TLDR; super interesting, great professor, but requires a lot of studying.

The grading for this class is made up of two thought papers (worth 10% each) and midterm and final (40% each). The thought papers were around 3-5 pages. The midterm and final had multiple choice (I think 25-30) and short answer/short essay questions (around 6-8).

I loved Professor Huppin and this class. The material was SO interesting, and I think that anyone, regardless of major or background, would enjoy it. You get to learn about Supreme Court decisions on things like pre-trial processes, gay marriage, abortion, and religious freedom. We also watched two movies during the quarter. Huppin is engaging and truly cares about student learning. I could tell he put in thought about how we might learn best and ways to keep class interesting and relevant.

All that being said, the class is not easy. You have to memorize a TON of court cases and what their implications for the law are. There was quite a bit of reading (from the course reader and online articles he posts), and although a lot of it overlaps with lecture, not all of it does. When Huppin says that he will test you on material from the book that's not in lecture, he's not lying. Albeit it will probably only be 2-3 multiple choice questions, so you could get by with not reading if you're okay with getting a B or C on the exams. I also used the reading to clarify cases that I didn't understand from lecture. I highly recommend making a study guide throughout the quarter from the slides and reading because if you begin studying too close to the exam you will not have enough time. It is a lot.

I think the exams were pretty fair. A couple tough/specific questions, but overall if you go to class, read, and study, you should be fine. The thought paper prompts definitely required some thinking but I don't think they graded too harshly on them.

Pro-tip: I'd recommend buying/renting the Epstein and Walker textbook rather than the course reader. The course reader is literally just specific chapters excerpted from the textbook and is more expensive. I bought the textbook and it works exactly the same and I wasn't missing any information. The page numbers he gives correspond to the textbook.

This class is really enjoyable if you are interested in possibly pursuing law or just want to learn about it more. There are a ton of readings that you are supposed to do but I never felt like it was necessary as long as you take notes in class. The class is not a ton of work at all but his slides alone are not enough to do well on the midterm and final. If you take decent notes every lecture and actually listen to what he' saying you'll be set and outside reading won't be necessary.

Overall, this class has been my least favorite. The professor himself is an extremely nice guy, and I can tell he tries to make his lectures interesting. But, his lectures are extremely hard to follow as it is simply 75 minutes of him listing a ton of facts about different experiments. It’s almost impossible to type or write fast enough to get the information down, and his slides don’t help at all. His tests are based on those tedious facts, so unless you can keep up, it’s really hard to do well on his tests. He says you should be able to guess the right answer if you understand the concepts, but I disagree.

This is probably one of my favorite classes at UCLA. The court cases and laws Professor Huppin goes over are very interesting. He tries to connect what he teaches to current/relevant events. He also asks a lot of questions, so participation and discussion are the norm.

If you are interested in law school I highly recommend this class.

Hopefully he has changed his approach to teaching but when I took this course, he was sexist, patronizing, and degrading. He used to snap at the female students after class for asking more than one question and seemed to especially favor one male student, who had experience working for a law-affiliated organization who he would constantly mention/praise during multiple lectures (clearly he had favorites). If you are a white, heterosexual male then you should do just fine with Huppin but if not, good luck! Don't be fooled by his fake ass speech that he gives during the very first lecture of how he cares about students, he does not give a shit about the majority of his students and thinks very highly of himself.

Professor Huppin is great and the lectures are all pretty interesting. He encourages a lot of debate and discussion in class and really encourages you to think deeply about the issues you go over in the class. The material itself is not too difficult to understand, but there are some issues that are pretty detailed and require you to study them very well. Exams are tough, mostly because of the multiple choice questions, but the short answer/essay questions are pretty straightforward and should be no surprise as long as you've been attending lecture. Response papers are also pretty straightforward and are not difficult at all. Also, you NEED to do the reading because he pulls a lot of multiple choice questions from there. The online readings are pretty short and are usually just news articles, but the readings from the course reader are dense (they're chapters from a legal textbook), so don't wait until the last minute to do those because they take forever to get through! They're not hard reads, I think because it's supposed to be a pretty basic introductory legal textbook, but they're just really long and really detailed. Huppin is a little tough but he's fair and he is a great professor/person, so as long as you do your part with attending lectures, keeping up with the readings and studying you should do fine. I highly recommend taking this class!

Professor Huppin is one of the best professors I've had at UCLA. He's funny and truly cares about students understanding concepts well. He stays long after class to talk with students and holds consistent office hours for questions about course material and beyond. His assignments are graded generously, and midterms/finals are fair. I highly recommend taking this class to learn about legal communication with such a great professor! Take the review below me on him being patronizing and sexist with a grain of salt. As a girl of minority background, I can confidently say that he has never made any comments of that nature.

Class is primarily based on various Supreme Court and lower court cases about freedom of speech. He brings up hypothetical examples in class and asks you to apply court decisions to these examples. The class is pretty straightforward. One midterm, one final, and two very simple thought papers where you basically just write about your opinion. The papers aren't that formal its just about getting you to think. He has review sessions before each exam and is very helpful when you ask questions. He posts his powerpoints, but omits some of the slides so the people that attend class gain an advantage over those who don't. He asks questions from the course reader that he doesnt discuss in class on the exams.

I also took Prof Huppin for legal comm the following quarter (got an A- this time) and it was pretty much the same format.

Good luck with this course! He’s a great professor and the cases are interesting.

This class requires a lot of work, but it's very rewarding and I thoroughly enjoyed it. If you have the slightly bit of interest in the law, I think you'll like it too. He discusses very interesting and controversial topics like the right to die, the right to abortion, freedom of religion and others. There are a lot of Supreme Court readings you need to get through that you cannot leave till the last minute. If you study and understand the concepts and the legal rationale behind them, you shouldn't find the midterm or final challenging at all. It is mostly questions discussing why a certain case had a certain outcome, and one semi-essay question where you get a hypothetical scenario and you need to apply the concepts you learned in class. You get to watch movies and interesting videos and have really rich discussions in class! The professor is also pretty objective and doesn't bring in his own personal opinions to class, which is pretty refreshing at UCLA.