Two finals down, and two left.
Criminal Law: I had been astounded by how much I had to learn for the first time while studying. All kinds of tests for insanity, tests for attempt, analysis for things like mistake of law and mistake of fact. And the exam consists of a hypo that closely followed an un-assigned (but read by me) case from the book and your general excuse to do an insanity defense analysis.
No real surprises. I may have bootched the insanity stuff, especially as it relates to the MPC, but i feel pretty good about the first question which involved statutory analysis, strict liability, and some public policy.
Contracts: for three days, every time I looked at my outline, there were no surprises. I’m pretty sure I knew it cold. I was one step short of memorizing the damn thing so that I could “splashdown” for the test and just write it out before I started into analysis. Our professor seems a little unorthodox. She doesn’t like the UCC, and saves this for a separate class. She also chooses to start with the topic of consideration, which is a little backwards: most people start with offer and acceptance, but such chronological thinking doesn’t really get to the meaty bits of contract formation. Her exams for the last five years have focused on finding consideration, or lack therof. There has been consideration in the past. There has been pretense of a bargain. There has been consideration in the past affirmed by a moral duty. There has been consideration of questionable legality. There was restatement 90 reliance.
Surprise: our hypo pretty much had the consideration built in. The complication? Doing the damages analysis. Expectation, Reliance, Specific Performance, Certainty, it’s all there.
Curveball city!
Now I just need to be ready for a 40 question multiple choice Civil Procedure test on Thursday and a racehorse Torts exam on Monday.
Then there’s nothing left but the grading.