This course is a must-take for students with their eyes set on law school, but make sure you plan your quarter around its' workload. We read/covered dozens of cases, each of which required reading and parsing through many pages of dense legal writing. The midterm and final are very tough, as he asks you to apply lengthy rules/precedents set in each case to analyze three provided fact patterns, each in their own blue book. The midterm and final take up the entire class period (nearly three hours) and I filled all three of my books both times. Even though it was a lot, it was all worth it in the end. It's a lot of work, but the course is so interesting and enriching. This class was one of the few times I felt like I really accomplished something at the end of a quarter. If you can handle the workload, don't be deterred from taking this one-of-a-kind comm class at UCLA!

Grade Breakdown goes as follows:
40% Midterm
10% Opening/Closing Statement Presentation
50% Final

While a difficult class, it is 100% doable alongside other coursework. As many reviews has said before, this class is perfect if you're pre-law or looking to go to law school. We go over several court cases that relate to the First Amendment like obscenity, government speech, and defamation. This class is challenging in the sense that you WILL have to learn the unique rules for each case and memorize them. On top of that, you will have to make strong arguments based on how you interpret the hypothetical court cases he will test you on. However, Professor Raffi is great at really keeping the course engaging and emphasizes many important points made in the court cases that you WILL have to bring up in the midterm and final. IT is super important to go to lecture because of this as he will always highlight the most important parts of the readings you will be assigned. You can probably get away with not going to class, but it's so much work to decipher the court cases and figure out what is and isn't substantial to know on your own. This is essentially a law class with the Socratic seminar style of teaching Raffi employs here.

There is a lot of content to remember, but he gives you a ton of resources for preparation. For example, he will go through the practice hypotheticals he offers. He even goes over the hypothetical court cases in class, so you know what he expects on the exam. On top of this, as reviewers have mentioned, he will look at your grade and bump you up if he noticed you improved from your midterm and your final. He also will curve the class based on how everyone does on the exam. He will always be nicer to you on the midterm since he recognizes this level of depth and detail when answering the essay prompts will be possibly the first time you ever had to do it. He truthfully cares that you understand the material first and foremost and doesn't want to see anyone fail. He is willing to always repeat anything that needs repeating and clarify anything that needs clarifying.

100% recommend this class to anyone who's looking to become a lawyer. If you're doing this as one of your COMM requirements, maybe not take this if you're not interested in court cases or want to have a relaxing quarter. If it makes anyone feel better, I took this class not wanting to go to law school and just loved court cases; I ended up passing the course with an A.

I really enjoyed this class and would recommend for pre-law students or for comms majors (like myself) trying to knock out both the practicum and law core requirements.

Class is super straight forward ONLY if you pay attention and go to lecture. It is 3 hours long and packed with information, so it gets super draining, but if you zone out for 5 minutes you can lose a big chunk of information.

A $90 course book is required. I think you could go about not buying/reading if you pay close attention to lecture, but I think doing the readings on top of that is what truly pushed me get an A.

Grade scale is 40% midterm, 50% final, and 10% a short presentation that is P/NP (and you only get NP if you don't do it). He tells you exactly what to look and write in the exams, but they are still super intense.

Professor Kassabian is super educated and a great lecturer, but your grade truly depends on the TA as they will be the one doing all the grading and answering questions. However, if you email the professor, he is very good with responding in a timely manner.

If you go to all of his lectures, you will get an A.
Selling course reader
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Great professor and great class!
Currently selling the course reader for $30 text me at ********** if interested!

I have the textbook in the class. Just finished the quarter for this class and would only take this class if you want to go to law school or have any interest in this topic.

Have the textbook for this class and will sell this for less than the original pricing!!

Text me if you want the textbook **********

Kassabian's 101 class is interesting. It is pretty challenging and all the rules and facts of the cases take a while to understand. If you read, ATTEND lecture and discussion, and memorize all the rules and how they could be applied to hypothetical situations, you can definitely get an A. There is an midterm and a final- thats it.

SELLING COURSE READER FOR
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Like the last review stated, avoid this guy at all cost! He does not belong at UCLA. For Raffi it is just a game to get an extra good point on his resume. As you can see from grade distribution, he is super stingy! He tells students that he once failed at University level and had to go through some shady law school in Downtown LA and then transfer to UCLA. < this apparently his justification for screwing with people's grades.TA's are also incompetent and he is not available!

Kassabian does not know how to teach, confuses himself and the class, and is a stingy grader. On top of that he is completely unavailable, as he is a practicing full time attorney. TO ALL NEWLY ADMITTED COMM MAJORS; THERE IS NO NEED TO TAKE CS 101 ANYMORE. I would advise you to avoid this class like the plague. The class was hell from start to end. Received worst grade at UCLA ever.

Professor Kassabian is very nice and knows what he is talking about, and he was approachable after every class meeting. He mentioned several times that he can stay talking to students as long as they need!

Suggestions to the Professor, if he is going to read it:
***I think extra office hours would not hurt! I felt like knowing everything during the class, but the discussions helped to raise diffferent questions!

***Also, Prof. Kassabian needs to make extra evening for the midterm and final reviews, specifically going over the practice hypos or just ANSWERING QUESTIONS because e-mail system does not inform everyone who has similar questions which could be adressed over the meeting! (although he tried to put all questions in one file and posted them on class website for the midterm, he forgot to do this for the final)

***Another problem with this class of 150 ppl is that Kassabian is not a loud person, people in the back could not hear him at ALL! We have been complaining about it all the time, but Kassabian used mike only once or twice - please, take an example from Professor SUMAN, he always uses mike!!!

***In addition, I've noticed that he was using the notes which outlined every single case with the rules, and TAs had them as well, but he did not want to share them with the class! So many students suffered not because they did not read the cases but because they did not know specifically what is important and what is not for the exam. (*suggestion to students - bring a voice recorder, it helps a lot, I had to listen over the lectures and transcribe important things).
The notes, by the way, many people got through their friends who took 101 with Professor Hobbs, but the other part of the class did not have them, and I think this was unfair!

***Another thing: PLEASE bring several hypos to the example when disscussing the case! It is essential way to learn because you know how to apply rules to different relevant facts by practicing them!!! But we only got practice hypos to practice on our own, which is NOT a good learning experience!

TO THE STUDENTS:
This class was hard, but law-related classes are always like that because you need to read cases written many years ago and with a specific language, about which everybody complains even today. Plus, not only you have to memorise the rules used almost in every case you read and several "thinkings" the justices provide, you have to memorise every single relevant fact from the cases (although this facts can help you on the exam to raise more issues and guide your analysis, this is Kassabian's style of "helping us out").

Well, midterm and final are also hard because you have to write for three hours NON_STOP, otherwise your analysis will not be complete. My hands weve numb for about 20 minutes after this extensive writing!

There are 3 hypos (1 -for each blue book) which takes at least an hour to write (suggets you wear a wrist watch to time yourself out, this helped me a lot!) and I suggest that before the exam you practice writing everything by timing yourself. I did that too, because it helps you to organize writing in your head + and allows you to cut less relevant info, bc you have to leave some extra time for the disscussion of specific facts mentioned in the case!

This was Kassabian first time teaching this particular class, and I hope that he can find ways to improve, so I will leave the judgement to you!