Becoming Lawyers: Applied Legal Analysis

Catalog description

This course aims to promote the academic and professional success of 3L students transitioning into their post-graduation bar exam preparation. The course will focus on exam strategies and study skills; it will not explicitly teach content tested on the bar exam and is not designed or intended to be a substitute for a commercial bar review course. The course will be held jointly, with two class sessions split by jurisdiction to provide exam-specific instruction and targeted skills practice. Both sections will begin with an overview of the structure of the Uniform Bar Exam and Louisiana Bar Exam and the processes for admission to state bar associations. Following this initial lecture-based session, students are expected to be active participants in the course, which will require out of class assignments, in-class assignments, skills practice, mock exams, and other formative graded exercises. Students will receive hands-on studying and writing practice, peer evaluation, and individual feedback. Students will take at least one civil law bar course or one upper-class bar course in the same semester (unless the student has successfully completed three civil law or upper-class bar courses). The proposed course is in line with the overwhelming majority of our peer and aspirational schools. Of the twenty-four schools ranked between 60 and 80 by the U.S. News and World Report in 2023, nineteen have a bar preparation program. Of the ninety-one schools ranked between 1 and 80, only twenty-nine have no bar course or commercial partnership.