In the fall semester, first-year JD students are enrolled in Law 202.1A, Legal Research and Writing. The course introduces students to the basics of the court system, how to read cases, locating and selecting precedent, and how to construct legal arguments.
Our approach is a practical one: our aim is to teach students the skills they need to practice law at a high level.
To that end, the Legal Research and Writing Program at Boalt has undergone major changes in the past few years. The program has been redesigned to provide more challenging assignments, more written feedback and the opportunity for hands-on research instruction.
Most of the writing instruction takes place in students' "small section" modules, by full-time Legal Research and Writing faculty, all of whom have experience teaching and practicing law. In addition, two upper-level law student TAs are assigned to each module of first-year students to assist in providing individual feedback.
In the fall, the program emphasizes predictive writing. Over the course of the semester, students prepare two 10-12 page legal memoranda in addition to other, shorter assignments. For each of the two major memo assignments students submit a draft, receive extensive comments, attend a one-on-one conference about their memo and then revise and submit a final version.
Research instruction is integrated into the writing assignments, and includes the use of both paper and computer resources. In-library research instruction takes place on several Friday afternoons throughout the first half of the semester, and is taught in groups of 10-12 students.
The program is structured to allow students the opportunity to do increasingly complex written analyses, using more sophisticated techniques as the term progresses. At the same time, students improve their research skills through the introduction of additional resources relevant to the writing assignments. Students also learn legal citation form through self-paced Web-based exercises.
Written & Oral Advocacy
Spring
In the spring semester, first-year students continue their writing instruction in a Written and Oral Advocacy course, where they prepare a trial court motion and present a mock oral argument. In past years, the spring semester focus has been on advocacy at the appellate level, in a course called First Year Moot Court. Currently, however, our Written and Oral Advocacy program uses a trial court format. Thus, in the spring, the first year skills course involves preparation of a brief for a trial court motion on a hypothetical problem, and arguing that motion before a "judge," usually a Boalt professor, a practicing lawyer from the Bay Area, or a "real" judge from a Bay Area court.
Beyond the first year, upper-level students may take advanced courses in both research (Law 208 Advanced Legal Research) and in appellate brief writing (Law 243 Appellate Advocacy).
