info on his website and a lot of messages on Facebook. However, I'd suggest one approaches his perspectives with a grain of salt. He basically argues that the MBE (multiple choice questions) and bar exam are not good at measure skills, etc. However, at the end of the day, the state bar has to maintain certain level of quality and has to limit the number of folks getting licensed (whatever tools they use). Focusing the attention on how to pass the exams would be better.

 

I did manage to get a handbook from a current student and am combing through it now.

Which professors would you recommend sitting in on classes of? Also, maybe you could PM me about which to avoid.

I am reading the handbook and it looks like they have a decent system for dealing with professors who are needlessly tough on grading. I do wish that the grading was done more on an anonymous basis, which could help avoid a lot of issues. I know this used to be done in the past but I'm not sure how common it is at law schools now.

By the way, I have been watching episodes of Paper Chase on Archive.org. Have any of you seen it? Professor Kingsfield is exactly the type I worry about based in passed experiences of being eager as a student to learn from a particular professor who is extremely difficult as a person even if well intentioned.

 

Mary is pretty good but I am not sure if she still teaches 1L. In my experience, there was only one that was a waste of time for the most part. It should be very obvious if you do end up attending there. You would certainly learn something from the rest of instructors. However, watching the Barbari/Themis lectures will be important to understand those difficult and subtle concepts. I wish I knew the existence of free Barbari/Themis video lectures as I wasted a lot of time searching other free online lectures.

Even though in the handbook there is a process to challenge the grades but I am not aware if anyone actually is successful in doing so. As mentioned before, AISOL says the student can repeat exams if the cumulative GPA falls below 2.0 but they don't actually do that.

 

FYI. I passed the July 2022 bar exam as a first time taker. It's not easy but it can be done.

 

Oh my goodness, congratulations! What did you use for bar prep?

 

Thanks. For bar prep, I used Barbri for lecture materials, UWorld for MBE (multiple choice), baressays.com to get a feel on what a passing answer looks like, Maureen's free youtube performance exam ( ).
My strategy was to do really well on MBE part and to get a passing answer on essay. On the MBE part of the exam, for each of the two three hour sessions, I finished the session in just a little over two hours. Based on my performance on Barbri mock exam, my MBE part is in the top 5% nationwide for folks using their platform.
The grading for essay is can be subjective. I am a fast reader but not a fast writer. My essay part is probably above passing score but not great. FYI. CA state bar does not release scores for those who passed.