TEACHING METHODS

Legal training involves learning principles through discussion and skills by practice. The student must be, by definition, an active participant in that process.

Socratic or Inductive Teaching

The "case method" is the basic tool of traditional American legal education.

This method involves the study and discussion of litigated cases.

The teacher calls upon the student to respond in a stimulating question-and-answer dialogue, frequently involving several class members and often including more questions than answers. The learning experience occurs not only in the interchange between teacher and student, but also among the students themselves. The perceptive student will soon learn that a key to the realization of maximum benefit from these interchanges is the ability to listen with discrimination.

This process, applied skillfully by expert teachers and by students possessing a sense of awareness and curiosity, hones the minds of students, develops their respect for facts, and creates a sensitivity to essential differences among issues, policies, reasons, and arguments.

Intensive and consistent daily preparation is necessary for students to participate effectively in this process.

Problem Solving

In a portion of the first-year course, and in later courses, students are given practical legal problems. These problems may involve the drafting of legal documents or the formulation of a course of action for a hypothetical client.

Seminars

By the time students reach their third year, and sometimes earlier, they will be prepared to engage in significant legal research in selected areas of specialization. A primary source for such experience will be seminars taught informally in small groups by professors who are experts in the selected subjects. Frequently, a student will be expected to defend a seminar paper before classmates under circumstances that provide lively and constructive discussion.

Each student is required to complete an upper-level research and writing project. Seminar papers may be used to satisfy this requirement.

Clinical Experience

Of increasing importance in legal education is the role of practical, on-the-job training involving the legal problems of actual clients. Legal Clinic courses provide valuable client counseling experience, as well as participation in actual trials and appeals under the supervision of a member of the faculty and a licensed attorney.

The Clinic has offices in the Law Programs Center near the School of Law; representation is provided for indigent local residents and students. Both civil and criminal cases are accepted by the Clinic.

Individual Research

During the second and third years, students will be permitted to engage in research and writing projects for credit under the supervision of, and in consultation with, a selected faculty member, in an area of particular interest to the student. Research papers may be used to satisfy the upper-level research and writing requirement.