Albany Law School
Albany Law School was one of the first few law schools to offer legal research and writing integrated with professional skills and ethics in its Introduction to Lawyering course. This first-year required course is followed by a Professional Skills requirement that exposures students to drafting, written or oral persuasion, fact investigation, and alternative dispute resolution. To learn fulfill this requirement, students take advanced Lawyering courses such as Transactional Drafting, Drafting Legislation, Client Interviewing & Counseling, and Appellate Advocacy. All are taught by our Lawyering Professors. Additionally, students have an upper-level writing requirement that may be fulfilled with our Advanced Writing course in scholarly writing. Our writing courses are complimented by a newly created Writing Center.
The first-year required course integrates theory, practice, and professional responsibility within the context of a year-long client-representation problem. Students are placed into mini-firms and begin their representation. Through simulations, discussions, questions and answers, written work, and hands-on experience, students are introduced to client interviewing, legal research, legal reasoning, case planning, client counseling, legal writing, alternative dispute resolution, and oral advocacy.
The full-year course carries a total of four credits with two credits per semester. During the first semester, students are introduced to case analysis, client interviewing, legal research, and objective legal writing. In addition to completing several research paths, many short writing assignments, and citation exercises, students write a memo to the file and write and re-write one closed universe memo. During the second semester, students apply what they have already learned in legal research, receive advanced training in on-line research, and are introduced to client counseling, case planning, alternative dispute resolution, and written and oral advocacy. Students draft pleadings and some draft discovery documents. They also complete a written analysis exercise, prepare for negotiations and write a negotiations summary memo, write a trial level motion brief, and write and argue a two-issue, complex appellate level brief. Students then present oral argument before lawyering faculty as well as Albany area attorneys and judges. Professional responsibility issues are interwoven in the successive scenarios developed throughout the year.
Our lawyering classes are small, ranging from 18-22 students. Students participate in class discussions, in collaborative groups, work individually, and meet with the professor and with the student teaching assistant. Students receive peer critique. They also receive extensive oral comments in workshops and conferences, and they receive extensive written comments on their work, including their ungraded drafts.
Lawyering Professors are on long-term contracts that comply with ABA Standard 405 ( c); they vote on all matters except hiring and awarding tenure to tenure track faculty and serve on all faculty committees. Their salary is highly competitive.
Each of our professors has either taught or practiced law extensively before coming to Albany Law School. We have between us over 55 years of teaching experience. Our professors have produced scholarship about legal writing, learning and teaching theory, as well as on doctrinal subjects. We have given presentations at national conferences of the AALS, ALWD, and LWI, and given many presentations to state and local bar associations or other organizations and in CLE programs on legal research, legal writing, and professional skills. We have served on committees for ALWD, LWI, and the ABA/AALS. We have also served on boards of state and local bar associations and journals. Each Lawyering Professor may, and several do, teach additional courses. Our faculty include Pam Armstrong, Ann Horowitz, Deborah Mann, Joan Leary Matthews, Elaine Mills, Alicia Ouellette, and Jenean Taranto.
Contact person for further information about the program:
Prof. Pam Armstrong
Albany Law School
(518) 445-2364
parms@mail.als.edu
The first-year required course integrates theory, practice, and professional responsibility within the context of a year-long client-representation problem. Students are placed into mini-firms and begin their representation. Through simulations, discussions, questions and answers, written work, and hands-on experience, students are introduced to client interviewing, legal research, legal reasoning, case planning, client counseling, legal writing, alternative dispute resolution, and oral advocacy.
The full-year course carries a total of four credits with two credits per semester. During the first semester, students are introduced to case analysis, client interviewing, legal research, and objective legal writing. In addition to completing several research paths, many short writing assignments, and citation exercises, students write a memo to the file and write and re-write one closed universe memo. During the second semester, students apply what they have already learned in legal research, receive advanced training in on-line research, and are introduced to client counseling, case planning, alternative dispute resolution, and written and oral advocacy. Students draft pleadings and some draft discovery documents. They also complete a written analysis exercise, prepare for negotiations and write a negotiations summary memo, write a trial level motion brief, and write and argue a two-issue, complex appellate level brief. Students then present oral argument before lawyering faculty as well as Albany area attorneys and judges. Professional responsibility issues are interwoven in the successive scenarios developed throughout the year.
Our lawyering classes are small, ranging from 18-22 students. Students participate in class discussions, in collaborative groups, work individually, and meet with the professor and with the student teaching assistant. Students receive peer critique. They also receive extensive oral comments in workshops and conferences, and they receive extensive written comments on their work, including their ungraded drafts.
Lawyering Professors are on long-term contracts that comply with ABA Standard 405 ( c); they vote on all matters except hiring and awarding tenure to tenure track faculty and serve on all faculty committees. Their salary is highly competitive.
Each of our professors has either taught or practiced law extensively before coming to Albany Law School. We have between us over 55 years of teaching experience. Our professors have produced scholarship about legal writing, learning and teaching theory, as well as on doctrinal subjects. We have given presentations at national conferences of the AALS, ALWD, and LWI, and given many presentations to state and local bar associations or other organizations and in CLE programs on legal research, legal writing, and professional skills. We have served on committees for ALWD, LWI, and the ABA/AALS. We have also served on boards of state and local bar associations and journals. Each Lawyering Professor may, and several do, teach additional courses. Our faculty include Pam Armstrong, Ann Horowitz, Deborah Mann, Joan Leary Matthews, Elaine Mills, Alicia Ouellette, and Jenean Taranto.
Contact person for further information about the program:
Prof. Pam Armstrong
Albany Law School
(518) 445-2364
parms@mail.als.edu
posted by LRW Programs at
2:24 PM
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