Exams

Three down, one to go.  For one exam, my professor lifted a problem from a contracts casebook virtually word for word – which another professor had done on HIS exam in 1995.  The other professor posted this problem and the answer online in his old exam file, to which we all have access.  Half my classmates read it and half didn’t.  Besides the fact that this is incredibly lazy on both professors’ parts, now half the class had a huge advantage on exam day.  The other half, the half into which I fall, did not.  Studying old exams is part and parcel of prep for finals, but this one was from 1995 and I just didn’t get back to 14 years previously on every single professor.  These things take three hours each to go through, and I don’t have 3 hours * 14 years * 6 professors, however many hours that is.  It was luck of the draw who got there and who didn’t.

Man, law professors have it made.  They have two classes per term, maybe three.  The only thing they have to grade all year is the final – it’s the only test they have to write.  And now it turns out they lift the damn things from casebooks.  Some of my profs are really interested in what they’re doing, really prepared every day, and know right where we are and what we’re doing.  They do intensive exam prep with us, help us with outlines, and are available at any time.  They post old exams and exam model answers, and frequently encourage us to check them and check ourselves so we are fully prepared, both for exams AND to be lawyers.  And others . . . just want the paycheck.  Such is life, but you can bet I’ve written admin about this and also reflected my displeasure in my evaluation (which went out prior to exams, but I was already displeased with this prof.)  This is just further proof that he’s getting out of as much work as possible.  How hard is it to write a three page test?  All you have to do is make up fact patterns!  Seriously, non-law people out there – it’s really simple.  Here’s an example of a single Torts problem, which I will compose for you in three minutes or less:

Torts, 2009, Professor Gillian
Danny had just bought a brand new Ford, and was driving his girlfriend Priscilla through downtown Cityville to show it off.  They came to a red light, and Danny pushed on the brakes, which did not respond.  As a result, he plowed into the back of the car in front of him, which was driven by Sally, who had her three children in the back, none in carseats or seatbelts.  Sally happened to be Priscilla’s sister, and the children in the car were thus Priscilla’s nieces and nephews.  The rear end pushed Sally’s car into the intersection, where she was struck from the side by a Lights Plus delivery van, driven by Jason, who was heading towards McDonald’s to get a drive through lunch between deliveries.  Jason had been bending down to fish a lost CD from under the passenger seat, and so did not even attempt a stop.

Danny and Priscilla were not physically injured, but Danny’s car was totaled.  Sally and her children suffered major injuries, the children’s exacerbated by the fact that they were unrestrained and thrown from the car on impact.  When Priscilla saw the injuries of her sister and nieces and nephews, she became hysterical.  In the months since the accident, she lost considerable weight, was unable to sleep, and suffered an eating disorder, haunted by the scene of the children and her sister laying on the street injured.  Jason also suffered injuries to his face and chest from the impact of his airbag.  Further, when Jason was taken by ambulance to the Cityville Hospital, the ambulance driver had been drinking and crashed the ambulance into a tree, causing further injury to Jason which rendered him a paraplegic and no longer able to drive.  As a result, Jason lost his delivery job.  The ambulance driver had been off duty but on call, and Cityville Hospital called him in to work when another ambulance driver called in sick.  They had no policy for off-duty, on-call employee behavior.  In his fiver year career at CH, the ambulance driver had never previously been called in when on-call, and was celebrating his sister’s wedding when they called on this day.

Explore the possibilities of suits for negligence against Ford, Jason, Lights Plus, Cityville Hospital, the ambulance driver, and anyone else that applies.  Explore the heads of damage for Danny, Priscilla, Sally, Sally’s children, and Jason.

Voila.  Took me, ok, five minutes.

Thanks for letting me prove that to you all.  And now, I’m off to study for my Crim exam.