Alumni Survey Results: Most Valuable Electives

When law students choose electives, they often ask which courses will be most useful in the area of law they might pursue. Our faculty, many of whom are involved in various aspects of law practice, often advise students, and the best complement to this advice is the input of our active and engaged alumni. In January 2011, the Law School surveyed alumni on this topic, and the results appear below. The survey was e-mailed to about 13,500 and took five minutes to complete online. In addition to being polled for basic demographics, each respondant was then asked to choose one from among 17 practice areas that best described their practice, and then to choose up to three courses that were most useful and the same number that you wished you had taken, but did not. Alumni who changed practice areas during their career were able to fill out the survey twice, providing responses for each practice area. We received 576 responses, including 13 responses that were for a respondents second practice area, for a response rate of approximately 4.2%. The data for year of graduation (listed by decades), the types of organizations, locations (with 10 or more alumni), and practice areas appear Tables 1, 2, 3 & 4. Breakdowns showing the demographics by practice area are also available.

Overall Impressions
No hard conclusions can or should be drawn from the survey results for a number of reasons: the sample size was large, but modest in terms of our overall alumni population; not all of the courses listed on the survey were available when many of the respondents attended GW, and more courses were required in the past than are now; and law students often believe they are going to practice in one area and end up in another.

With those and possibly other caveats in mind, here are some observations, more in the way of impressions than conclusions, that stand out overall, followed by some that apply to some, but not all courses listed on the survey. Full course and survey data, by practice area, are available for further reference.

Most Useful Overall

The three courses reported as most useful were: 1. Evidence - 156 respondents (27%) 2. Administrative Law - 120 respondents (21%) 3. Corporations - 105 respondents (18%) The only other course to break 50 votes was Trial Advocacy at 71 (12%), although Federal Income Tax had 47 supporters (8%) and Antitrust had 41 (7%). By way of comparison, over the past five years, the average number of students taking each course annually was: Evidence 701 students Administrative Law 399 students Corporations 637 students Trial Advocacy 249 students Federal Income Tax 370 students Antitrust 240 students

Other very popular courses taken during that same period were Criminal Procedure (555 students), Negotiation (532 students), Legal Drafting (424 students), Trusts and Estates (423 students), and International Law (330 students). For those courses, their utility, as judged by our respondents, included Criminal Procedure (35), Negotiation (34), Legal

Drafting (37), Trusts & Estates (19), and International Law (14). Not too much should be drawn from what seem to be large differences between courses currently taken by students and the alumni responses because course selections are often made based on factors such as the professor teaching the course, a general interest in the subject, a belief that a well-rounded lawyer should be familiar with some subjects outside an expected area of practice, and bar exam preparation.

Wish I Had Taken

In the wished I had taken the course category, there are some general impressions that stand out. Of the wish list courses with more than 35 votes (6%), four were in the area of civil litigation, including the top of this list, Complex Litigation (50), plus PreTrial Advocacy (46), Trial Advocacy (44), and Alternative Dispute Resolution (36). Second highest on the overall wish list was Administrative Law (48), with many of those supporters listing other practice areas as their principal focus. Others high on this list were Corporate Finance (41) and Law & Accounting (38, including support outside the core practice areas). Some, but not all, of the observations based on the wish list can be explained because many of these courses were not offered when some of the respondents attended GW.

Practice Area Observations

Recognizing the limits based on the size of the data set and the reality that data of this kind is open to various interpretations, it seemed nonetheless useful to include a few observations regarding the specific courses offered in each of the 15 course subject areas from which respondents could choose. For some, our observation is No Surprises, by which we mean that a person practicing in this area took or recommended the courses one

would expect, and/or the data was not robust enough to draw any other conclusions. For a few course areas, the number of respondents was so small that we could not even conclude there were no surprises, and for them our observation is Small Sample Size. As noted above, the data for each course grouping, including a breakdown of responses by practice area, is available online.

Administrative Law & Regulation

As noted above, Administrative Law was found broadly useful and/or wished I had taken it by a high percentage of alumni, not only by those practice administrative law, but in a number of other practice areas. Practice Area Employment Law Environmental Law Government Contracts Intellectual Property Civil Litigation Found Administrative Law Useful 12 14 8 10 18 Wish They Had Taken Administrative Law 4 4 5 2 6

Antitrust Law was also cited as useful across practice areas. Practice Area Administrative Law Intellectual Property Found Antitrust Law Useful 9 16 Wish They Had Taken Antitrust Law 5 0

Other courses in the area of Administrative Law & Regulation for which there were a substantial number of wishes (most of which were by lawyers practicing in the area of Administrative Law) were: Energy Law - 21 respondents Health Care Law - 20 respondents Information Privacy - 22 respondents 4

Law in Cyberspace - 14 respondents Lobbying Law - 18 respondents Legislation - 20 respondents

Civil Litigation
In the area of civil litigation, the following courses were most coveted: Complex Litigation - 50 respondents Pre-Trial Advocacy - 46 respondents Trial Advocacy - 44 respondents Alternative Dispute Resolution - 36 respondents Federal Courts - 34 respondents Appellate Practice - 26 respondents

For one quite popular course Conflicts of Laws (an average of 91 students took it annually in the last five years) a modest 30 respondents found it useful and 11 wished they had taken it. Alumni who did not identify themselves as civil litigators, but listed employment law or intellectual property as their specialty, in the useful/wished categories, pointed to Evidence (13/ 2 and 16/1) and Trial Advocacy (8/6 and 8/8).

Commercial Law
The most useful course in this area was Secured Transactions (37/14). There were a significant number of courses receiving relatively high wish list responses (mostly by lawyers practicing commercial law). They include: Business Bankruptcy & Reorganization - 30 respondents, including 6 civil litigators Modern Real Estate Transactions - 28 respondents

Real Estate Financing - 22 respondents Banking - 19 respondents

Constitutional Law & Civil Rights

There were relatively few responses in this subject area, the most significant being Advanced Constitutional Law (21/9), Civil Rights Legislation (4/12), and Immigration Law (4/11). It may be that these are subjects of intrinsic interest to students seeking a well-rounded legal education, even if their day to day utility is not high.

Corporations & Securities Regulation

Alumni wished they had taken several courses in this area, including: Corporate Finance - 41 respondents Accounting - 38 respondents Securities Regulation - 26 respondents

Only 7 respondents wished they had taken Corporations, but that was probably because 105 had taken it and found it useful.

Criminal Practice
There were No Surprises, except perhaps for the fact that the most wished for course in this area was White Collar Crime (15). Several other wish list courses reflected recent developments in this subject area: Adjudicatory Criminal Practice - 8 respondents Computer Crime - 8 respondents Forensic Science - 8 respondents

Employment & Labor Law

No Surprises. There was significant support on the wish list for courses in Employee Benefit Plans (15), Employment Discrimination Law (26), and Employment Law (31), all with some support outside this practice area.

Environmental Law
No Surprises.

Family Law & Estate Planning

No surprises except that 9 respondents wished they had taken Elder Law, a course that has only recently become part of the curriculum.

Government Contracts
The most wished for courses were Costs & Pricing (17) and Contract Performance (14). Otherwise, No Surprises.

Intellectual Property
The basic courses in Copyright, Patents, and Trademarks & Unfair Competition were often cited as useful, as expected. Among the wished for courses, Licensing (35) was the top selection, followed by Intellectual Property (22), which was on the wish list of a fair number of alumni who do not practice IP. Entertainment Law had no one who had taken it, but 14 who wished they had. Similar numbers for Computer Law were 3/15.

International Business Law

Small sample size, with only International Business Transactions, with 11 wishers had any appreciable numbers.

International Public Law

Small sample size.

Skills Courses
These courses had broad support among all practice groups. The courses on the wish list with significant numbers include: Client Interviewing & Counseling - 24 respondents Clinics - 22 respondents Legal Drafting - 26 respondents Negotiation - 27 respondents

Somewhat surprising, Outside Placement came in with 18/4, even though about 500 students currently select it each year.

Taxation
Federal Income Taxation had support outside the tax practice area. Not surprisingly, there were a fair number who wished they had taken Corporate Taxation (14) and Partnership & LLC Taxation (17), including for the former those who listed Corporate & Securities as their area of practice.

Questions If you have questions about the survey or results, please contact Dean Alan Morrison at abmorrison@law.gwu.edu or 202 994 7120.

Table 1
Responses by Decades
Decade 1950s 1960s 1970s Number of Respondents 9 48 90 Percentage of Respondents 2% 8% 16%

1980s 1990s 2000s Total

112 102 215 576

19% 18% 37%

Table 2
Responses by Organization Type
Organization Type Corporation or other Business Government Large Firm (100+ lawyers) Medium Firm (10-99 lawyers) Small Firm or Solo Practice Never/only briefly practiced law Non-Profit Organization Total Number of Respondents 75 124 140 72 112 15 38 576 Percentage of Respondents 13% 22% 24% 13% 19% 3% 6%

Table 3
Responses by Locations (>10 responses)
Metro Area Atlanta Boston Chicago Los Angeles New York City Philadelphia San Francisco Washington Other Large Cities Others in US Outside US Total Number of Respondents 12 15 23 15 61 12 14 237 112 50 25 576 Percentage of Respondents 2% 3% 4% 3% 11% 2% 2% 41% 19% 9% 4%

Table 4
Responses by Practice Area
Practice Area Administrative Law Commercial Law Corporate & Securities Employment & Labor Environmental Family & Estate Planning General Practice Government Contracts Intellectual Property International Business International Public Law Litigation Civil Litigation Criminal Never/briefly practiced Personal Injury Public Interest/Non-Profit Tax Total Number of Respondents 65 55 40 41 26 16 26 25 80 15 9 89 30 16 4 12 27 576 Percentage of Respondents 11.3% 9.5% 6.9% 7.1% 4.5% 2.8% 4.5% 4.3% 13.9% 2.6% 1.6% 15.5% 5.2% 2.8% 0.7% 2.1% 4.7%

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