3L Fall Classes

Overview — “A general review or summary of a subject.”

-Oxford English Dictionary

Every time a new semester starts, I feel like it’s so hard for me to wrap my head around how much time I have left in law school.  But this semester, it seems even harder because this time I only have less than a year left of school.  I like my course schedule this semester because two of my classes are taught by adjuncts who practice in the field and another is more of a practical learning type class instead of just lecture.  So without further ado, here’s the courses I am taking this semester.

Administrative Law

Admin Law will definitely be the hardest class I take this semester.  While the jury is still out on the difficulty of the material in this class, the way the professor teaches this class is not the easiest to determine what information is important to learn for the exam.  He goes over a lot of scholars’ views on administrative law, but not as much about the legal framework.  If you don’t know what administrative law is all about, it focuses on the statutes and procedural frameworks that allow agencies to function and implement their rules. 

Corporate Compliance and Risk Management

This is one of my classes with an adjunct professor who specializes in helping companies implement their own compliance programs so he’s the perfect person to teach this class.  So far, we’ve discussed the general basis of why companies have compliance programs and how compliance fits in to a company’s structure.  Throughout the rest of the first half, the class focuses on more of the general structure of a compliance program before we turn to more specific compliance issues.  A compliance class is important for anyone who is looking to work in-house.

Energy Law

The structure of this class involves seven simulations about different issues that arise in the field of energy law.  So before each simulation, we have lectures about the legal background related to the simulation.  I actually am enjoying the structure since there’s a way more practical aspect to this class than a typical class.  In the simulations, there are negotiations, ratemaking exercises, etc.  I’ve been enjoying the class and think some of my science background is helpful since the basis of energy lies in a lot of the classes I took in college.

Entertainment Law

I’ve really wanted to take this class since I was a 1L.  This class focuses on the legal side of the entertainment industry, including all of the management contracts, agent agreements, music sampling, licenses, etc.  One of the great things about this class is the professor is an attorney for a number of artists and managers so he has a lot of experience regarding the subject managers.  His stories about his experiences are super informative, and he invites a good number of guest speakers from the entertainment industry to talk about their area of specialty, including recording labels, concert tours, independent films, reality tv, etc.  This is my fun class this semester and I definitely think that’s an accurate representation of this class.

IP Research Paper

My school requires that every student writes a 25 to 30 page research paper on a specific topic.  There’s a few options of classes, but I picked the IP one since it’s a requirement of the IP concentration.  Since this class revolves around IP, I could pick any novel topic related to IP and write an entire paper about it.  I have a current topic picked out that I’m super excited about since I get to write about one of my favorite places, Walt Disney World, and IP so hopefully this paper turns out as well as I think it will.

I also have my professional development requirements, similar to last semester.  I’m also continuing my position as a research assistant with the same professor as last year.  In addition, I am actually continuing to work as a legal intern for the company I interned at this summer; I loved my experience there this summer so I’m really glad I can continue working there during the school year.  It’s shaping up to be a crazy busy semester, but I definitely think it’ll be a fun one!