Professor Cornell is an incredible teacher and I would recommend his class to anybody. He runs an incredibly tight ship and will get through every page of the reading by the last minute of every class. He runs class with little lecturing, moving from cold call to cold call. He’s excellent at guiding students through the material so that every cold call is productive and informative for the rest of the class, while also making the student on call think deeply about the material. His exams are very hard, but he says he makes them hard so that the grades he gives out feel less random (i.e. if everyone gets the exam 85-95% right, it’s very hard to distinguish people). He clearly cares a lot about his students and is very accessible in his own somewhat awkward way.
I’d like to mirror the previous comment because, they nailed it.
–He really cares about the students. He had the choice of teaching in-person or online and decided that he would teach more classes than usual so he could give 1Ls a better experience.
–Once you break him out of his shell a bit, he’s a lot of fun and prefers to keep cold calls relaxed, but still while guiding you to the correct answer.
–I haven’t had his final yet but — doing it the hard way to make sure you do it right is exactly on brand for Cornell.
–He has a philosophy PhD so his classes have a more academic approach than other black letter law courses. Whether you like this may be a simple preference. I love it so I’m seeing how I can take more courses with him.
Professor Cornell is one of the most thoughtful professors I’ve had at Michigan Law. He puts a lot of work into his syllabus, so when you get those annoying longer readings you can rest assured that he won’t waste an ounce of effort and all the content will be addressed. He’ll begin class right on time and through phenomenal pacing cover all the content by the time class ends. Where he thinks the textbook is bland or boring he might throw in a more interesting case (e.g., discussing easements/adverse possession through a case involving ceremonial Indigenous migration). His exams are legendary, difficult, but always fun. I heartily recommend him for property.
Avoid if possible. Uninspired lecture style, he teaches like someone who’s being forced to. He puts almost no work into the syllabus and teaches straight from the book. He shuts down any in-class discussion that isn’t right off his notes.
Worst of all are his exams. He assigns closed-book, multiple choice exams with ambiguous answers. The issue spotter portion is a huge text wall that says “discuss” at the end. You don’t get any practice exams, either.
Cornell is the GOAT. He cares so much about his students and is very intentional about his lectures. He runs an incredibly tight ship and you never have to worry about not getting through the material. For cold calls, he also does a very good job of guiding you when you’re completely off topic, but acknowledges when your point is completely way off track. With respect to this, I don’t feel like he shuts people down at all. For class, he does assign longer readings, but does so with good reason. Due to his background, he likes to interject a lot of philosophy into his lectures, but doesn’t really test on that in the exams.
Speaking of his exams, they are very difficult. However, he specifically tells the class that they are like this because he wants to be able to differentiate between students, rather than having to choose arbitrarily. Take if possible.
Property with Cornell was the most boring class I took in law school. He spent the majority of class talking about the facts of cases and trying to persuade the class that he was cool and hip. He spent maybe 5-10 minutes each class actually teaching the law. You could watch his lectures at 4x speed and still fall asleep.
His test wasn’t that hard but was sloppily put together. (Misspelled words, multiple corrections given by the procter, and usage of esoteric terms that most people wouldn’t get).
Definitely avoid property with this professor – he packs material too densely, lets students struggle through cold calls and barely helps, and imposes nnecessarily difficult exams (claims it is to differentiate students’ grades, but all of my other doctrinal professors managed to allocate grades without imposing an eight hour essay section and three hour multiple choice section). One of the worst classes I have taken here.
MLaw Prof Reviews
Professor Cornell is an incredible teacher and I would recommend his class to anybody. He runs an incredibly tight ship and will get through every page of the reading by the last minute of every class. He runs class with little lecturing, moving from cold call to cold call. He’s excellent at guiding students through the material so that every cold call is productive and informative for the rest of the class, while also making the student on call think deeply about the material. His exams are very hard, but he says he makes them hard so that the grades he gives out feel less random (i.e. if everyone gets the exam 85-95% right, it’s very hard to distinguish people). He clearly cares a lot about his students and is very accessible in his own somewhat awkward way.
I’d like to mirror the previous comment because, they nailed it.
–He really cares about the students. He had the choice of teaching in-person or online and decided that he would teach more classes than usual so he could give 1Ls a better experience.
–Once you break him out of his shell a bit, he’s a lot of fun and prefers to keep cold calls relaxed, but still while guiding you to the correct answer.
–I haven’t had his final yet but — doing it the hard way to make sure you do it right is exactly on brand for Cornell.
–He has a philosophy PhD so his classes have a more academic approach than other black letter law courses. Whether you like this may be a simple preference. I love it so I’m seeing how I can take more courses with him.
Professor Cornell is one of the most thoughtful professors I’ve had at Michigan Law. He puts a lot of work into his syllabus, so when you get those annoying longer readings you can rest assured that he won’t waste an ounce of effort and all the content will be addressed. He’ll begin class right on time and through phenomenal pacing cover all the content by the time class ends. Where he thinks the textbook is bland or boring he might throw in a more interesting case (e.g., discussing easements/adverse possession through a case involving ceremonial Indigenous migration). His exams are legendary, difficult, but always fun. I heartily recommend him for property.
Avoid if possible. Uninspired lecture style, he teaches like someone who’s being forced to. He puts almost no work into the syllabus and teaches straight from the book. He shuts down any in-class discussion that isn’t right off his notes.
Worst of all are his exams. He assigns closed-book, multiple choice exams with ambiguous answers. The issue spotter portion is a huge text wall that says “discuss” at the end. You don’t get any practice exams, either.
Cornell is the GOAT. He cares so much about his students and is very intentional about his lectures. He runs an incredibly tight ship and you never have to worry about not getting through the material. For cold calls, he also does a very good job of guiding you when you’re completely off topic, but acknowledges when your point is completely way off track. With respect to this, I don’t feel like he shuts people down at all. For class, he does assign longer readings, but does so with good reason. Due to his background, he likes to interject a lot of philosophy into his lectures, but doesn’t really test on that in the exams.
Speaking of his exams, they are very difficult. However, he specifically tells the class that they are like this because he wants to be able to differentiate between students, rather than having to choose arbitrarily. Take if possible.
Property with Cornell was the most boring class I took in law school. He spent the majority of class talking about the facts of cases and trying to persuade the class that he was cool and hip. He spent maybe 5-10 minutes each class actually teaching the law. You could watch his lectures at 4x speed and still fall asleep.
His test wasn’t that hard but was sloppily put together. (Misspelled words, multiple corrections given by the procter, and usage of esoteric terms that most people wouldn’t get).
Definitely avoid property with this professor – he packs material too densely, lets students struggle through cold calls and barely helps, and imposes nnecessarily difficult exams (claims it is to differentiate students’ grades, but all of my other doctrinal professors managed to allocate grades without imposing an eight hour essay section and three hour multiple choice section). One of the worst classes I have taken here.