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!

selling my textbook for the class (fall 2024) im in Westwood, reach out! **********

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.

I don't think that these reviews do this professor justice - honestly, I enjoyed the course and while it was challenging, it was totally reasonable. If you are at all interested in law school, you should ABSOLUTELY take this class. It is structured exactly like a law school class - you read Supreme Court cases, discuss them in class, learn about the IRAC method, then apply what you've learned to hypothetical situations during the exam. As long as you stay on top of the readings, attend lecture and discussion while taking good notes, you should be able to get an A. In the first exam you get to see exactly what the professor is looking for so that by the time you take the final, you know just what is expected of you. He gave a generous curve on the midterm and told students that if they had a significant increase from their midterm to their final, he may adjust their grade to better reflect their growth in understanding. He's nice and a clear lecturer.

This is a really interesting comm upper div if you are interested in being pre-law or just learning more about law / the First Amendment. The only assignments are outside of class readings, but you also learn everything you need to know in lecture and it is re-emphasized in discussion (so go!). If you take advantages of the resources like practice HYPOs you will be fully prepared for the exams (midterm and final are 2/3 grades). There is also a speech that is pass/no pass and if you put in decent effort you will pass it. The teacher and TA (I had Ethan Lai) really want you to succeed so take advantage of them and this is a super interesting class!

I dropped the classes after buying the course reader...
I am selling it. If you are interested, let me know. ( ********** )

This was one of my first classes at UCLA as a transfer student and the most difficult class I've taken here. Like others have said do not believe the grade distribution this is a difficult class especially if you have no interest in Law or being a lawyer. I found the material in this class to be interesting and think its a great class to take in prep for law school, however, the professor is a very boring monotone speaker and is not always clear on explanations and expectations from the class. Additionally, he really does not have office hours so you will be relying heavily on the TA for explanations so hopefully, your TA is good.

Professor Kassabian is a full-time lawyer. He did not have any real office hours. I got a D on the midterm and final but was not really told why I got points off of certain questions. Ended up with an NP even though my friends had similar answers to mine and ended up with A's and B's. The class is out of date and the amount of reading required is comparable to comm 10. Do not take this class if you have heavy readings for other classes or do not have an interest in Law.

If you go to all of his lectures, you will get an A.
Selling course reader
Text **********