Legal Process I

Catalog description

Legal Process is a year-long, six-credit course that teaches students to research, analyze, and write as lawyers do, while also introducing them to basic lawyering skills. Small classes and frequent individual meetings outside the classroom with each student allow for the intensive feedback that is vital to the acquisition of practice skills. In Legal Process I, the focus is on objective writing. Students learn to synthesize rules from various cases and analyze both common law and statutory issues. There are a number of writing assignments of increasing difficulty, culminating in a draft of an office memorandum of law. After a mandatory conference, each student is required to revise the draft. Students also learn how to interview a client, after which they engage in a simulated interview. In addition, students are taught how to research primary and secondary authority both in the library and online.