LAW 851: Individual Skills Development at School of Law

About this course

The Individual Skills Development course is aimed at giving second-year students an intensive opportunity to reinforce and refine the array of analytical, test-taking, and study skills needed for successful performance in law school, on the Bar, and in the practice of law. All skills in the course will be taught through material drawn from Constitutional Structures and Evidence. We will work heavily on the analytical skills that are stressed throughout the second-year curriculum, which include analyzing, interpreting, and synthesizing cases; integrating legislative history and case law into the analysis of a statutory standard; and developing legal arguments by analogizing, distinguishing, and reconciling cases. In addition, we will use hypotheticals and problems that require students to use doctrine to construct legal and factual arguments on behalf of clients on all sides of an issue. Of equal importance to the course are the study skills that enable students to cogently structure and understand new doctrine. We will explore how to create context and framework for learning new doctrine, as well as how to map and outline the relationships between concepts. Students will have ample opportunity to apply what they have learned by taking practice multiple-choice and essay exams.