Darren Bush

DARREN BUSH

Regulated Industries; Contracts

Anonymous cheat sheet style CONTRACTS outline added 01-30-2012

Carter’s sidebar (01-30-2012): I was pleased to hear Darren Bush is now teaching 1L staples like contracts. I felt he would be a good candidate for classes like torts, contracts and civ pro when I took his regulated industries class back in the day. He’s got a lot of enthusiasm and clearly enjoys teaching.

Carter’s review of Regulated Industries:

I took this class because Darren Bush guest taught an economics related portion of Crump's "How to Reason" class, which I took in Fall '04. I found him to be an energetic, likeable fella, and while Regulated Industries isn't exactly my cup of tea, nor is it an area I plan to practice in, I figured he'd do a good job. In short, I chose the professor, not the topic. You can read his official bio here if you're so inclined, but notably Bush previously worked in the Attorney General's Honor Program as a Trial Attorney at the Antitrust Division's Transportation, Energy, & Agriculture Section - word is those jobs are about as easy to get as a US Supreme Court clerkship.

Bush has indeed proved to be energetic and likeable. He teaches a pretty dry subject with enthusiasm and humor. The material has its interesting moments and its slow days. Personally I find the reading to be simply woeful at times - the cases seem very abstract, a far cry from the dog-bites-man fare you get in torts. The assigned articles reading (i.e. the stuff that's not a case or an advisory opinion from a regulatory commission) is more readable though. Volume of reading is manageable and about average compared to other classes I've taken.

Bush's exam format was to give us the questions ahead of the exam date and allow us to prepare outlines that we can bring to the exam and write our answers off the outlines (but we can't write out answers verbatim then just transcribe them). I think he said open book, but you should verify that. Even if he didn't, getting the questions ahead of time and creating an outline amounts to an open book exam for all intents and purposes.

Darren doesn't call on people, he'll just pose questions to the class and/or take volunteers. Our class was relatively small, about 15 students. As hinted at above, if you know you're going to be a person injury plaintiff's lawyer, regulated industries isn't going to help you much, then again if you're going to be working in Houston in the energy sector, it could set you apart from other new lawyers if you know the lingo. Bush is aware that this class is pitching to a niche market, and I'm sure would be amenable to explaining the pros and cons if you visited him before signing up for the class.