The Legal Profession

Catalog description

In this course, students acquire a basic understanding of the numerous career paths available to lawyers, explore basic concepts of legal professionalism, understand the fundamentals of the business of law, practice the “soft skills” necessary for effective lawyering, and develop an individual career development strategy for exploring their unique professional interests throughout the next three years. During classes, students meet practitioners from a variety of practice areas. The attorneys address various business and professional issues they handle on a daily basis so that students can begin to discern not only the legal and business issues in different legal practices, but also the professional standards that attorneys will expect of them in the workplace. During a portion of each class, students apply the information they learned from the attorneys to a practical aspect of their own professional development. Students also research and establish a mentoring relationship with a practitioner, attend networking events, participate in community service projects, attend additional events, meetings, and conferences and practice other “soft skills” as requirements of the course. This class meets for two hours every other week. Students are expected to complete several specific written assignments. Grading is S/U and is based on attendance, participation and satisfactory completion of all projects and written assignments. This is a required 1L course.