Prof. Mortenson is tough, but fair. He is serious about being prepared for class. His final is insane. That said, he’s very interesting. He’s a good lecturer. He leaves the pass/fails in the curve, so it doesn’t really matter how tough the final is. I would recommend him.
Given the horror stories I’ve heard about Transnat, I would definitely recommend Prof. Mortenson. He was very engaging, extremely helpful and genuinely cared about the material and our understanding of it. As someone with almost no interest in the vast majority of the material we learned, and who took it P/F, I still cared about being prepared and contributing, in no small part because of Professor Mortenson’s efforts.
Amazing prof, amazing class(Con law) – Prof. Mortenson almost makes you feel bad about yourself if you come to class unprepared because HE’s always super-prepared!!
I had him for con law. He’s a good prof that means well and really cares about students. Teaching style wise, however, he’s very wordy and repetitive – it takes him 3-4 sentences to convey one idea in multiple ways. If he’d be more concise in his thoughts, he’d be great. Exam was definitely very hard.
I had him for constitutional law. He really cares about his students, was way more approachable than any other 1L prof, and was always prepared for class. The exam was very hard (think: long, complex fact pattern with many parties) but I’m guessing the curve reflected that.
Prof. Mortenson is possibly the best human being on the faculty! I had him for 1L con law during his first year teaching at Michigan. He was energetic about Con Law the entire semester. He prepares extremely well for class. He does have a tendency to get a bit over-excited and that makes him speed up when he’s talking but that’s the only negative experience I had. I wish he’d teach more subjects on international arbitration because that’s his true expertise.
Mortensen is the best professor in law school. Brilliant, nice helpful. The finals was the hardest during 1L year. I think that was reflected in the curve though.
Had Mortenson for Constitutional Law (Winter ’19) and currently have him for Legislation and Regulation (Fall ’19)
I’ll preface my review by saying I might be in love with Professor Mortenson
Constitutional Law: Professor Mortenson is always on his game, he is funny and very engaging. He makes even dry material very interesting. He is really great at breaking down really complex issues into more manageable parts and he does this extremely well in constitutional law. Good at answering questions after/during class/over email. Had lunch with him as well 1L – he’s very sweet and really cares. I personally love an open note, ctrl+f, no word count type of exam. The exam was part objective short answer questions (closed book) and then one long issue spotter type and one policy issue. Overall fair.
Legislation and Regulation: To be fair – this class is huge and you can tell Professor Morten was thrown off his game at the beginning of the semester. But he still is really great at breaking down really complex matters into parts that are more manageable. The amount of reading is pretty moderate to light. I only wish the class was a little bit more lively – but you can only make leg reg so interesting. He discussed the exam and his notorious 17+ page leg reg exam from the past and stated he might do something similar. But it will be open book, ctrl+f type issue spotter, so if you like that I think you will be fine.
Overall – Professor Mortenson is one of my favorite teachers, if not my favorite, in the entire law school. Would recommend taking a class with him if you get the chance. Also getting a recommendation from him can go a long way as he has a lot of connections.
I had Mortenson for leg reg. I thought it was ok. The material is important enough to make the class worth taking, and Mortenson was competent at teaching it. People who had con law with him raved about him, so I was honestly expecting something more. Maybe it was because the class was so much bigger than he was used to? Idk, but class was often pretty boring and cold calls were a waste of time.
Reading other reviews makes me wonder how much Mortenson’s Con Law class has been impacted by his use of his own not-yet-published casebook to teach.
He is passionate and kind, and yet, I found this class overwhelming.
First, the readings were far too long. I felt he could’ve edited cases down to be much more reasonable to assign for overnight reading. My guess is he loves the cases and the writing and reasoning so much he finds it challenging to trim them (he really is passionate).
Second, he would make these visuals and charts on a whiteboard that were incredibly hard to follow because his handwriting was hard to follow. He’d abbreviate in a non-intuitive way. Pair that with his incredibly fast talking speed, and it was super easy to get lost in class.
Third, I think he changed his mind about what cases to focus on from year to year and even partway through the semester. This just led to the class feeling less organized. During our review session, he brought up cases we hadn’t read, which caused temporary panic for students.
I think my first and third points are closely tied to the casebook thing. Because his casebook is still changing, the class feels less organized. As least, that’s my guess based on past reviews. I think the second point could be solved by providing students with slides of charts and such. Prof. Schlanger uploads hers to Canvas post-lecture and projected them during the lecture, and I found it much easier to follow along.
Mortenson is the best professor I’ve ever had and possibly the most genuinely caring and thoughtful human being I’ve ever met. I had him for ConLaw first semester back to in-person and I think he was less unorganized as a result. He was still unorganized lol, but it did not disrupt the in-class learning experience other than constant tech issues he couldn’t grasp. Some people in my class didn’t like his unorganized nature, but I’d say the majority liked him.
The reason people, me included, loved his teaching was because of how passionate he is about ConLaw. You can tell that this — without a doubt — is his life. He deals and thinks about these issues throughout his life and he’s a terrific mind. I also just liked ConLaw as a subject because of him. He had the textbook fully developed before our class started and I thought the class was completely fluid and the book was solid.
His Cold Calls are hard, but they help you out and he is such a nice guy that he’ll challenge with the question, but won’t be a jerk about you not knowing the answer because he understands ConLaw is tough. His final was medium level difficulty, so I’d say it was fair.
Mortenson is a good teacher who is very passionate about his subject. He loves going into the weeds during class in a way that I think can be somewhat confusing at times, but overall I loved him and most of my classmates seemed to as well.
It feels like the final covers considerably less content tested than most other classes. That’s the nature of Con Law, I guess. There’s a lot of buildup before you get to the modern day doctrine. He provides slides with all of the rules you need to know – the key to the final is knowing how to apply them and giving thorough arguments on both sides of each issue and subissue. It’s not a secret what is going to be on there: some combination of EPC, SDP, commandeering, commerce clause, taxing/spending clauses, Youngstown zones, and 14th amendment enforcement clause. Practice how to apply those thoroughly (anecdotally he seems to like case cites, so having some ready might help) and you’ll be fine.
MLaw Prof Reviews
Prof. Mortenson is tough, but fair. He is serious about being prepared for class. His final is insane. That said, he’s very interesting. He’s a good lecturer. He leaves the pass/fails in the curve, so it doesn’t really matter how tough the final is. I would recommend him.
Given the horror stories I’ve heard about Transnat, I would definitely recommend Prof. Mortenson. He was very engaging, extremely helpful and genuinely cared about the material and our understanding of it. As someone with almost no interest in the vast majority of the material we learned, and who took it P/F, I still cared about being prepared and contributing, in no small part because of Professor Mortenson’s efforts.
A great professor. Means very well, but talks very fast, so it’s easy to get lost if not paying full attention.
Amazing prof, amazing class(Con law) – Prof. Mortenson almost makes you feel bad about yourself if you come to class unprepared because HE’s always super-prepared!!
I had him for con law. He’s a good prof that means well and really cares about students. Teaching style wise, however, he’s very wordy and repetitive – it takes him 3-4 sentences to convey one idea in multiple ways. If he’d be more concise in his thoughts, he’d be great. Exam was definitely very hard.
I had him for constitutional law. He really cares about his students, was way more approachable than any other 1L prof, and was always prepared for class. The exam was very hard (think: long, complex fact pattern with many parties) but I’m guessing the curve reflected that.
Prof. Mortenson is possibly the best human being on the faculty! I had him for 1L con law during his first year teaching at Michigan. He was energetic about Con Law the entire semester. He prepares extremely well for class. He does have a tendency to get a bit over-excited and that makes him speed up when he’s talking but that’s the only negative experience I had. I wish he’d teach more subjects on international arbitration because that’s his true expertise.
Talks at a rapid fire pace. Exam is damn hard.
Mortensen is the best professor in law school. Brilliant, nice helpful. The finals was the hardest during 1L year. I think that was reflected in the curve though.
Had Mortenson for Constitutional Law (Winter ’19) and currently have him for Legislation and Regulation (Fall ’19)
I’ll preface my review by saying I might be in love with Professor Mortenson
Constitutional Law: Professor Mortenson is always on his game, he is funny and very engaging. He makes even dry material very interesting. He is really great at breaking down really complex issues into more manageable parts and he does this extremely well in constitutional law. Good at answering questions after/during class/over email. Had lunch with him as well 1L – he’s very sweet and really cares. I personally love an open note, ctrl+f, no word count type of exam. The exam was part objective short answer questions (closed book) and then one long issue spotter type and one policy issue. Overall fair.
Legislation and Regulation: To be fair – this class is huge and you can tell Professor Morten was thrown off his game at the beginning of the semester. But he still is really great at breaking down really complex matters into parts that are more manageable. The amount of reading is pretty moderate to light. I only wish the class was a little bit more lively – but you can only make leg reg so interesting. He discussed the exam and his notorious 17+ page leg reg exam from the past and stated he might do something similar. But it will be open book, ctrl+f type issue spotter, so if you like that I think you will be fine.
Overall – Professor Mortenson is one of my favorite teachers, if not my favorite, in the entire law school. Would recommend taking a class with him if you get the chance. Also getting a recommendation from him can go a long way as he has a lot of connections.
I had Mortenson for leg reg. I thought it was ok. The material is important enough to make the class worth taking, and Mortenson was competent at teaching it. People who had con law with him raved about him, so I was honestly expecting something more. Maybe it was because the class was so much bigger than he was used to? Idk, but class was often pretty boring and cold calls were a waste of time.
Reading other reviews makes me wonder how much Mortenson’s Con Law class has been impacted by his use of his own not-yet-published casebook to teach.
He is passionate and kind, and yet, I found this class overwhelming.
First, the readings were far too long. I felt he could’ve edited cases down to be much more reasonable to assign for overnight reading. My guess is he loves the cases and the writing and reasoning so much he finds it challenging to trim them (he really is passionate).
Second, he would make these visuals and charts on a whiteboard that were incredibly hard to follow because his handwriting was hard to follow. He’d abbreviate in a non-intuitive way. Pair that with his incredibly fast talking speed, and it was super easy to get lost in class.
Third, I think he changed his mind about what cases to focus on from year to year and even partway through the semester. This just led to the class feeling less organized. During our review session, he brought up cases we hadn’t read, which caused temporary panic for students.
I think my first and third points are closely tied to the casebook thing. Because his casebook is still changing, the class feels less organized. As least, that’s my guess based on past reviews. I think the second point could be solved by providing students with slides of charts and such. Prof. Schlanger uploads hers to Canvas post-lecture and projected them during the lecture, and I found it much easier to follow along.
Mortenson is the best professor I’ve ever had and possibly the most genuinely caring and thoughtful human being I’ve ever met. I had him for ConLaw first semester back to in-person and I think he was less unorganized as a result. He was still unorganized lol, but it did not disrupt the in-class learning experience other than constant tech issues he couldn’t grasp. Some people in my class didn’t like his unorganized nature, but I’d say the majority liked him.
The reason people, me included, loved his teaching was because of how passionate he is about ConLaw. You can tell that this — without a doubt — is his life. He deals and thinks about these issues throughout his life and he’s a terrific mind. I also just liked ConLaw as a subject because of him. He had the textbook fully developed before our class started and I thought the class was completely fluid and the book was solid.
His Cold Calls are hard, but they help you out and he is such a nice guy that he’ll challenge with the question, but won’t be a jerk about you not knowing the answer because he understands ConLaw is tough. His final was medium level difficulty, so I’d say it was fair.
Mortenson is a good teacher who is very passionate about his subject. He loves going into the weeds during class in a way that I think can be somewhat confusing at times, but overall I loved him and most of my classmates seemed to as well.
It feels like the final covers considerably less content tested than most other classes. That’s the nature of Con Law, I guess. There’s a lot of buildup before you get to the modern day doctrine. He provides slides with all of the rules you need to know – the key to the final is knowing how to apply them and giving thorough arguments on both sides of each issue and subissue. It’s not a secret what is going to be on there: some combination of EPC, SDP, commandeering, commerce clause, taxing/spending clauses, Youngstown zones, and 14th amendment enforcement clause. Practice how to apply those thoroughly (anecdotally he seems to like case cites, so having some ready might help) and you’ll be fine.