I have him for Federal Courts this semester. He is a nice professor and knows the subject decently well, but I find him pretty unengaging as a professor. His cold calls only really cover the material in the cases, and he doesn’t really suss out the deeper doctrinal connections between all the cases. I’d recommend taking such an important class with another professor.
I had Professor Deacon for LegReg last year. He’s a nice person and has a dry sense of humor. He seems to really enjoy getting to know students but is (like many professors) a bit awkward sometimes. He uses a lot of PowerPoints (of varying degrees of helpfulness, but with always with lots of GIFs). He also makes amazing videos to introduce us to new topics (e.g., get pumped to learn about Chevron deference with an unexpectedly emotional montage of Chevron gas stations). His lecture style isn’t the most engaging, which did made it tougher to move online, but he goes a very manageable pace and explains things clearly. He also reviewed all of the material at the end and I felt it was pretty clear what he would emphasize on the exam. He used a panel system for cold calls which sometimes affected my motivation to read on other days, but reading assignments were pretty manageable, and he chose interesting cases. He usually cold called just a few students per class and would stay with each student for the whole case (we generally had just a few longer cases since we typically dove deep into the statutory interpretation analyses, and always covered minority opinions pretty closely). His class focuses a lot on getting the doctrinal rules down, and considering different views of statutory interpretation. He doesn’t get too too theoretical. I really appreciated that he had us do 3 or 4 exercises throughout the semester where we had to apply what we were learning to a practice problem, and then we went through them in class. These were helpful for preparing for the exam, as were the practice exams he posted from his Admin class at UC-Irvine. However, his final was WAY harder than the practice exams he gave us, so a lot of us felt a bit blind-sided. But this was the P/F semester so I have no idea how we would’ve done anyway. And future students will probably have our LegReg exam to use for practice, and I can’t imagine he’ll write a significantly more difficult exam than that.
tl;dr He’s a nice person who will teach you the legal rules you need to know. Not the most engaging lecturer (IMHO) but can make up for it with GIFs, videos, and the fact that he explains concepts very clearly and emphasizes what will be on the exam.
I was originally apprehensive about taking fed courts with Deacon as Seinfeld was originally supposed to teach the course. However, I have been pleasantly surprised by Professor Deacon. I would highly recommend him for anyone interested in taking any of his courses.
Federal courts can be a difficult topic, but Professor Deacon is extremely clear and makes learning more manageable. He uses useful powerpoints and periodically has students work out problems during class. Like others have said, he has a sort of “dry” or “awkward” sense of humor, but I find it very endearing and amusing. He also starts some classes by discussing federal courts issues in the news and he also makes sure to discuss racial/social underpinnings of cases or doctrines. I personally found him to be very engaging and have actually enjoyed learning federal courts. He has also adapted to student responses regarding issues relating to COVID (for example he cut down the reading after frustrations with the condensed semester) and has been extremely understanding.
I agree with the other poster that the final exam was more challenging than the previous UC Irvine exams provided. But not that much more rigorous and was still an overall fair exam.
Another 3L from his Fall 2020 semester – I have to disagree with the previous poster. Deacon truly is a really, really nice guy, and I think he tried hard to make this experience a good one, but I would give this class a 4/10 at best. A lot of the subjects we covered were done so in ways that made them confusing and difficult to comprehend. There were dozens of short note cases that Deacon expected us to know, but went through so quickly that it was hard to catch what the takeaway was or what the significance was. He also taught things in an order that made it difficult to follow – for example, splitting habeas up into two sections, which made it difficult to understand how everything worked together as a cohesive doctrine. Even in class he often seemed to tab back and forth between the slides in a way that made it difficult to keep up while taking notes. This style also sometimes led to instances where a slide would talk about something we hadn’t talked about, at which point he’d then say “we’ll come back to this later,” which made it really hard to keep straight how all the pieces were fitting together.
As for the slides themselves, I found them to be extremely unhelpful – a lot of the time they were just long block quotes from the case rather than the holding or the takeaway, and the smaller note cases were hardly ever on the slides at all. In terms of classroom demeanor, I’ll agree that Deacon is pretty easy on people who don’t know their stuff; however, he asks questions that vary wildly in difficulty (anywhere from ‘state the facts of the case’ to ‘answer this question while reviewing everything we’ve learned so far’). While I appreciate that often his interjection of interesting anecdotes or side details was supposed to keep the class interesting, I found that it had the effect of reducing the amount of class time dedicated to actually untangling more complicated aspects of the doctrine, and I found it to be more distracting than helpful.
In terms of practical application, I often felt that he wasn’t able to give us much guidance beyond the surface level connections between cases. A lot of times the takeaway seemed to be “and now the doctrine is dead” or “this doctrine just doesn’t have any good answers to this,” which both felt somewhat unsatisfying; having read the supplement, I also feel that sometimes he underplayed the nuance, such as presenting certain doctrines as being essentially settled in one direction or the other when there’s still some pretty lively debate. This made it really challenging to study for the exam, because I didn’t feel that he equipped us well with the tools to do anything more than make surface level connections to pretty similar cases; I found myself often uncertain as to what situations different cases could be applied to and how they might be utilized for their broader principle, etc.
His exam was one of the most unpleasant I’ve taken during law school. It was the first Fed Courts exam that I could find (aka of the ones available in the library bank for Seinfeld, and of the ones he gave us for himself and Litman) that dedicated a full question to habeas in over 5 years; because habeas was such a challenging topic and covered in a segmented fashion in class, I was surprised to see it on the exam. I thought given the pace of the class and the prior practice exams he gave us, it was a pretty unfair exam in terms of difficulty as well – personally, I don’t think a pandemic year is the best time to ramp up the difficulty of your class and test on subjects that aren’t often tested on.
I don’t feel confident in my grasp of the subject matter at the end of this class, and most of what I learned came from the supplement and from my study group tirelessly putting our heads together to figure out what some of the concepts meant before exam time.
I know this all sounds a little harsh, but I don’t think it’s necessarily Deacon’s fault – I think this just isn’t his primary subject, and I know he had to take on this class last minute once Seinfeld became unable to teach it, so this review is very Fed Courts specific. I’ll also echo again that I think Deacon is a very nice person who made his best effort to be accommodating of pandemic difficulties by reducing workload, not requiring cameras on, and using a panel cold-call system – but at the end of the day, I would have preferred a more streamlined, thoughtfully organized classroom with a fairer exam.
Had Deacon for admin law. He is very nice. He is also the least compelling lecturer I have had in my entire educational career. Dude has the personality of a man who is attempting to copy his partner’s personality and can’t quite pull it off. It made the class really boring. That said, he covered the material, made himself accessible to students, and his exam was a fair representation of the course.
Deacon is great. His humor is subtle. Uses PowerPoints. Splits the class into three on call groups, so you are only on call once a week. He also frequently summarizes where you are in the course big picture.
I took LegReg in the fall of 2022. I would recommend LegReg and Professor Deacon. Professor Deacon was a really nice professor – he knows the content isn’t super entertaining but he tried to be engaging via his slides and he made little jokes throughout. I thought the exam was pretty hard but not impossible and I was happy with the grade that I got. It seems like our exam was harder than the norm and if you do the practice exams he posts you’ll be fine. He also gave 4 hours for the exam even though it could be done in 3 which was really helpful and made the exam less stressful. The one weird thing about Professor Deacon is that he’s kind of awkward in office hours but I think he might just be shy. He held lots of office hours times each week and he answered tons of questions during finals (which I appreciated because he didn’t disappear like some professors do). He’s really nice and it’s not hard to be successful in this class!
I had Leg Reg with Professor Deacon in the fall of 2024. No complaints about the class at all. Lectures are easy to follow, slides are helpful and published on Canvas, the reading is interesting and reasonable, and the cold calls are reasonable. I felt like he really knew the content inside and out, which meant he almost always had satisfying answers even to tricky questions. Also, the man has jokes… like the lectures are legitimately pretty funny. I would definitely recommend taking Leg Reg with Deacon.
MLaw Prof Reviews
I have him for Federal Courts this semester. He is a nice professor and knows the subject decently well, but I find him pretty unengaging as a professor. His cold calls only really cover the material in the cases, and he doesn’t really suss out the deeper doctrinal connections between all the cases. I’d recommend taking such an important class with another professor.
I had Professor Deacon for LegReg last year. He’s a nice person and has a dry sense of humor. He seems to really enjoy getting to know students but is (like many professors) a bit awkward sometimes. He uses a lot of PowerPoints (of varying degrees of helpfulness, but with always with lots of GIFs). He also makes amazing videos to introduce us to new topics (e.g., get pumped to learn about Chevron deference with an unexpectedly emotional montage of Chevron gas stations). His lecture style isn’t the most engaging, which did made it tougher to move online, but he goes a very manageable pace and explains things clearly. He also reviewed all of the material at the end and I felt it was pretty clear what he would emphasize on the exam. He used a panel system for cold calls which sometimes affected my motivation to read on other days, but reading assignments were pretty manageable, and he chose interesting cases. He usually cold called just a few students per class and would stay with each student for the whole case (we generally had just a few longer cases since we typically dove deep into the statutory interpretation analyses, and always covered minority opinions pretty closely). His class focuses a lot on getting the doctrinal rules down, and considering different views of statutory interpretation. He doesn’t get too too theoretical. I really appreciated that he had us do 3 or 4 exercises throughout the semester where we had to apply what we were learning to a practice problem, and then we went through them in class. These were helpful for preparing for the exam, as were the practice exams he posted from his Admin class at UC-Irvine. However, his final was WAY harder than the practice exams he gave us, so a lot of us felt a bit blind-sided. But this was the P/F semester so I have no idea how we would’ve done anyway. And future students will probably have our LegReg exam to use for practice, and I can’t imagine he’ll write a significantly more difficult exam than that.
tl;dr He’s a nice person who will teach you the legal rules you need to know. Not the most engaging lecturer (IMHO) but can make up for it with GIFs, videos, and the fact that he explains concepts very clearly and emphasizes what will be on the exam.
3L with Deacon for Federal Courts Fall 2020
I was originally apprehensive about taking fed courts with Deacon as Seinfeld was originally supposed to teach the course. However, I have been pleasantly surprised by Professor Deacon. I would highly recommend him for anyone interested in taking any of his courses.
Federal courts can be a difficult topic, but Professor Deacon is extremely clear and makes learning more manageable. He uses useful powerpoints and periodically has students work out problems during class. Like others have said, he has a sort of “dry” or “awkward” sense of humor, but I find it very endearing and amusing. He also starts some classes by discussing federal courts issues in the news and he also makes sure to discuss racial/social underpinnings of cases or doctrines. I personally found him to be very engaging and have actually enjoyed learning federal courts. He has also adapted to student responses regarding issues relating to COVID (for example he cut down the reading after frustrations with the condensed semester) and has been extremely understanding.
I agree with the other poster that the final exam was more challenging than the previous UC Irvine exams provided. But not that much more rigorous and was still an overall fair exam.
10/10 would take fed courts with him again
Another 3L from his Fall 2020 semester – I have to disagree with the previous poster. Deacon truly is a really, really nice guy, and I think he tried hard to make this experience a good one, but I would give this class a 4/10 at best. A lot of the subjects we covered were done so in ways that made them confusing and difficult to comprehend. There were dozens of short note cases that Deacon expected us to know, but went through so quickly that it was hard to catch what the takeaway was or what the significance was. He also taught things in an order that made it difficult to follow – for example, splitting habeas up into two sections, which made it difficult to understand how everything worked together as a cohesive doctrine. Even in class he often seemed to tab back and forth between the slides in a way that made it difficult to keep up while taking notes. This style also sometimes led to instances where a slide would talk about something we hadn’t talked about, at which point he’d then say “we’ll come back to this later,” which made it really hard to keep straight how all the pieces were fitting together.
As for the slides themselves, I found them to be extremely unhelpful – a lot of the time they were just long block quotes from the case rather than the holding or the takeaway, and the smaller note cases were hardly ever on the slides at all. In terms of classroom demeanor, I’ll agree that Deacon is pretty easy on people who don’t know their stuff; however, he asks questions that vary wildly in difficulty (anywhere from ‘state the facts of the case’ to ‘answer this question while reviewing everything we’ve learned so far’). While I appreciate that often his interjection of interesting anecdotes or side details was supposed to keep the class interesting, I found that it had the effect of reducing the amount of class time dedicated to actually untangling more complicated aspects of the doctrine, and I found it to be more distracting than helpful.
In terms of practical application, I often felt that he wasn’t able to give us much guidance beyond the surface level connections between cases. A lot of times the takeaway seemed to be “and now the doctrine is dead” or “this doctrine just doesn’t have any good answers to this,” which both felt somewhat unsatisfying; having read the supplement, I also feel that sometimes he underplayed the nuance, such as presenting certain doctrines as being essentially settled in one direction or the other when there’s still some pretty lively debate. This made it really challenging to study for the exam, because I didn’t feel that he equipped us well with the tools to do anything more than make surface level connections to pretty similar cases; I found myself often uncertain as to what situations different cases could be applied to and how they might be utilized for their broader principle, etc.
His exam was one of the most unpleasant I’ve taken during law school. It was the first Fed Courts exam that I could find (aka of the ones available in the library bank for Seinfeld, and of the ones he gave us for himself and Litman) that dedicated a full question to habeas in over 5 years; because habeas was such a challenging topic and covered in a segmented fashion in class, I was surprised to see it on the exam. I thought given the pace of the class and the prior practice exams he gave us, it was a pretty unfair exam in terms of difficulty as well – personally, I don’t think a pandemic year is the best time to ramp up the difficulty of your class and test on subjects that aren’t often tested on.
I don’t feel confident in my grasp of the subject matter at the end of this class, and most of what I learned came from the supplement and from my study group tirelessly putting our heads together to figure out what some of the concepts meant before exam time.
I know this all sounds a little harsh, but I don’t think it’s necessarily Deacon’s fault – I think this just isn’t his primary subject, and I know he had to take on this class last minute once Seinfeld became unable to teach it, so this review is very Fed Courts specific. I’ll also echo again that I think Deacon is a very nice person who made his best effort to be accommodating of pandemic difficulties by reducing workload, not requiring cameras on, and using a panel cold-call system – but at the end of the day, I would have preferred a more streamlined, thoughtfully organized classroom with a fairer exam.
Had Deacon for admin law. He is very nice. He is also the least compelling lecturer I have had in my entire educational career. Dude has the personality of a man who is attempting to copy his partner’s personality and can’t quite pull it off. It made the class really boring. That said, he covered the material, made himself accessible to students, and his exam was a fair representation of the course.
Deacon is great. His humor is subtle. Uses PowerPoints. Splits the class into three on call groups, so you are only on call once a week. He also frequently summarizes where you are in the course big picture.
I took LegReg in the fall of 2022. I would recommend LegReg and Professor Deacon. Professor Deacon was a really nice professor – he knows the content isn’t super entertaining but he tried to be engaging via his slides and he made little jokes throughout. I thought the exam was pretty hard but not impossible and I was happy with the grade that I got. It seems like our exam was harder than the norm and if you do the practice exams he posts you’ll be fine. He also gave 4 hours for the exam even though it could be done in 3 which was really helpful and made the exam less stressful. The one weird thing about Professor Deacon is that he’s kind of awkward in office hours but I think he might just be shy. He held lots of office hours times each week and he answered tons of questions during finals (which I appreciated because he didn’t disappear like some professors do). He’s really nice and it’s not hard to be successful in this class!
I had Leg Reg with Professor Deacon in the fall of 2024. No complaints about the class at all. Lectures are easy to follow, slides are helpful and published on Canvas, the reading is interesting and reasonable, and the cold calls are reasonable. I felt like he really knew the content inside and out, which meant he almost always had satisfying answers even to tricky questions. Also, the man has jokes… like the lectures are legitimately pretty funny. I would definitely recommend taking Leg Reg with Deacon.