The second year is a very busy time, between journals and moot court, job interviewing, and getting ready to submit clerkship applications. You should plan your second year to allow you to do all this, as well as make the most of your learning and prepare for the third year.
Here are some tips for the second year:
- Take one seminar in which you have to write a paper.
- Take building block courses in the areas that interest you. The area group memoranda identify these courses. Although faculty will not all agree, some generally-recognized building block courses are: Corporations, Basic Tax, International Law, Criminal Procedure, and Environmental Law.
- Vary your interests. You think you want to do public interest litigation, and so are not interested in Corporations? Bad idea! The corporate world is where a lot of power is in society, and if you want to work for legal change you should understand it. You are sure you want to do transactional work and so you don’t want to take Evidence or Criminal Law? Remember, plans change! If you think you will never litigate, perhaps you should take a clinic so you get the experience. Be well-rounded.
- Build on something you took as your 1L elective, in your area of specialty.
- Take a professor who can be a referee or mentor (see the mentoring memo).