The Legal Research and Writing Program is taught by six instructors with extensive experience in teaching and practice. With an average class size of 30 students per semester, instructors are able to provide individualized attention. Weekly classes cover legal research, writing, and analysis. Each instructor creates four major, progressively more challenging, graded writing assignments with required revisions: a research memorandum on a common law tort problem, a research memorandum on a criminal law problem based on statutory law, a trial brief, and an appellate brief.
The instructors also contribute to the development of other assignments that are common to all LRW sections, which include a closed memorandum, closed memorandum rewrite, citation assignment, and research assignments. All assignments are uniquely crafted to develop incrementally the students’ skills in research, analysis, and writing. Students receive extensive feedback on their research, analysis, and writing, involving both detailed written comments and one-on-one meetings with the LRW faculty.
In the spring, instructors teach oral argument and grade each student’s performance in an oral argument before a panel of judges and practitioners.
