With CALI Instapoll, professors ask a question in class and CALI Instapoll (www.cali.org/instapoll) lets them create a poll online in a matter of one click, giving the professor a screen like this:

Students then access cali.org/instapoll on their laptop, put in the poll number, and click on the letter corresponding with their vote: Two clicks.

The professor sees the student's responses in real time on his/her screen as soon as the students vote:

One advantage I can see is this: When my Constitutional Law Professor took a poll of the class's opinion on an issue by hand-raising, it normally came out overwhelmingly in favor of one side (usually the side considered more liberal).

But I knew there were plenty of people who may not have agreed with the majority of my classmates just from talking with some before or after class about the same issue.

Many people are uncomfortable with disclosing their true thoughts to everyone in a class when it comes to topics in classes like ConLaw.

So a professor can use this stripped-down, easy-to-use polling tool to help eliminate that reluctance.

And yes, it's absolutely free. No account or login required.

I've been away concentrating on finals the past week or so. As I finished my last final this semester, I finally came to terms with this fact: Some law school exams consist of topics that you do not go over in class.

In your first year you don't know this and it causes panic after the exam. You come to believe that you missed these topics in class or in the reading.

But now I am sure that sometimes exams simply test knowledge that was outside the scope of both class and assigned reading.

The class of which I speak had very little substance to it. It ended two weeks early and I (being a law student who tends to make outlines too lengthy) could only get about 25 pages for a class outline even with the help of a 2002 outline that was basically a word-for-word account of the lectures which had remained unchanged since that time. Additionally, the only reading in this class was four short cases.

But still, topics on the test that were outside of the scope of what we talked about in class. And this test being multiple choice means it is even more of a crapshoot.

So why am I comfortable with this? Because everyone else is in the same boat (and because this professor seems to curve the grades as upward as allowable under our school's policy). There were no old exams to go over (likely because the professor uses the same questions each year as evidenced by example years in questions being all in the 1990's) so there was no way for anyone to guess what to study besides the outline and the readings. So I don't know what else I could have done.

As far as why some professors do this, I do not know. And I'm not saying this is that common or as pronounced as I feel it was in this class. But just know that sometimes you are going to encounter things on the test that were not directly covered in class or in assigned readings.

Accepted Admissions Almanac points us to an article about the recent LSAT reporting policy change called "LSAT changed likely to aid potential applicants." The article says that 74% of law schools are now evaluating applicants based on high LSAT score as opposed to the 87% who used to evaulate applicants based on average LSAT.

I just do not get how this as benefits students as a whole. To further my point here is a quote from the article:

• "In the law-school admissions process now, taking the LSAT more than once may pose significantly less risk for a student than before this change," said Steven Marietti, Kaplan's director of pre-law programs.Marietti said this may induce more students to take the test multiple times.
• College junior Arushi Sharma, who is considering taking the LSAT, said that she would consider retaking the exam as a result of the new policy shift. "You can only go up from there," she said.
• Among schools who evaluate highest scores, 37 percent said taking the LSAT fewer times would benefit applicants in the admissions process.

So how does the fact that more people will take the test more often with the "you can only go up from here" mentality, and that a majority of the schools will ignore all but the high score benefit students as a whole?

I see how this policy helps the LSAT test prep companies. I see how this policy helps the students with ample time and money to take the test. I even see how it benefits the person who had the "bad day" test.

But I'm not sure that it benefits to the average test taker.

I posted earlier here about how November's election results might affect pre-law students who plan on applying to a Michigan school because of a new state constitutional amendment passed by Michigan voters.

Law Librarian Blog points us to The Chronicle of Higher Education's Article about Wayne State University Law School's new admissions policy made in response to the new constitution. Instead of race/ethnicity as a consideration the school opts for a different approach to create diversity.

• The policy . . . allows admissions officials to give extra consideration to applicants who have experienced discrimination or socioeconomic disadvantage, who are proficient in more than one language, or who have lived abroad or on an American Indian reservation[,] . . . who are the first in their families to attend or graduate from college or graduate school, who attended elementary and secondary schools deemed low-achieving under standards set by the No Child Left Behind Act, or who contribute to geographic diversity among the student body, including residents of Detroit.

Once again, it's that time of year. If you are a 1L, you are feeling the pressure of your first law school exams. Lucky for you, I've gathered some of the advice out there.

CALI Podcasts

1) Tips for multiple choice exams

2) Top 10 tips for writing a law school essay

3) Three more conversations with law professors about exams

Other Resources

1) Massive compilation of advice on Top Law Student Blog

2) Advice from Permissive Joinder Blog

3) Advice from a professor on Evan Shaeffer's Legal Underground

4) A post about issue spotting from Evan Shaeffer's Legal Underground

ADDED 12/01/06:
5) Advice from Prof. Greg Bowman of Law Career Blog

6) Advice on how to flunk exams from another law student in Chicago.

Added 12/06/06:
7) Hofstra's Law Library blog posts more exam week suggestions.

Added 12/11/06
8) 1L exam advice from a student with a blog called Shelley's Case.

Added 12/12/06
9) A Hofstra School of Law librarian's blog points to a good article on Findlaw.

Added 2/15/07
10) Professor Orin Kerr of the Volokh Conspiracy offers examples of good answers and bad answers.

That's a lot of advice and I know if you are a 1L that you probably don't have time to go over it all with exams fastly approaching. But hopefully you have some time to look through and/or listen to some of them.

Dean Frank Wu of Wayne State University School of Law offers some advice for those thinking about law school on his blog.

I really like Dean Wu because 1) he keeps up a blog which demonstrates an openness to communicate with his current and potential students and 2) he blogs through CALI's blogging system at classcaster.org.

If you don't keep up with CALIopolis, the blog administered by CALI's very own John Mayer, John has also linked to another one of Frugal Law Student's tips, in particular the post that advises students to speed up podcasts using methods described on Lifehacker.

I can backup John when he says that he has suggested this idea before. He even has demonstrated the method in some of his presentations that I have seen. Speeding up the podcasts makes sense for a law student. There are a lot of useful podcasts out there and limited time.

And I don't see the downside even if it does sound Chipmunk-esque. I had three Chipmunks records (that's right, records) growing up and I loved them: Chipmunk Christmas, the so rare that I can't find a legitimate website that lists it Chipmunks go Hollywood, and my personal favorite Urban Chipmunk.

I've posted in the past about how the recent change in political leadership might directly affect future law students (here). I've also have several posts on the types of attorney jobs t considered lesser paying like public defense/prosecution (here and here).

The Chicago Sun-Times reports on another possible change that might come about due to the upcoming power shift in Washington. In May the Senate Judicial Committee passed a debt relief program for public defenders/prosecutors. The bill was eventually shelved by the Republican led Senate. But...

• "Since 2003, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) has been pushing legislation that would grant student loan relief to public sector lawyers in the criminal justice system. With the Democrats in control of Congress, Durbin plans to reintroduce his bill early next year."

Why this is important to future law students
The problem is that the debt of many law school graduates is becoming so astronomical that it is hard for many to even consider public defense or prosecution. That's a real problem.

Details of the bill are as such:

• "[T]he Justice Department would pay up to $10,000 a year of the law school loans of any prosecutor or public defender. To qualify, a lawyer would have to commit to three years of service. Loan assistance would be capped at $60,000 per lawyer and would apply only to loans made through federal programs."

Keep an eye on this bill and see if anything comes of it.

Additional links:
Frugal Law Student points us to an e-petition started by IndebtStudent.com with the goal rallying for government support for softening the blow of increasing student loan debt.