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5 Law School Electives That May Waste Your Time

By Andrew Lu on December 26, 2012 | Last updated on March 21, 2019

Unless you plan on becoming a law professor, half of the classes you take in law school are a complete waste of time. This is especially true with the law school electives that you take to fill out your 3L schedule with the goal of boosting your GPA.

Still, every law school is different. Classes that may be a complete waste of time at one school, like those mentioned in a recent Wall Street Journal piece and discussed on the TaxProf Blog, may be beneficial at another school. And while one course may go over the head of one student, another student may totally get.

So here is this blogger's personal list of five law school classes that, in hindsight, proved to be an utter waste of time:

  1. Advanced Constitutional Law. Once you're practicing and outside the ivory tower that is law school, you will realize what little value knowing the intricacies of the Second Amendment has on your life and your law practice. So as Con Law may offer little benefit beyond the bar exam, Advanced Con Law offers even less.

  2. Environmental Law. Use your law degree to save the world! Environmental law sounds like a really sexy class, but halfway through the semester, you will realize that the class could have just been called Administrative Law II. However, there may be some value in learning that you actually don't want to become an environmental attorney.

  3. Uniform Commercial Code (UCC). I really wasn't sure what the UCC was when I took the class, and I'm still not too sure eight years later.

  4. Intellectual Property Theory. You'll believe you're the smartest guy in the world as you critique Justice Brennan's concurring opinion, but five years down the road you'll wish you took a more practical course on discovery instead.

  5. Law and Sports. Want to learn how to negotiate Lebron James' next free agent deal? Well, you won't learn that here.

As a believer in education for its own sake, almost all law school classes do provide some benefit. However, after you graduate, you'll soon realize that law school should have been more like vocational school as you may have little to no idea on how to draft a pleading, how to do statutory research, or how to deal with clients.

Remember, you're paying for every credit you take in law school, and time really is money. It's better to choose classes you'll actually benefit from, instead of those that may sound fun but ultimately end up wasting your time.

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