Thursday, June 05, 2008

Erwin

Today we watched Erwin Chemerinsky's DVD lecture. Chemerinsky is the god of Con Law, revered by many generations of attorneys who were taught Con Law by him in Barbri. (I flew 600 miles with a stomach virus to hear him speak.) The most remarked upon quality of his lectures is that he uses no notes whatsoever.

Without using any books, notes, or even a podium, he guided us through out handout, referring to "major subpoint 3" or "subset c," or, my personal favorite, "little 4." He recited the notes word-for-word.

Our DVD emphasized this point by filming him for the first 20 minutes from the feet up, before zooming in on his face as they typically do. At that moment, my friends on either side of me both leaned in to whisper, "Does he have a teleprompter?" and "Does he have it all memorized?"

His lecture is about 8 hours long!

3 comments:

Greg said...

I hear a lot of comments on his presentation without notes. While different from the other presenters -- though Schechter only occasionally looked down at his notes, unlike the Evidence guy -- we're really only talking about a 40-page, widely spaced outline that he's probably been using for 20 years.

I personally find the whole "sub-point b" stuff really irritating.

BCC said...

Just had Chem's lecture today... his delivery was pretty impressive (no notes or outline, verbatim recitation of the barbri handout), albeit boring... yawn

Sansserif said...

Yes, I think the general consensus is that he's overrated! My friend: "He may be famous, but he's boring as hell."