Employment with Prescott was alright, but i would take something else with a more experienced prof. if i could. The class can be dry and boring at times. He has a final and a paper right at the same time when you are taking finals. I don’t think we enjoyed doing double work. Other people just said that Prescott was a great person, but a bit disorganized due to having just started. A few said that seemed better when they took the class recently.
I took Employment Law with him. I like him. Our class (Winter 2011) was tracked to finish early, which made things a bit rushed and really piled on the readings. (They’re easy readings, but the topics they touch on are quite complicated in parts.) I’d recommend him. He has a good econ background, and although at first I questioned his “employment” quals, he does seem knowledgeable.
I had Prescott for Crim during the fall 2010 semester. He’s a super nice guy. But, throughout the course, he strongly discouraged us from using supplements and from separating common law and Model Penal Code in our heads. The casebook was more than 90% common law and class discussion was 75% common law . . . so naturally, someone who was paying attention in class and doing the reading would study mostly common law . . . but the exam was 100% Model Penal Code. So my best advice would be to skim the readings so you have a clue what’s going on in class, but study black letter law, and be sure to separate common law and MPC in your head!
I had Prescott for Crim. He’s a really cool guy and almost always very entertaining in class. However, he’s simply not a good professor. We would read much more for his class than for the other doctrinals, but we would not discuss most of what we read. We would spend 95% of class talking about 1, maybe 2, cases. Then, for the last 5% of class, he would give a vague overview about the rest of the reading. He has an extremely laid back attitude, which is nice because you don’t see much of that in law school, but he often can’t explain things in simple terms or with simple analogies. Additionally, because of his laid back attitude, I don’t think he makes as much of an effort as other professors to clarify things. The other comment on here about his class, “The casebook was more than 90% common law and class discussion was 75% common law . . . so naturally, someone who was paying attention in class and doing the reading would study mostly common law . . . but the exam was 100% Model Penal Code” is spot on. You’d be much better off if you were able to not go to class and instead spend that time learning about the similarities and differences between the MPC and common law to do well on the exam (which is a typing contest).
Prescott is a dear man. But I really found it challenging to figure out the takeaways of his crim law lectures, which didn’t always feel very focused. Additionally, this was not my favorite law school exam. It was the sort of issue spotter where speed is prized over coherent and developed thought. I’ve heard more positive things about his Law & Econ class.
Had Prescott for Crim in Fall ‘21. We don’t have grades yet, so not sure how I did, but regardless I think he’s the worst professor I’ve had in law school and possibly one of the worst I’ve ever had. He’s brilliant and does really important research on exoneration and expungement law, which is why I think he teaches Crim, but he simply can’t communicate the content to students. We did more reading for this class than for my other two doctrinals combined and we’d discuss them for maybe 10 minutes of class (the remaining 65 would just be him going on an unrelated diatribe about philosophy or something else equally pedantic). Most importantly, he has ABSOLUTELY no awareness of how the topics in his class affect students in it. He allows blatantly offensive discussion in class and makes no effort to moderate it, all in the name of “academic curiosity.” He encourages students to email him with concerns, which I personally did try to do once, and he basically told me that I needed to suck it up because the real world won’t care about my feelings. As other reviewers mentioned, the exam was 100% the Model Penal Code even though class was 90% the common law. Overall, I think he’s a thoroughly terrible professor. He really wants to be a good professor and be well-liked, but I think he gets so caught up in the desire to be A Law Professor that he completely misses the mark in the most harmful way possible. Would avoid taking any classes with him if you can, though I’ve heard he’s better for Law and Econ.
Had him for crim law. Probably the second worst professor I’ve had at the law school. He is so nice and generous with his time but he cannot teach. He would spend 50 minutes talking about one case and then blast through 4 in 20 minutes. You just never know what you will get each class and the readings are useless for exam. His exam is also a huge typing contest and doesn’t really test your real life lawyering skills. He also cannot really answer questions well. He will talk way too much and not get to the point. It’s very odd because he seems like a smart guy but he also seems like he doesn’t understand student or what students are confused about most of the time…
MLaw Prof Reviews
Employment with Prescott was alright, but i would take something else with a more experienced prof. if i could. The class can be dry and boring at times. He has a final and a paper right at the same time when you are taking finals. I don’t think we enjoyed doing double work. Other people just said that Prescott was a great person, but a bit disorganized due to having just started. A few said that seemed better when they took the class recently.
I took Employment Law with him. I like him. Our class (Winter 2011) was tracked to finish early, which made things a bit rushed and really piled on the readings. (They’re easy readings, but the topics they touch on are quite complicated in parts.) I’d recommend him. He has a good econ background, and although at first I questioned his “employment” quals, he does seem knowledgeable.
I had Prescott for Crim during the fall 2010 semester. He’s a super nice guy. But, throughout the course, he strongly discouraged us from using supplements and from separating common law and Model Penal Code in our heads. The casebook was more than 90% common law and class discussion was 75% common law . . . so naturally, someone who was paying attention in class and doing the reading would study mostly common law . . . but the exam was 100% Model Penal Code. So my best advice would be to skim the readings so you have a clue what’s going on in class, but study black letter law, and be sure to separate common law and MPC in your head!
I had Prescott for Crim. He’s a really cool guy and almost always very entertaining in class. However, he’s simply not a good professor. We would read much more for his class than for the other doctrinals, but we would not discuss most of what we read. We would spend 95% of class talking about 1, maybe 2, cases. Then, for the last 5% of class, he would give a vague overview about the rest of the reading. He has an extremely laid back attitude, which is nice because you don’t see much of that in law school, but he often can’t explain things in simple terms or with simple analogies. Additionally, because of his laid back attitude, I don’t think he makes as much of an effort as other professors to clarify things. The other comment on here about his class, “The casebook was more than 90% common law and class discussion was 75% common law . . . so naturally, someone who was paying attention in class and doing the reading would study mostly common law . . . but the exam was 100% Model Penal Code” is spot on. You’d be much better off if you were able to not go to class and instead spend that time learning about the similarities and differences between the MPC and common law to do well on the exam (which is a typing contest).
Prescott is a dear man. But I really found it challenging to figure out the takeaways of his crim law lectures, which didn’t always feel very focused. Additionally, this was not my favorite law school exam. It was the sort of issue spotter where speed is prized over coherent and developed thought. I’ve heard more positive things about his Law & Econ class.
I’m the last reviewer, but I want to add: incredibly heavy reading, and I fully agree with the points made by the review right before mine.
Had Prescott for Crim in Fall ‘21. We don’t have grades yet, so not sure how I did, but regardless I think he’s the worst professor I’ve had in law school and possibly one of the worst I’ve ever had. He’s brilliant and does really important research on exoneration and expungement law, which is why I think he teaches Crim, but he simply can’t communicate the content to students. We did more reading for this class than for my other two doctrinals combined and we’d discuss them for maybe 10 minutes of class (the remaining 65 would just be him going on an unrelated diatribe about philosophy or something else equally pedantic). Most importantly, he has ABSOLUTELY no awareness of how the topics in his class affect students in it. He allows blatantly offensive discussion in class and makes no effort to moderate it, all in the name of “academic curiosity.” He encourages students to email him with concerns, which I personally did try to do once, and he basically told me that I needed to suck it up because the real world won’t care about my feelings. As other reviewers mentioned, the exam was 100% the Model Penal Code even though class was 90% the common law. Overall, I think he’s a thoroughly terrible professor. He really wants to be a good professor and be well-liked, but I think he gets so caught up in the desire to be A Law Professor that he completely misses the mark in the most harmful way possible. Would avoid taking any classes with him if you can, though I’ve heard he’s better for Law and Econ.
Had him for crim law. Probably the second worst professor I’ve had at the law school. He is so nice and generous with his time but he cannot teach. He would spend 50 minutes talking about one case and then blast through 4 in 20 minutes. You just never know what you will get each class and the readings are useless for exam. His exam is also a huge typing contest and doesn’t really test your real life lawyering skills. He also cannot really answer questions well. He will talk way too much and not get to the point. It’s very odd because he seems like a smart guy but he also seems like he doesn’t understand student or what students are confused about most of the time…