First Year in Law School

Once accepted, the student begins his or her law school career by taking a set of predetermined mandatory core classes, that include such courses as constitutional law, civil law and procedure, criminal law and procedure, contracts, and the whole year of legal writing where the students are taught how to properly write complaints, briefs, motions, contracts, legal correspondence and other legal documents. The students are also encouraged to participate in various student organizations and volunteer for a non-profit or a governmental organization.

Lectures: the first year courses are taught only as lectures. Each class meets 2, 3 or 4 times a week for about 2 hours. The students are expected to read, analyze and understand about between 20 and 50 pages of new material which will be discussed during the class. A professor teaches the class in a form of a discussion called the Socratic Method. The professor calls on someone with a question from the assigned material and the student is expected to be able to discuss intelligently the issue. Students could also ask specific questions but only if they have read the material and did not understand a certain part. Often, a professor would pose a question from the student to the entire class to see if anyone else can answer it.

Exams: All exams are written. Normally, a professor gives two or three fact patterns and the students are expected to write essays in response in an “IRAC” format – Issue, Rule, Application, and Conclusion. It means that the students must be able to spot the issues raised by the hypothetical fact patterns, state the applicable rules of law, apply them to the given facts, and then state a conclusion. The issue spotting is the most important part that earns most of the points.

Sometimes professors also test by creating a multiple choice exam where the possible answer choices are so confusing or so similar that you keep wondering which to pick. The multiple choice tests are equally as difficult as the essay-type exams.

Grading: All exams are graded unanimously. Professors than submit a preliminary grade that corresponds to a particular number assigned to the student by the registrar’s office. This office then matches the numbers to the students’ names. After the preliminary grades are assigned, the professors could change them (but don’t have to) by half a point up or down, for instance, from A- down to B+ or from C+ up to B-. The factors like poor attendance, or lack of participation, constant tardiness, or failure to complete an assignment could cause a drop in the grade. To the contrary, active participation during lectures and other accomplishments during the course could bring the grade up half a point. Other than that, the course grade normally depends entirely on the final exam result.

Дата добавления: 2015-11-14