Approaching Law School Learning Presented by Joan Harrington

Director, Academic & Professional Development

You will understand the relationship between academic skills and professional skills in law school and law practice

You will gain a framework for learning academic skills

Who are we?

Academic support for all law students:

Workshop Series beginning August 24th

Practice Exam Program second half of semester

Resource Room – Bannan second floor 230H

Faculty Counseling

Appointments on TWEN or email APD@scu.edu

Academic support for students needing additional assistance

Bar support

Professional Development for all law students:

Work with students to link legal education to law practice by counseling students on the lawyer competencies and benchmark experiences they will need to be practice ready.

Help students leverage their externship field placements to gain the experience they need to bridge the gap to practice.

You need specific academic and professional skills

Academic skills – Emphasis in the first year

Professional Skills – Develop in upper division

What criticisms have been made against law schools in the past year?

Professionalism (e.g., maintaining integrity and honesty, diligence, civility, ethics, managing mistakes)

Leadership (e.g., influencing others, collaborating, building consensus, envisioning, planning, mentoring)

Management (e.g., time management, planning and implementing tasks, organizing and managing one’s

own work, organizing and managing others)

1L - in class learning

Ethics, professionalism, specific activities

Pro Bono Work

Involvement in Student Organizations

Experiential Learning Externships with class

Judicial Criminal Civil – High Tech and Social Justice

Summer Abroad

Summer Abroad Pro Bono Work Clinics

K & G Alexander Community Law Center Innocence Project Low-Income Taxpayer Clinic Human Rights Clinic

Skills Classes

Interviewing, Negotiation, Mediation

Classes with Skills Components

Classes with practical elements

E.g., Law of Nonprofit Organizations

International Commercial Arbitration

Legal Issues for Startup Businesses

Work with the Centers and faculty to know how to be “practice ready”

High Tech Law Institute

Center for Global Law and Policy

Center for Social Justice and Public Service

Find the relevant law and understand it

LAW KNOWLEDGE

Apply the law to new factual situations

LAW APPLICATION

Express yourself at the standard expected in the legal profession-

LAW EXPRESSION

1L courses: Need memorized, precise law knowledge of subject being tested

Bar exam: Need memorized, precise law knowledge of 13 different subjects and skills of law application, and law expression

1L Research and Writing Class (LARAW)

Doctrinal Classes

Reading

Class Discussion

Preparing for Exams

Exams

Your case – new client

Example: Litigation practices

Conduct legal research

Document review

Write briefs

Draft discovery requests and responses

Prepare witness testimony outlines

Conduct depositions

Law Knowledge

Rule Comprehension

Identification of General Rule

Rule Deconstruction/Explanation (E.g., elements)

Rule Elaborations (qualifications on rules)

Rule Articulation

Rule Organization

Establish logical relationship among rules

Right to counsel cases; note on effective assistance of counsel

What is rule from Gideon?

Rule: Right to counsel is the right to effective assistance of counsel. McMann v Richardson

Rule Explanation: The defendant must show:

1. The attorney’s performance was deficient when measured against an objective standard of reasonableness; and

2. The defendant was prejudiced in the sense that there was a reasonable probability that, but for counsel’s deficient performance, the result of the proceeding would have been different.

1. The attorney’s performance was deficient when measured against an objective standard of reasonableness; and

1. The defendant was prejudiced in the sense that there was a reasonable probability that, but for counsel’s deficient performance, the result of the proceeding would have been different.

Rule Organization

Right to counsel is analyzed before effective assistance of counsel

Law professors generally assume you will understand the rules of law when you come to class. Work to understand rules before class or come with specific questions.

Classroom discussion goes well beyond the rules, e.g.: Was the court correct in creating this rule?

Did the court correctly apply a rule?

Would the rule apply to this new set of facts?

What is the policy behind the rule? Why?

Work in LARAW to refine this skill

Use multiple resources to clarify the rules and their meanings

Come to APD Workshop 1

Goldilocks is lost in the woods and comes upon the house of The Three Bears. She is very hungry. Hiding, she overhears them talking about eating dinner and that they need to hurry up so they can go clubbing.

The three bears leave and Goldilocks enters their house by breaking a window. She takes food from the fridge and exits the house.

Can Goldilocks be convicted of burglary?

To be convicted of burglary, a person must be found to have:

Broken and entered

Into the dwelling of another

At nighttime

With the intent to commit a crime therein

(Note: commonlaw, not California, rule)

Issue Comprehension

Identification of Issues

Prioritization of Issues

What are the issues in the case against Goldilocks?

Spot the issues by comparing the law to facts:

Did she break and enter?

Was it the dwelling of another?

Was it at night?

Did she have an intent to commit a crime ?

The element of breaking and entering will be satisfied because…

The requirement that the burglary take place in the dwelling of another is satisfied because…

The requirement that the crime take place at night…

What inferences can be made from the facts as to whether this took place at night?

The requirement that Goldilocks had an intent to commit a crime…

Easier but still some inferences to be made.

In Goldilocks, we had no cases for comparison so we did not use analogy and distinction.

In Goldilocks, we had no policy implications presented.

Exercise