Harvard Posts Law School Exams Dating to 1871, When the Questions Were Easier
Harvard Law School was a lot easier in 1871. Or maybe the professors weren’t so cruel.
The Wall Street Journal Law Blog is speculating about those possibilities after taking a look at exams posted by Harvard Law School going all the way back to 1871. The blog illustrates with this question from an 1871 exam:
“Define a tenancy in severalty, a joint tenancy, and a tenancy in common. What are the incidents of joint tenancies and tenancies in common? How may they be severed by act of the parties or act of law?”
The blog views the question as something most high school students could answer, with a little studying. But not this question, from a 1995 property exam:
“Ames is one of three states that retained, after the Married Women’s Property Acts, the traditional definition of tenancy by the entireties. Under this definition, the husband had the exclusive right to control the use, profits and disposition of the property. This meant he could exclude his wife from the premises for any reason or no reason, sell without her consent, and dispose of rental property in any way he pleased. Several hundred-thousand married couples acquired property as tenants by the entireties up to 1981, in which year the Ames legislature passed a statute declaring that for the future when a couple took property by the entireties, they would have equal control rights. In a case before the Ames Supreme Court, a wife who had taken property with her husband as a tenant by the entireties in 1954 urges the Ames Supreme Court to treat her as having equal rights with her husband. Write a memo for a justice of the court reviewing the pros and cons of taking some kind of action with respect to pre-1981 conveyances.”
The Volokh Conspiracy noted Harvard’s posting.
