Case School of Law, Case Western Reserve University

New in 2003, the CaseArc Integrated Lawyering Skills Program, is an innovative six-semester program designed to coordinate experientially-based instruction in fundamental lawyering skills—such as interviewing, counseling, fact-gathering, legal research, writing, oral advocacy and negotiation—with more traditional classroom methods for teaching legal analysis. By merging the teaching of legal theory and policy, legal doctrine and lawyering skills, we believe that this program will create better informed and more capable lawyers.Our students are taught by teams of professors, each of whom brings special expertise to the common goal of providing a completely integrated approach to teaching law and lawyering. In the first semester, students learn the most fundamental lawyering skills of interviewing, counseling objective legal analysis and writing, and legal research. The course is linked with criminal law, torts or contracts. During the second semester, the course introduces negotiation skills, more advanced legal research, persuasive legal analysis and writing, and oral advocacy. It is linked with Constitutional Law, Civil Procedure or Property. The third semester focuses on transactional lawyering skills, corporate legal skills including negotiation and transactional drafting, and entity representation. The fourth semester, focuses on problem-solving and strategic thinking. Students identify and evaluate options to solve specific legal problems, develop strategies for accomplishing goals, and evaluate means/ends considerations, in litigation or transactional contexts. In the third year capstone experience, students participate in an intense research project and they elect a “reality-based” experiential program such as a Clinic, an externship, a lab, such as the War Crimes Research Lab, or an independent project. The CaseArc courses are planned so that each succeeding semester builds on the previous ones. Each course is linked to a subject students are studying. All of our students learn to grapple with increasingly complex life-like situations in the context of those subjects. From the first day of law school, they learn the essential skills of litigating cases and planning transactions. They learn how to represent individuals and they learn to represent corporations and other entities. They learn the complexities of problem-solving and strategic thinking. Finally, our students begin to face the ethical and professional challenges confronting contemporary lawyers in an increasingly competitive and complex world.

The CaseArc team includes 9 full-time instructors, 4 which are currently being reviewed for 405(c) status, 5 clinicians and 18 adjuncts who are practicing lawyers.

Contacts:
David Carney david.carney@case.edu
Peter Friedman peter.friedman@case.edu
Jonathan Gordon jonathan.gordon@case.edu
Kathryn Mercer kathryn.mercer@case.edu
(216)-368-5221