Upper Division Electives/Choosing Courses
There are no precise rules or proven methods for selecting your second and third year courses. To a large extent, your choices in this regard will reflect your assessment of yourself at the end of your first year--your strengths and weaknesses, your developing intellectual interests, and your first tentative career plans. For this reason, the combination of courses most desirable for you will not necessarily be the best for anyone else, and you should be wary of the notion that there is a specific, recommended curriculum that you should follow. This is why USC Law does not recommend particular courses to students. But this reluctance to impose a model course of study does not mean that no guidance is available, for there are several ways of thinking about these choices that, in combination, will help each student choose the best array of courses.
Course Sequences and Groupings
The Academic Affairs Committee, in consultation with the faculty, has compiled a document titled "Upper-Level Course Offerings: A Primer." The aim of the Primer is to assist students in selecting their courses and seminars. The Primer provides a series of course sequences and groupings including associated courses and seminars. Some sample "trajectories" are provided for course planning. Students are strongly urged to review this document as part of their process of selecting courses. It is reproduced at the end of this section.
The Instructor
One recommended approach to course selection is to choose courses taught by professors you admire, without regard to subject matter. For each student there are one or more teachers who are particularly able to create intellectual excitement, and whose approach to analysis and teaching strikes a responsive note. Think back over the people whose classes have challenged you and remember that you will benefit as much from exposure to a specific professor's analytic skills and approach to legal issues as from specific course content, in addition to taking more courses from those who teach from a perspective to which you have not had much exposure. In other words, use the resources of our diverse faculty to your advantage. Some students may find it helpful to review instructor/course evaluations available on reserve in the law library.
The Course Approach
Another approach is to choose courses that look exciting, without limiting yourself to those that are directly related to your current plans or your idea of a traditional curriculum. If you believe a course will be intellectually interesting, expose you to a new area of the law, or provide you with needed variety, you have more than enough reason to enroll. Courses taken because of enthusiasm for either the instructor or the subject matter are often the richest academic experiences of law school. They represent opportunities to participate in some of the best work of some of the best minds you will ever encounter. In your growth as a law student, it is important for you not to limit yourself only to things you believe you "ought" to do. Again, instructor/course evaluations may be helpful in your selection process.
Skills and Concepts
A third way to choose courses is to classify them according to clusters that emphasize similar issues or themes, and then select from each area. For example, a student interested in ideas about fiduciary relationships could find them discussed in different contexts of Gifts, Wills, and Trusts; Family Law; Remedies; and Business Organizations. Similarly, Pretrial Advocacy, Trial Advocacy, and Appellate Advocacy are all courses which teach practice litigation skills, relating various performance tasks to the underlying skills of legal writing, advocacy, legal counseling, negotiation and factual analysis. A further example is courses involving close work with statutes, such as Legislation, Labor Law, Securities Regulations and Tax, any of which will give you an opportunity to develop important and transferable skills.
Specialization
Finally, you might think about course selection as a way of building a wide substantive expertise in an area of particular interest. For example, the following courses are crucial to one anticipating a substantial family law practice: Family Law; Community Property; Tax; Business Organizations; Remedies; Bankruptcy; Real Estate Transactions; Gifts, Wills, and Trusts; Evidence; and Civil Procedure. This kind of course planning requires some thought and investigation, since a casual examination might omit such courses as Business Organizations (often relevant to community property issues), Bankruptcy (helpful in determining which obligations arising out of a dissolution can be discharged in bankruptcy), or Remedies (restraining orders and injunctions). Internships may also be helpful. For example, if you hope to pursue a career in tax law, you might consider an internship with the U.S. Attorney's Tax Division. (See discussion above under Course Sequences and Groupings.)
Bar Examination
Many students seem to think that their course selection in law school will have little effect on their ability to pass the Bar Examination. For many students, that assumption is simply wrong. Particularly for the Bar examinations in California and New York, you will be much better prepared for the difficult Bar examination if you have taken all of the Bar-related courses in law school. We strongly recommend that you plan to take each of the Bar-related courses. To ensure that you are able to enroll in all of these important courses, you are discouraged from leaving any of them until your last semester. (Several of the courses are part of our required first-year curriculum, but many are upper-division electives.)
These approaches to course selection describe only some of the ways in which you might make reasoned choices about your academic program. You will have additional considerations based on your own situation. And you should feel free to talk to the Registrar, the Enrollment Services Office, or any other faculty member if you want further information or some informal counseling on your proposed program. All of these suggestions, taken together, will give you a start toward a workable, enjoyable array of courses for your second and third years of law school.
