Goal
1. Knowledge. Graduating students will possess a solid
foundation of legal knowledge and understanding of the
law in core subject areas, including those tested most
frequently on the bar exam. Graduates will also possess
habits of reflection and self-efficacy necessary to teach
themselves new areas of law and keep abreast of legal
developments.
Program Objectives
Student Learning Outcomes
1. Students will develop a broad and systemic
understanding of substantive areas of the law.
1. Students will be able to demonstrate understanding of core
concepts of legal doctrine, including the subjects tested most
frequently on the bar exam.
2. Students will identify and interpret controlling legal rules in those
subject areas.
3. Students will apply controlling legal rules in those subject areas.
4. Students will analyze controlling legal rules in those subject areas.
2. Students will develop the ability to read and analyze
cases, statutes, and other written materials.
1. Students will be able to break down the component parts of cases
– including facts, issue, rule, holding and analysis.
2. Students will be able to identify majority, concurring and
dissenting opinions.
3. Student will be able to identify types of analysis and argument in
cases.
4. Students will be able to read and understand statutes.
5. Students will be able to apply techniques of statutory
interpretation.
6. Students will be able to identify, read, and create documents,
including client letters, motions, briefs, and legal memoranda used in
the legal profession.
3. Students will be able to comprehend and use legal
terminology and language.
1. Students will be able to identify, comprehend, and apply core
legal concepts.
4. Students will understand the law and legal institutions
in their historical, cultural and social context.
1. Students will be able to identify sources of the law.
2. Students will be able to describe existing legal institutions.
3. Students will be able to recognize the impact of historical
circumstances to changes in the law.
4. Students will be able to recognize the social context of changes in
the law.
5. Students will be able to recognize different legal theories and
associate them with developments in the law.
6. Students will be able to analyze legal theories in the context of
cases and statutes.
7. Students will be able to apply legal theories to problems in the
law.
5. Students will understand legal education as a
continuing process of learning and professional growth.
1. Students will recognize the process of legal education as a
continuing process.
2. Students will generate self-directed goals for further study.
2. Skills. Graduating students will be proficient in the
core competencies needed to practice law: oral and
written communication, legal research, legal analysis,
problem-solving, professional responsibility, and practice
management.
1. ORAL COMMUNICATION – Students will develop
the ability to assess, control, and vary verbal and nonverbal communications with a particular audience in a
given situation in order to maximize the accomplishment
of objectives.
1. Use the mechanics of language.
2. Express a thought with preciseness, clarity, and economy.
3. Express thoughts in an organized manner.
4. Speak appropriately to a given audience.
5. Identify and use appropriate non-verbal aspects of communication.
6. Perceive others' communications and actions.
7. Communicate so as to advance immediate and long-term
objectives.
2. WRITTEN COMMUNICATION – Students will
develop the ability to control and vary written
communications with a particular audience in a given
situation in order to maximize the accomplishment of
objectives.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Use the mechanics of the language.
Express a thought with preciseness, clarity, and economy.
Express thoughts in an organized manner.
Write appropriately to a given audience.
Perceive the communications of others.
Write so as to advance immediate and long-term objectives.
3. LEGAL ANALYSIS – Students will develop the
ability to combine law and facts in a given situation in
order to generate, justify, and assess the relative merits of
alternative legal positions.
IDENTIFY AND ANALYZE FACTS:
1.
2.
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7.
8.
Identify relevant facts.
Identify inconsistencies among facts.
Identify the reliability of asserted facts.
Distinguish facts from conclusions of law.
Determine rules of law relevant to framing legal issues.
Formulate legal rules appropriately or correctly.
Determine trends in interpretation or application of laws.
Identify discrete legal issues.
FORMULATE LEGAL THEORIES:
1. Group and categorize facts in terms of the concepts or language of
the law.
2. Select aspects of the facts which appear to call for the application or
non-application of a legal rule or concept.
3. Select aspects of a legal rule or concept which appear to call for its
application or non-application to the facts.
4. Show why some application of a legal rule or concept calls for an
extension, limitation, or rejection of another rule or concept.
5. Separate, combine, and sequence arguments to formulate a legal
theory.
6. Sequence a complete range of legal theories in accordance with
some systematic ordering principle.
EVALUATE LEGAL THEORIES:
1. Identify the predisposition of a particular decision-maker or class of
decision-makers.
2. Identify compelling equities recognized by the law or inherent in the
fact situation.
3. Determine relative effectiveness of a legal theory or of alternative
legal theories by analysis and evaluation of 1 and 2 (above).
4. PROBLEM-SOLVING – Students will develop the
ability to use legal analysis and other information to
identify and diagnose problems in terms of clients’
objectives and to generate strategies and tactics to achieve
those objectives.
IDENTIFY AND DIAGNOSE PROBLEMS:
1. Identify client's objectives and priorities.
2. Identify obstacles and facilitating factors that bear on the realization
of client objectives and priorities.
3. State alternative definitions of the client's problem(s).
4. Identify and develop information and steps needed to clarify
alternative definitions of the problem(s).
5. Make a tentative choice among alternative definitions of the
problem(s).
DEVELOP SOLUTIONS AND STRATEGIES:
1.
Develop alternative solutions and strategies which include
consideration of types of strategy, risk, benefits, legal and
social consequences, client control, forums, economics, and
ethics.
2. Assess and order the range of alternative solutions and strategies
with respect to client's objectives and priorities; probability of
success; consequences of success, partial success, or failure;
available resources; and ethics.
IMPLEMENT STRATEGIES:
1. Formulate a work plan that identifies who will do what, with whom,
where, when, and with what expected results and costs.
2. Take the actions (or assure that assigned others do) to carry out the
formulated work plan.
3. Check results at anticipated points and unanticipated times, and
adjust as necessary.
4. Seek and use counsel and advice in timely fashion.
5. PROFESSIONAL RESPONSIBILITY – Students will
develop the ability to recognize the ethical considerations
in a situation, analyze and evaluate their implications for
present and future actions, and behave in a manner that
facilitates timely assertion of rights.
1. Identify situational conflicts with the Code of Professional
Responsibility, or with commonly recognized
institutional and professional norms and standards of
conduct that flow from one's role in rendering
services to clients.
2.
Identify situational conflicts with other ethical,
ideological, or personal considerations bearing on a
case or the
lawyer/client relationship.
3.
Identify and weigh alternative courses of action in
light of actual or potential situational conflicts in 1
and 2 above.
4.
Act consistently with decisions and commitments
resulting from the analysis of actual or potential conflicts.
6. PRACTICE MANAGEMENT – Students will develop
the ability to manage time, effort, available resources, and
competing priorities in a manner that generates the
maximum output of quality legal services.
1.
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6.
7.
Allocate time, effort, and other resources necessary
to carry our case load tasks.
Coordinate efforts of others.
Work according to applicable systems, rules, and
procedures governing the handling of cases and files.
Assess system operations and design improvements
in the system, rules, and procedures governing the
handling of cases and files.
Maintain a level of productivity that conforms with
applicable standards and normative expectations.
Judge the point at which further commitments
cannot realistically be discharged competently.
Supervise others.
3. Implementation. Graduating students will learn how
to implement their knowledge, skills and values in a
variety of professional settings through which they will
learn to exercise the professionalism, competence, and
judgment needed for effective lawyering.
7. LEGAL RESEARCH – Students will develop the
ability to utilize fundamental research skills; implement
effective, efficient research strategies; critically evaluate
legal and non-legal information and information sources;
apply information effectively to resolve a specific issue or
need; and will have an understanding of the ethics of
information.
1. Students will demonstrate knowledge of the hierarchical
relationships of the U.S. double tripartite system of government and
the legislation, regulations, and case law they yield.
2. Students will be able to develop and implement efficient research
strategies.
3. Students will know how to evaluate the validity and credibility of
legal and non-legal information sources.
4. Students will know how to analyze and synthesize positive law
from a variety of sources.
5. Students will be able to apply information effectively to resolve a
specific issue or need.
6. Students will know how to formulate creative solutions when
there is no law on point.
7. Students will understand the ethical and legal implications of legal
research.
1. Students will demonstrate professionalism in their
interactions with others.
1. Students will treat clients, opposing counsel, colleagues and others
in the legal system with respect.
2. Students will maintain effective ongoing communication with
clients and third parties.
3. Students will be able to make deliberate strategic choices about the
appropriate level of objectivity and professional distance in
interactions with others.
4. Students will demonstrate cultural competence in their interactions
with others.
5. Students will be able to make deliberate strategic choices of
interaction styles (cooperative, aggressive, etc.) that are appropriate
to the situation and their client’s objectives.
6. Students will demonstrate honesty, reliability, responsibility,
judgment, self-motivation, hard work and critical self-reflection.
2. Students will know how to operate within relevant
legal fora, including tribunals, governmental agencies,
and other formal settings within the legal system.
1. Students will be able to make deliberate strategic choices of forum
and procedural strategy.
2. Students will be able to identify and conform to relevant practice
rules applicable to the forum.
3. Students will be able to identify and conform to relevant ethical
rules and professional standards applicable to the forum.
4. Values. Graduating students will understand the
goals, structures, values and responsibilities of the legal
profession and its members. Throughout the curriculum,
students will consider the ethical and professional
responsibility decisions that lawyers have to make in the
course of representation and as a member of the bar.
3. Students will demonstrate competence in basic
lawyering transactions and strategies.
1. Students will be able to conduct effective client interviews and
counseling sessions.
2. Students will be able to effectively establish and facilitate the
internal law between the parties (e.g., alternative dispute resolution,
contracts, settlement agreements).
3. Students will demonstrate mastery of a range of lawyering
transactions (e.g., fact investigation, document drafting, legislative
drafting, litigation, appellate advocacy).
4. Students will understand and employ a range of progressive
lawyering strategies appropriate to the situation and their client’s
objectives (e.g.,client-centeredness, co-production, collective action,
community organizing and lawyering, transformative justice).
4. Students will demonstrate reflective judgment when
evaluating legal issues.
1. Students will think beyond the boundaries of the law to integrate
political, ethical, emotional and relational aspects of the problem,
where appropriate.
2. Students will be able to evaluate and sort sources of support for
their conclusions, differentiating between evidence and opinions,
expert and novice opinions, and interpretation.
3. Students will employ appropriate rules of inquiry and exercise
internal consistency in their evaluation of the problem.
1. Students will be able to identify points of intersection
between doctrinal subjects and experiential programs and
professional responsibilities
1. Students will demonstrate knowledge of the Model Rules of
Professional Conduct.
2. Students will demonstrate knowledge of DC Rules of Professional
Conduct and variations in such rules in the jurisdictions in which they
plan to practice.
3. Students will identify and analyze ethical issues perceived in the
study of cases and problems in their doctrinal courses.
4. Students will identify and analyze ethical issues that arise in
community service, clinics, and internships.
2. Students will demonstrate the ability to conduct
themselves with honesty, integrity, fairness, respect,
empathy, and cultural competence.
1. Students will demonstrate honesty, integrity, fairness
and respect for all persons encountered in their
educational and professional careers.
2. Students will be able to identify and overcome any
cultural barriers to communication.
3. Students will be aware of their assumptions about a
client or client population and demonstrate respect for
each client’s perspective.
3. Students will develop a professional commitment to
promote fairness and meaningful access to justice.
1. Students will become familiar with systems through which legal
assistance is provided to low-income and other underserved
populations.
2. Students will analyze laws, legal issues, and doctrines with regard
to structural inequality in our society and the limitations of access to
justice.
3. Students will recognize the impact of legislation on underserved
populations.
4. Students will demonstrate understanding of corrective strategies to
address inequalities in the law.
5. Students will participate in activities to promote systemic change
to broaden access to justice.
4. Student attorneys and graduates will demonstrate
professionalism in their roles as representatives of clients,
officer of the court, and citizens dedicated to the effective
administration of justice.
1. Graduates will pass the MPRE as well as the bar exams of their
respective jurisdictions.
2. Graduates will demonstrate a commitment to providing pro bono
representation and contribute to programs that effectively provide pro
bono representation to under-represented persons.
3. Graduates will actively participate in advocacy efforts before
legislatures and administrative agencies to promote the effective
administration of justice and to make quality legal services available
to low-income persons.
4. Graduates will participate in legal organizations to enhance the
standards of effective lawyering.