I have Friedman for Evidence this semester and I wouldn’t recommend him as a professor if you want a to get a clear picture of the law & rules as they stand. He told us straight out to get a commercial outline to study. In class he just talks about his theories for how the law schould be and goes off on 20 minute tangents about irrelevant details that tickle him for some reason. Also, he’s not very good at explaining things — he just keeps repeating the his same explanation until people give up asking questions (that will be awful for jurisdiction, which gets pretty complicated). To be fair, some people like him. He talks a lot about the rationales behind the rules and their historical evolution and he gives people a chance to reason things out. Also, he’s not intense with the Socratic method – he doesn’t really care what people say and he doesn’t badger. He’s kind of funny and endearing, so the class environment is pretty laid back. In Evidence he gave quizzes, so not all the weight was on the final.
I had evidence with Friedman and it was awful. I don’t recommend him for anything. His style is to ramble incoherently which some take to mean that he’s intellectual but I take to mean that he’s a bad professor.
Rich Friedman is the greatest evidence professor ever. This is because:
1) he gives quizzes (you know how you are doing throughout the semester – no mystery at the end!),
2) he brings a bag of Wendy’s food to (nearly) every class; and
3) the see-thru bikini hypothetical.
I don’t think Friedman has taught Jurisdiction in recent memory, but people I know who have had him for other things say he’s very idiosyncratic, and not necessarily in a good way, for whatever that’s worth. The word is Cooper will also either be teaching a section of Jurisdiction in the fall or spring; don’t take him, unless you enjoy spending most of a semester in a state of utter confusion.
Friedman was the man for evidence. He’s a genius. His anecdotes and hypos are stimulating and hilarious. If you study half as hard as you did for 1L civ pro you’ll get an A.
I had Friedman for Con Law. He is hard to understand and babbles a lot. Not to forget his racist and sexist remarks towards the end of the semester. However, his exam was surprisingly straightforward (not so if you did not read Chemerinsky because his lectures suck).
Took him for evidence. His classes mostly consist of cold-calling people to talk about hypos in the book (which he wrote). He’s not nearly as bad as everyone says he is, though he does ramble and mumble a great deal, so that gets pretty annoying (can’t believe this guy argues in front of the Supreme Court!). He does a decent job explaining the ins and outs of the rules, and he’s particularly great at explaining the rationales for the rules. Since evidence is just a ton of apparently random rules, it’s actually pretty useful to know the policies behind the rules to help you remember them all (and maybe make a few creative arguments here and there).
He has been absolutely terrible for civ pro. utterly disorganized. And while the midterm is a nice way to give us a chance to see what he thinks. He gave us completely new stuff ON THE FINAL. I had no choice but to take his class & wonder if my career options have been reduced because of it.
His civ pro exam included a question that gave us 1 page of totally new information and then asked us why the rule for it (that we just learned about) was good. Another question asked us to make the best argument for why next year he should teach the class beginning with trials and verdicts and ending with pleadings.
I had Friedman for CivPro. Friedman is a practitioner first, and a professor second. He cares about his students and wants them to learn, but his teaching style and my learning style just didn’t line up. He likes practical answers, not comprehensive ones, and subtracts points on the exam for any language that’s not absolutely necessary. Practicality is great, but when it comes at the expense of understanding the underlying rationales of the legal doctrine we are supposed to be learning it’s counterproductive in my opinion.
I think pretty much everyone in my super section agreed that we liked Prof. Friedman as a person, but his teaching style works great for some and feels scatterbrained for others. If this is you, and you’ve identified this early on, particularly for civ pro I say go look for resources. There are Friedman outlines, commercial supplements, etc. galore, and civ pro is as close to math as you’re ever going to get in law school in the sense that there are *rules* that (mostly) don’t change. I also think getting his feedback on your midterm (even if you do well! because do you know WHY you did well, and can you replicate it?) is crucial.
If you like him, he’s a wonderful human – has written a bunch of my rec letters and been a big advocate for jobs, etc. – and if you are struggling, ask for help, there’s a lot of resources out there and lot of people who have had him. Also, the man basically developed the modern Confrontation Clause doctrine, so taking Evidence with him is learning it from the source.
Friedman is a wonderful human being and absolutely worth knowing. That being said, I hated taking civ pro with him. He admits his materials are pretty experimental compared to others, and we read almost no cases in this class. We also barely covered jurisdiction, and I believe the majority of us don’t really feel like we understand it. I had a 3L confirm to me that she felt like she had to learn civ pro from scratch to study for the bar. His teaching style is also very rambly and anecdotal, which can be entertaining, but really did nothing for understanding.
The plus side, though, is that he doesn’t hide the ball on what he wants out of you for finals – the fewer words the better. Despite feeling like this was the subject I understood the least, it was actually my best grade, and I think that’s because of how aggressively clear he makes it that he wants no extra language whatsoever, so you can fine tune your answers.
I didn’t mind Friedman, but he seems like the kind of guy that isn’t for everyone. CivPro ultimately isn’t THAT difficult; there are some close cases but Friedman lets you know what makes them close.
Do every practice exam/midterm you can find and read the model answers.
I took Evidence with Friedman and it was fine. I have to say that I found it difficult to know what he was looking for on the quizzes he gave us (three 20-minute quizzes worth 25% of our grade). 20 minutes really isn’t enough time to answer a quiz super well and no one in the class ever got a 20/20 or even really close to that, so I’m not sure how he even ends up grading them into our final letter grades. I think it will mostly be the final. I found him pretty rambling and he took too many questions in class. That being said, this guy REALLY knows his stuff. He wrote the book we use and he clearly has a strong handle on evidentiary material and code. You can tell you’re learning from an expert. If you are like me and are not someone who is good at getting to the one “right” answer (which he expects), then I think the exams/quizzes will be hard for you. Otherwise, you know you’re learning from a genius and if practice enough of his practice questions, you should be alright.
Took him for Evidence Fall 2020 as a 3L. AVOID AT ALL COSTS.
If you are even thinking about taking this course — DON’T. I should have listened to the numerous previous reviews on this page, but unfortunately his evidence course was the only one the fit in my schedule.
Pros:
Professor Friedman is a very nice and endearing man. In spite of COVID he offered to have socially distanced meet ups on his lawn to get to know his students. He even offered to do something socially distanced the weekend after Thanksgiving. He is like a cute grandfather and will go above and beyond for you. He even has some cute cats that have been featured on his zoom class.
Cons:
However sweet he is does not make up for the fact that you do not want him to be teaching you evidence. Everyone agrees that you leave his course more confused than you started.
(1) Despite Zoom law school, he does not use power-points. This would make it much easier to follow and make it easier to follow along.
(2) His most recent version of the casebook (which he wrote) is all hypotheticals. I thought I might enjoy getting a break from reading cases. I was wrong. To get a coherent answer to the hypothetical you have to be vigilant in attempting to understand his remarks to student’s cold calls in class. Students responses are not that accurate and he doesn’t follow up clearly with what the answer/point of the hypo is (like what rule you should get out of it). A case is much easier to follow because you have the judge’s opinion which lays out the landscape of the law.
(3) Like numerous other reviews. He mostly rambles incoherently. To even attempt to understand I complied all the transcripts from his zoom classes to review, but still find it hard to understand.
(4) While many other professors in essence want you to parrot back their views on the law — Friedman takes it to an extreme. It appears he prefers students subscribe to his opinions (which he will give to you frequently) on quiz/exam answers.
(5) Speaking of quizzes/exams — the questions are written in such a way so as you are basically guessing what’s on his mind. Question prompts are very unclear. His exams now due to COVID are 25+ short answer questions within 3 hours; not your basic issue spotter exam.
(6) This may be a critique of all evidence courses, but I know the law school has been making a push to make the law courses include some kind of perspective on the way the law intersects with society (whether that be by race, gender, etc.) I was deeply disappointed that was very little discussion on what effect race/gender has on evidence, particularly by how racialized the criminal justice system is or the gender aspect in rape, sexual assault, or domestic violence prosecutions.
I took Evidence with Professor Friedman in Fall ’23. I agree with much of the above reviews. However, my experience, while occasionally frustrating, was not nearly as bad as some reviewers describe. In fact, my only real complaint are the quizzes and exam essays.
To start, Professor Friedman is very kind, helpful, understanding, and intelligent. But his teaching style is unique, and is not for everyone. As other reviewers mentioned, he assigns his own coursebook (which does not include cases) and class mostly consists of cold-calling students to answer short hypotheticals from the book. The cold calls aren’t remotely difficult. I think Friedman tries to teach evidence from a conceptual standpoint, as opposed to a more rules-based approach. If you do the work and pay attention, you’ll understand evidence on a fundamental, conceptual level.
Still, his style just isn’t for everyone and, if you prefer conventional law courses, this may not be the course for you. ON the other hand, if you’re a future criminal defense attorney, you’ll never have a better opportunity to learn the confrontation clause.
My biggest issue are his short-answer quiz questions. Quizzes are 25% of the grade in the class. Short and medium-length essays on the final are another 25%. I would review his past quizzes before enrolling, to see how you feel about them. Too often, they are needlessly confusing; it felt to me like Friedman conflates complex and difficult questions with purposeless brainteasers. He also often has an answer in mind, even for questions appearing open-ended. On too many occasions, his post-exam model answers state something like, “most students wrote _____, but I was looking for _____.” Well, why do you think it is that so many smart students misinterpreted the question? Other questions ask for tiny, unimportant regurgitation from the book. I almost wonder if his teaching style doesn’t lend itself to questions calling for more conventional, rule-based analysis, and whether he therefore struggles in trying to draft difficult, thoughtful questions.
Still, if you work hard and study hard, an A- should be attainable. As are tough, because of the curve and unpredictability. And again, I actually really like Professor Friedman and learned a lot. Our minds just aren’t in sync, and my grade suffered in the quizzes as I figured out what he wanted.
MLaw Prof Reviews
I have Friedman for Evidence this semester and I wouldn’t recommend him as a professor if you want a to get a clear picture of the law & rules as they stand. He told us straight out to get a commercial outline to study. In class he just talks about his theories for how the law schould be and goes off on 20 minute tangents about irrelevant details that tickle him for some reason. Also, he’s not very good at explaining things — he just keeps repeating the his same explanation until people give up asking questions (that will be awful for jurisdiction, which gets pretty complicated). To be fair, some people like him. He talks a lot about the rationales behind the rules and their historical evolution and he gives people a chance to reason things out. Also, he’s not intense with the Socratic method – he doesn’t really care what people say and he doesn’t badger. He’s kind of funny and endearing, so the class environment is pretty laid back. In Evidence he gave quizzes, so not all the weight was on the final.
I had evidence with Friedman and it was awful. I don’t recommend him for anything. His style is to ramble incoherently which some take to mean that he’s intellectual but I take to mean that he’s a bad professor.
Rich Friedman is the greatest evidence professor ever. This is because:
1) he gives quizzes (you know how you are doing throughout the semester – no mystery at the end!),
2) he brings a bag of Wendy’s food to (nearly) every class; and
3) the see-thru bikini hypothetical.
I don’t think Friedman has taught Jurisdiction in recent memory, but people I know who have had him for other things say he’s very idiosyncratic, and not necessarily in a good way, for whatever that’s worth. The word is Cooper will also either be teaching a section of Jurisdiction in the fall or spring; don’t take him, unless you enjoy spending most of a semester in a state of utter confusion.
Friedman was the man for evidence. He’s a genius. His anecdotes and hypos are stimulating and hilarious. If you study half as hard as you did for 1L civ pro you’ll get an A.
Friedman seemed off-topic through much of Con Law, but his exam was among the most fair and balanced I can remember from 1L.
I had Friedman for Con Law. He is hard to understand and babbles a lot. Not to forget his racist and sexist remarks towards the end of the semester. However, his exam was surprisingly straightforward (not so if you did not read Chemerinsky because his lectures suck).
Took him for evidence. His classes mostly consist of cold-calling people to talk about hypos in the book (which he wrote). He’s not nearly as bad as everyone says he is, though he does ramble and mumble a great deal, so that gets pretty annoying (can’t believe this guy argues in front of the Supreme Court!). He does a decent job explaining the ins and outs of the rules, and he’s particularly great at explaining the rationales for the rules. Since evidence is just a ton of apparently random rules, it’s actually pretty useful to know the policies behind the rules to help you remember them all (and maybe make a few creative arguments here and there).
He has been absolutely terrible for civ pro. utterly disorganized. And while the midterm is a nice way to give us a chance to see what he thinks. He gave us completely new stuff ON THE FINAL. I had no choice but to take his class & wonder if my career options have been reduced because of it.
His civ pro exam included a question that gave us 1 page of totally new information and then asked us why the rule for it (that we just learned about) was good. Another question asked us to make the best argument for why next year he should teach the class beginning with trials and verdicts and ending with pleadings.
I had Friedman for CivPro. Friedman is a practitioner first, and a professor second. He cares about his students and wants them to learn, but his teaching style and my learning style just didn’t line up. He likes practical answers, not comprehensive ones, and subtracts points on the exam for any language that’s not absolutely necessary. Practicality is great, but when it comes at the expense of understanding the underlying rationales of the legal doctrine we are supposed to be learning it’s counterproductive in my opinion.
I think pretty much everyone in my super section agreed that we liked Prof. Friedman as a person, but his teaching style works great for some and feels scatterbrained for others. If this is you, and you’ve identified this early on, particularly for civ pro I say go look for resources. There are Friedman outlines, commercial supplements, etc. galore, and civ pro is as close to math as you’re ever going to get in law school in the sense that there are *rules* that (mostly) don’t change. I also think getting his feedback on your midterm (even if you do well! because do you know WHY you did well, and can you replicate it?) is crucial.
If you like him, he’s a wonderful human – has written a bunch of my rec letters and been a big advocate for jobs, etc. – and if you are struggling, ask for help, there’s a lot of resources out there and lot of people who have had him. Also, the man basically developed the modern Confrontation Clause doctrine, so taking Evidence with him is learning it from the source.
Friedman is a wonderful human being and absolutely worth knowing. That being said, I hated taking civ pro with him. He admits his materials are pretty experimental compared to others, and we read almost no cases in this class. We also barely covered jurisdiction, and I believe the majority of us don’t really feel like we understand it. I had a 3L confirm to me that she felt like she had to learn civ pro from scratch to study for the bar. His teaching style is also very rambly and anecdotal, which can be entertaining, but really did nothing for understanding.
The plus side, though, is that he doesn’t hide the ball on what he wants out of you for finals – the fewer words the better. Despite feeling like this was the subject I understood the least, it was actually my best grade, and I think that’s because of how aggressively clear he makes it that he wants no extra language whatsoever, so you can fine tune your answers.
I didn’t mind Friedman, but he seems like the kind of guy that isn’t for everyone. CivPro ultimately isn’t THAT difficult; there are some close cases but Friedman lets you know what makes them close.
Do every practice exam/midterm you can find and read the model answers.
I took Evidence with Friedman and it was fine. I have to say that I found it difficult to know what he was looking for on the quizzes he gave us (three 20-minute quizzes worth 25% of our grade). 20 minutes really isn’t enough time to answer a quiz super well and no one in the class ever got a 20/20 or even really close to that, so I’m not sure how he even ends up grading them into our final letter grades. I think it will mostly be the final. I found him pretty rambling and he took too many questions in class. That being said, this guy REALLY knows his stuff. He wrote the book we use and he clearly has a strong handle on evidentiary material and code. You can tell you’re learning from an expert. If you are like me and are not someone who is good at getting to the one “right” answer (which he expects), then I think the exams/quizzes will be hard for you. Otherwise, you know you’re learning from a genius and if practice enough of his practice questions, you should be alright.
Took him for Evidence Fall 2020 as a 3L. AVOID AT ALL COSTS.
If you are even thinking about taking this course — DON’T. I should have listened to the numerous previous reviews on this page, but unfortunately his evidence course was the only one the fit in my schedule.
Pros:
Professor Friedman is a very nice and endearing man. In spite of COVID he offered to have socially distanced meet ups on his lawn to get to know his students. He even offered to do something socially distanced the weekend after Thanksgiving. He is like a cute grandfather and will go above and beyond for you. He even has some cute cats that have been featured on his zoom class.
Cons:
However sweet he is does not make up for the fact that you do not want him to be teaching you evidence. Everyone agrees that you leave his course more confused than you started.
(1) Despite Zoom law school, he does not use power-points. This would make it much easier to follow and make it easier to follow along.
(2) His most recent version of the casebook (which he wrote) is all hypotheticals. I thought I might enjoy getting a break from reading cases. I was wrong. To get a coherent answer to the hypothetical you have to be vigilant in attempting to understand his remarks to student’s cold calls in class. Students responses are not that accurate and he doesn’t follow up clearly with what the answer/point of the hypo is (like what rule you should get out of it). A case is much easier to follow because you have the judge’s opinion which lays out the landscape of the law.
(3) Like numerous other reviews. He mostly rambles incoherently. To even attempt to understand I complied all the transcripts from his zoom classes to review, but still find it hard to understand.
(4) While many other professors in essence want you to parrot back their views on the law — Friedman takes it to an extreme. It appears he prefers students subscribe to his opinions (which he will give to you frequently) on quiz/exam answers.
(5) Speaking of quizzes/exams — the questions are written in such a way so as you are basically guessing what’s on his mind. Question prompts are very unclear. His exams now due to COVID are 25+ short answer questions within 3 hours; not your basic issue spotter exam.
(6) This may be a critique of all evidence courses, but I know the law school has been making a push to make the law courses include some kind of perspective on the way the law intersects with society (whether that be by race, gender, etc.) I was deeply disappointed that was very little discussion on what effect race/gender has on evidence, particularly by how racialized the criminal justice system is or the gender aspect in rape, sexual assault, or domestic violence prosecutions.
All in all, I deeply regret taking this class.
I took Evidence with Professor Friedman in Fall ’23. I agree with much of the above reviews. However, my experience, while occasionally frustrating, was not nearly as bad as some reviewers describe. In fact, my only real complaint are the quizzes and exam essays.
To start, Professor Friedman is very kind, helpful, understanding, and intelligent. But his teaching style is unique, and is not for everyone. As other reviewers mentioned, he assigns his own coursebook (which does not include cases) and class mostly consists of cold-calling students to answer short hypotheticals from the book. The cold calls aren’t remotely difficult. I think Friedman tries to teach evidence from a conceptual standpoint, as opposed to a more rules-based approach. If you do the work and pay attention, you’ll understand evidence on a fundamental, conceptual level.
Still, his style just isn’t for everyone and, if you prefer conventional law courses, this may not be the course for you. ON the other hand, if you’re a future criminal defense attorney, you’ll never have a better opportunity to learn the confrontation clause.
My biggest issue are his short-answer quiz questions. Quizzes are 25% of the grade in the class. Short and medium-length essays on the final are another 25%. I would review his past quizzes before enrolling, to see how you feel about them. Too often, they are needlessly confusing; it felt to me like Friedman conflates complex and difficult questions with purposeless brainteasers. He also often has an answer in mind, even for questions appearing open-ended. On too many occasions, his post-exam model answers state something like, “most students wrote _____, but I was looking for _____.” Well, why do you think it is that so many smart students misinterpreted the question? Other questions ask for tiny, unimportant regurgitation from the book. I almost wonder if his teaching style doesn’t lend itself to questions calling for more conventional, rule-based analysis, and whether he therefore struggles in trying to draft difficult, thoughtful questions.
Still, if you work hard and study hard, an A- should be attainable. As are tough, because of the curve and unpredictability. And again, I actually really like Professor Friedman and learned a lot. Our minds just aren’t in sync, and my grade suffered in the quizzes as I figured out what he wanted.