Family Law: Applied Skills

Catalog description

Family Law: Applied Skills is an experiential course that immerses students in the day-to-day work of a practicing family law attorney. Across the semester, students navigate a comprehensive, realistic family law case spanning divorce, custody, support, dependency, and protection from abuse. Instruction combines targeted lecture with problem-solving, group discussion, and skills-based simulations designed to build competence in client intake and counseling, case analysis, negotiation, courtroom advocacy, and professional interactions with opposing counsel and the court. Students also draft core practice documents - such as complaints, parenting plans, correspondence, and trial memoranda - while integrating Pennsylvania substantive and procedural requirements. The course intentionally addresses ethical decision-making, client management, billing and practice management, and strategies for sustaining a healthy work-life balance in a high-conflict practice. This course satisfies the experiential learning requirement.