UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA LAW SCHOOL
The University of Minnesota Law School requires students to complete a three-year writing requirement to graduate. In the fall of the first year, students concentrate on common law legal analysis through a series of building-block, predictive writing exercises, followed by two drafts of a closed-research office memorandum relating to an issue presented by a contract scenario, followed by two drafts of a full open-research office memorandum (relating to an expanded version of the contract scenario). Students submit some kind of writing exercise virtually every week of the semester, receive individual feedback from instructors, engage in peer review, and give mock client advice.
In the spring of the first year, students concentrate on statutory interpretation and build upon their common law analytical skills through a series of building-block, persuasive writing exercises that lead up to an original and a rewrite of a full set of district court motion papers and two oral arguments of the motion. Students submit some kind of writing exercise during most weeks of the semester, receive individual feedback from instructors, engage in peer review, and engage in persuasive argument.
In the second year, we require a full-year appellate advocacy experience involving multiple brief drafts and oral argument exercises, except for any students who are participating as staff members on one of the scholarly law journals (for whom there are elective appellate advocacy offerings). Law Review staffers write pieces under individual faculty supervisors who certify the nature and quality of the work.
In the third year, students may satisfy the writing requirement through designated, faculty-supervised moot court, law journal and senior seminar experiences.
The first year legal writing program and basic second year appellate advocacy program are taught in small sections of roughly twelve students each. Attorney instructors, paired with upper-level student partners, teach within a central program design prepared and run by a director with full clinical tenure (i.e. continuous appointment terminable only for good cause or financial exigency). Various attorney instructors currently have respectively fifteen, ten, eight, and five years of experience teaching at the law school within the program.
Over the last seventeen years, students from the programs have won three national and eleven regional moot court championships, five national and eighteen regional best brief awards, twelve regional best oral advocate awards, two national best speaker awards, two Burton legal writing prizes and the Brown Award for Excellence in Legal Writing.
Contact person:
Bradley G. Clary
Clinical Professor of Law and
Director of Applied Legal Instruction
clary002@umn.edu
In the spring of the first year, students concentrate on statutory interpretation and build upon their common law analytical skills through a series of building-block, persuasive writing exercises that lead up to an original and a rewrite of a full set of district court motion papers and two oral arguments of the motion. Students submit some kind of writing exercise during most weeks of the semester, receive individual feedback from instructors, engage in peer review, and engage in persuasive argument.
In the second year, we require a full-year appellate advocacy experience involving multiple brief drafts and oral argument exercises, except for any students who are participating as staff members on one of the scholarly law journals (for whom there are elective appellate advocacy offerings). Law Review staffers write pieces under individual faculty supervisors who certify the nature and quality of the work.
In the third year, students may satisfy the writing requirement through designated, faculty-supervised moot court, law journal and senior seminar experiences.
The first year legal writing program and basic second year appellate advocacy program are taught in small sections of roughly twelve students each. Attorney instructors, paired with upper-level student partners, teach within a central program design prepared and run by a director with full clinical tenure (i.e. continuous appointment terminable only for good cause or financial exigency). Various attorney instructors currently have respectively fifteen, ten, eight, and five years of experience teaching at the law school within the program.
Over the last seventeen years, students from the programs have won three national and eleven regional moot court championships, five national and eighteen regional best brief awards, twelve regional best oral advocate awards, two national best speaker awards, two Burton legal writing prizes and the Brown Award for Excellence in Legal Writing.
Contact person:
Bradley G. Clary
Clinical Professor of Law and
Director of Applied Legal Instruction
clary002@umn.edu
posted by LRW Programs at
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