Cumberland School of Law, Samford University

Starting on the first day of orientation, the acronym “LLR” becomes a part of every Cumberland student’s lexicon. It stands for “Lawyering and Legal Reasoning,” a six-hour graded course in the first year of law school that emphasizes the writing and persuasive skills that all lawyers must possess—whether their practice takes them to the courtroom or to the boardroom. Each LLR section of 20 to 22 students is paired with another and assigned a hypothetical case for the year. One section takes the plaintiff’s side, the other the defense, and the students in each section prepare each side of the case as it might be prepared in the “real” world. This includes: 1) interviewing the client; 2) preparing a legal memorandum based on the student’s research into the issues that the client’s case presents; 3) drafting the appropriate pleadings; 4) solving a discovery issue; 5) filing a motion for a summary judgment [or response] with accompanying trial brief; and 6) writing an appellate brief on appeal from a summary judgment. Along the way, the students also correspond with the client, enter into settlement negotiations (including drafting a settlement agreement) and argue their respective positions before mock trial and appellate courts.
Cumberland believes LLR works because it encourages students to stop thinking like students and start thinking like lawyers almost from their first day at law school. And while the practical aspects of legal research and writing are emphasized, theoretical issues are not slighted either: in fact, before being introduced to their “clients” and undergoing what is affectionately known as “boot camp”—a rigorous introduction to legal research methods and citation forms—the students are asked to read, discuss, and respond in writing to the issues presented by Lon Fuller’s classic article on the nature of judicial reasoning, The Case of the Speluncean Explorers, as introduced and re-imagined in Peter Suber’s book, The Case of the Speluncean Explorers: Nine New Opinions. Cumberland also believes LLR works because its students believe it works too—for instance, in the current (2004) edition of Princeton Review’s The Best 117 Law Schools, which is based on student surveys, Cumberland was ranked fourth in the nation in the quality of its professors, and LLR was singled out in particular: “[s]tudents praise ‘Lawyering and Legal Reasoning,’ a first year class that ‘teaches practical skills, following a mock case from the complaint and discovery phases to appellate.’” The Review also noted that “[s]tudents love to point out that ‘Cumberland’s Dean, Judge John Carroll, actually teaches . . . first year writing classes.’” Although Judge Carroll has taken a one-year hiatus in teaching LLR for 2004-05, the course is taught by Cumberland’s “regular” faculty. The single adjunct (an adjunct by choice) also teaches a substantive course in the law school. In short, LLR works at Cumberland because the academic faculty is just as enthusiastic about the program as are the students that it serves.

For further information, contact LLR Director Belle H. Stoddard at:
bhstodda@samford.edu

See also Cumberland’s website at: http://cumberland.samford.edu