Task 12.Read & comprehend the text.

Law School is the term used in the United States to indicate an institution where future lawyers obtain legal degrees. In the U.S. law is a graduate degree, which students embark upon only after completing an undergraduate degree in some other field; the undergraduate degree can be in any field. In most cases the degree granted by American law schools in the Juris Doctor, or J.D., degree.

Other degrees that are awarded include the Master of Laws degree (LL.M.) and the Doctor of Juridical Science degree (J.S.D.). A law school is usually an autonomous entity within a larger university and is considered to be a graduate or professional school program.

In the United States, most schools require a bachelor’s degree (LL.B.), a satisfactory undergraduate grade point average, and a satisfactory score on the Law School Admissions Test (LSAT) in order to be considered for admission.

Some States that have non-ABA (American Bar Association) approved schools or State-Accredited schools have equivalency requirements that usually equal 90 credits toward a bachelor’s degree. Additional personal factors are evaluated through essays, short-answer questions, letters of recommendation, and other application materials. The standards for grades and LSAT scores vary from school to school. Highly-regarded law schools accept only those applicants with very high LSAT scores, or financial and political leverage.

Individual factors are also very important, although applicants are virtually never asked to interview as part of the application process. Such factors are evaluated through other application materials.

Most law schools now factor in extracurricular activities, work experience, and unique courses of study in their evaluation of applicants.

Students considering law school should note that although law school tuition is notoriously high, it is not uncommon for law students to receive grants and scholarships, or more rarely complete tuition waivers, from their schools.

A student who could get into a “better” school – has a good chance of being offered some kind of scholarship by the lower-ranked school.

Law students are referred to as 1Ls, 2Ls, and 3Ls, based on their year of study. In the United States, the American Bar Association mandates a curriculum for 1Ls that includes:

- Civil procedure

- Constitutional law

- Contracts

- Criminal law

- Decision making

- Legal research

- Legal writing

- Property

- Torts

These basic courses are intended to provide an overview of the broad study of law. Not all ABA-approved law schools offer all of these courses in the 1L year; a significant number of schools make constitutional law and/or criminal law required upper-level courses. Some schools roll legal research and legal writing into a single year-long “lawyering skills” course, which may also include a small oral argument component.

The law school curriculum, ironically, results in lawyers who are ill-prepared for the realities of lawyering. Although students may know how to do legal research, they are not trained in dealing with clients, opposing counsel or how to navigate the court system. Some schools offer courses in negotiation, discovery procedures, trial advocacy and argument. However, actual lawyering is learned on the job.

After the first year, law students are generally free to pursue different fields of legal study, such as administrative law, corporate law, international law, admiralty law, intellectual property law, and tax law. They may also take clinics, which offer hands-on experience providing free legal services to the surrounding community.

Many law students participate in internship programs during their course of study. Some become assistants (“clerks”) for local, state, and federal judges; others work in law firms, corporations, or legal aid clinics.

Examinations usually entail interpreting the facts of a hypothetical case, determining how legal theories apply to the case, and then writing an essay. The process is intended to train students in the reasoning methods necessary to interpret theories, statutes, and precedents correctly, and argue their validity, both orally and in writing. In contrast, most civil law countries base their legal education on professorial lectures and oral examinations, which are more suited for the mastery of complicated civil codes.

Task 13.Check if you can guess the meaning of these words:

embark upon; award; equivalency;requirements;evaluate;leverage;factor in;extracurricular activities;tuition;notoriously;scholarship;waiver;mandate;navigate the court system;negotiation.

Дата добавления: 2015-10-30