Legal Commentary

I recently finished grading the midterms from my Contracts I class.  It was quite a significant task to make it through all the exams while in the middle of my first semester of teaching.  I gave the exam because of my school's policy that all first-year classes give a midterm - one that (for the most part) does not count towards the students' final grade - in the fall semester.  I thought given the amount of work that it required that I would choose not to do so in the spring semester.  However, after seeing how much the midterm clarified for the class what I expected on an exam, I'm leaning towards doing so next semester as well.

I'm wondering how many of you give midterms, especially in the first year and whether you've had similarly positive results?