First Year Research and Writing Program
The first year Legal Research and Writing course ensures that students appreciate the nexus between the study of law and legal practice from the outset of their legal education. In small classes of roughly twenty-five, first year students learn the tools necessary throughout their professional careers to develop, refine, and articulate their legal analysis in a sophisticated and effective manner.
The course uses active, hands-on methods in a simulated practice context: students conduct original legal research, draft and revise documents, represent mock clients, argue their cases, and more. The subject of assignments can range from potential copyright infringement to a police officer’s ability to search a cell phone without a warrant.
Faculty design varied and realistic exercises, such as client interviews and negotiations with opposing counsel, that further require students to act as real lawyers. Through these assignments, students learn to make reasoned choices and recommendations as they begin to explore their professional role and identity as lawyers.
