Rutgers University School of Law-Camden - Catalogs - Rutgers, The ...

the assistant dean for student affairs that he or she is in
a position to devote full time to law studies.
THE LAWYERING PROGRAM
A central and unique feature of the curriculum is the
lawyering program. The lawyering program is comprised
of a series of courses, experiences within courses, and
cocurricular activities that engages students in the intellectual,
pragmatic, ethical, and personal issues that arise in the
practice of law. In most of the program’s activities, students
simulate the role of lawyers and carry out activities such
as litigating or counseling clients, under attorney supervision.
Through the lawyering program, students:
1. acquire a basic grounding in lawyering skills, such as
problem solving, drafting, counseling, and advocacy,
and in professional values, such as reflectiveness and the
need and capacity for self-learning;
2. achieve a perspective on legal doctrine through study
and experience of the application of doctrine by lawyers
and clients in various contexts;
3. learn doctrine and its application experientially, as well
as didactically; and
4. integrate different bodies of doctrine; doctrine and skills;
and doctrine, skills, and legal theory.
Legal Research and Writing, Moot Court, and
Professional Responsibility
The legal marketplace demands that law graduates enter
the profession with strong research, analysis, and communication
skills. To prepare Rutgers students for mastery in
this area, first-year students participate in a yearlong program
in legal research, analysis, writing, and oral argument.
This 4-credit program consists of a graded two-credit
course each semester, taught by a talented group of fulltime,
experienced faculty members. With class size of
approximately 20 students, the course is designed to provide
students with extensive individual attention. Class
time is spent primarily on exercises in which the class
reviews various research, analysis, writing, argument, and
editing skills and strategies.
The fall term research and writing course combines an
introduction to the basic tools of legal research with instruction
and practice in legal writing and analysis. Students
learn how to find and analyze primary legal authority, such
as cases and statutes, and secondary materials, such as treatises
and law reviews. They complete a series of library
assignments and an integrated research exercise. Students
are then introduced to computer-assisted research and are
trained in LEXIS and Westlaw at the end of the term.
In the fall, students also write several legal memoranda,
some of which must be rewritten, and complete other,
shorter assignments. The memoranda require that students
learn legal analysis, legal writing style, format, and citation
form. The legal memoranda assignments are presented as
simulated case files to provide students with practical experience
working with legal documents and developing fact
analysis skills. Through these assignments, students learn
and practice their analytic ability, increase their substantive
knowledge, and reinforce research skills. The rewrites and
required conferences with writing professors and teaching
assistants allow for individual attention to each student’s
progress in mastering the fundamentals of legal analysis
and legal writing. Students also begin developing their oral
skills in mock briefings of the senior partner on the legal
issues in the memo assignments.
During the spring term, Moot Court I builds on the
research and writing skills learned in the fall. Students switch
from writing predictive, objective memoranda to crafting persuasive
legal arguments in written briefs and oral arguments.
Their major written assignment for the spring is a mock brief
to a court, which presents a new issue and requires extensive
research. In writing the brief, students learn the fundamental
rhetorical concerns and methods of persuading a judicial
audience. Students also participate in an oral argument based
on the appellate brief before a three-judge panel of writing
faculty, practitioners, and teaching assistants. This program of
carefully supervised instruction helps students become
responsible for their own learning and helps them develop
the competence and attitudes needed for self-directed learning
throughout their legal careers.
All students are required to take a 2-credit (or, at times,
3-credit) upper-level course in professional responsibility.
The course examines important practical and ethical issues
for future lawyers, such as attorney-client confidentiality,
conflict of interest, perjury, fee arrangements, advertising,
and sanctions for frivolous conduct.
Lawyering Simulations
Many courses throughout the curriculum make extensive
use of simulated lawyering activities as an instructional
device. For example, a number of first-year and upper-level
courses contain extensive lawyering simulation modules.
In these modules, students are placed in the role of lawyers
representing a client and must engage in typical lawyering
activities, such as interviewing, counseling, negotiating,
and drafting. Modules may extend over several weeks and
involve work in and out of class.
In a recent year, first-year students in Contracts negotiated
and drafted a sales contract; first-year students in Civil
Procedure made a motion argument; students in Business
Organizations drafted a shareholders’ agreement and other
documents; students in Family Law drafted a prenuptial
agreement and a divorce settlement and drafted a statute;
and students in Introduction to Federal Income Taxation
drafted an opinion letter. In each case, students did all the
lawyer’s work necessary to the assignments and received
individual feedback on their projects. Through their work
in the modules, students learn or review areas of substantive
law, receive an introduction to lawyering skills, and
integrate different aspects of their legal education, just as
lawyers do.
Advanced Moot Court Programs
A highlight of the upper-level curriculum is the Judge
James Hunter III Moot Court Program. A memorial to
Judge Hunter, a United States Court of Appeals judge who
sat in Camden, the program is endowed by his former law
clerks. Many second-year students participate in the program
to sharpen brief-writing and oral advocacy skills. The
Hunter program involves a more complex problem than
those encountered in the first year, and participants brief
and argue in teams of two. The program is structured on an
elimination format, with an elimination round and octofinal,
quarterfinal, semifinal, and final rounds of argument.
Briefs and arguments are scored to determine advancement
from round to round. The final round argument is held
before a distinguished panel of judges in the United States
Courthouse in Camden, with a panel typically including
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