Loyola Law School, Los Angeles

Loyola’s Legal Research & Writing Program is designed to achieve one objective: to train students in the analytic, research and communication skills necessary to excel in the practice of law. To accomplish this, Loyola has assembled a professional LRW faculty, who guide sections of 25-30 first-year students through a graded, year-long, three-unit introduction to legal analysis, research and writing.

* The LRW Faculty

Loyola’s Legal Research & Writing faculty is comprised of eight full-time associate and full clinical professors, all with strong academic credentials, solid practice experience, and a commitment to teaching as a career. Led by Director Arnold Siegel, who joined the Loyola faculty in 1977, our instructors include:

o graduates of Stanford, Columbia, Georgetown, UCLA and Loyola law schools;

o former instructors at the UCLA, Chicago-Kent, Whittier, Southwestern University and University of San Diego law schools;

o former editors of the Columbia Law Review, the Columbia Journal of Law & Social Problems and the Southwestern University Law Review; and

o lawyers with a range of practice experience, in both the public and private sectors and in firms ranging from solo practice to multinational firms.

The LRW faculty is initially hired on a one-year contract, and on renewable three-year contracts thereafter, and participates in all faculty decision making except matters relating to tenure and tenure-track appointments. In addition to Legal Research & Writing, the LRW faculty teach the upper class course in Ethical Lawyering, and may teach other upper class courses depending on the interests of the faculty member and the needs of the law school. For example, LRW faculty members currently teach Legal Drafting, Negotiations, Trial Advocacy and Family Law.

* The Legal Research & Writing Program

First-year students begin their training with a demanding, six-week introduction to legal analysis and legal writing that culminates in their first office memorandum. They spend the next eight weeks in intensive instruction in legal research, where they master practical research techniques for both primary and secondary authority. We emphasize an integrated approach to using print and online resources.

In the Spring term, students work on increasingly complex legal problems. Their first Spring project is a second office memorandum that requires students to use primary evidentiary materials to (a) define the legal issue presented; (b) research and select authority to resolve that issue; (c) marshal the evidence and inferences therefrom to build factual arguments; (d) analyze the facts and law to predict how a court would resolve the issue; and (e) embody this relatively complex analysis in a professionally crafted and presented document.

The final first-year project is a persuasive trial court brief (which we believe better prepares our students for their actual experience than an appellate brief). Based on declarations and documentary evidence, students must research and draft a memorandum of points and authorities supporting or opposing a motion, which they then argue against another first-year student before an alumnus judge.

* The Ethical Lawyering Course

Skills instruction continues in the students’ second year with Loyola’s required three-unit course in Ethical Lawyering. Taught in small sections, EL combines instruction in Professional Responsibility with practical experience in client interviewing and counseling. Students elicit the facts relevant to their clients’ legal problems through simulated interviewing sessions, research the applicable law, and advise their clients accordingly. Students draft an office memorandum analyzing the facts and law relating to their clients’ problems, and a client letter memorializing their legal advice.

For additional information, please contact Arnold Siegel at arnold.siegel@lls.edu.