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Curriculum
The curriculum of Thomas Goode Jones School of Law equips students for their roles in the institutions of justice. We provide our students with a foundation of legal knowledge and skills upon which they can build lives of service within the legal profession. In their first year, students engage with substantive law in subjects such as contracts, torts, criminal law, constitutional law, and property, and they study the procedural rules governing litigation. They learn the basics of legal research, sharpen their written and verbal communication skills, and learn to write legal documents. In addition, our first-year students wrestle with foundational questions about the meaning and sources of law, the obligations imposed by law, and what it means to be a member of the legal profession.
In the second and third years, students continue their studies in substantive law, but they also begin to put their new knowledge into practice. For example, they complete a scholarly research and writing project on a legal topic they select. They also participate in a course designed to simulate real-world legal practice, and they gain additional practical experience by assisting clients in one of the law school’s three legal clinics or by working under the supervision of practicing attorneys in a field placement. During this time, they round out their legal education with elective courses that provide opportunities for deeper learning in subjects of particular interest to them. All of these experiences are designed to produce graduates who are ready for the bar exam and for the practice of law.
Rigorous Writing Requirement
The Rigorous Writing Requirement involves substantial scholarly research and writing. It may be satisfied by writing a paper in connection with a seminar (or other upper-level course), by writing an “argument” portion of a brief for an interscholastic moot court competition meeting the Requirement’s standards, or by writing a directed research paper under the supervision of a full-time faculty member.
Professional Development Requirement
The Professional Development Requirement has two components: an Advanced Practicum Requirement and an Experiential Learning Requirement. Advanced Practicum courses simulate law practice experiences, and they include Advanced Legal Research; Appellate Advocacy; Interviewing, Counseling, and Negotiation; Contract Drafting; Pretrial Practice; Trial Advocacy or Trial Advocacy for Competition; and various advocacy competition teams. Experiential Learning courses offer hands-on legal experience, and they include the law school’s clinics—the Mediation Clinic, the Elder Law Clinic, and the Family Violence Clinic—and field placements working with practicing attorneys.
Foundations
A special part of the Faulkner Law first-year experience is the Foundations curriculum. Since 2011 every first year student has taken the Foundations of Law course. We also offer a course entitled “Foundations of the Legal Profession.” These courses will not only prepare you to pass the bar but to gain insights into the purposes of law and the legal profession. These innovative courses help law students understand how the law shapes our culture and how lawyers can make a difference.
As a faith-based institution, we believe first principles and ideas matter. Foundations of Law ensures all of our first-year students are exposed to the most prominent, fundamental ideas of our legal institutions. The writings of St. Thomas Aquinas, William Blackstone, John Locke, James Madison, Oliver Wendell Holmes, H.L.A. Hart, John Rawls, John Finnis, Joseph Raz and other thinkers who have shaped American legal institutions comprise a substantial part of the readings for the course. Important and well known appellate court opinions are used to illustrate the theoretical principles outlined by the great minds of Western legal and political thought. Students leave the course with a deeper understanding of their own convictions about justice and with a better appreciation for some of the most influential principles and historical developments in American jurisprudence. Additionally, and equally as important, the Foundations course focuses heavily on the basics of legal reasoning: the doctrine of precedent, the distinction between rules and principles, standards of decision-making, and most importantly for new law students, the rudiments of logic, including heavy focus on syllogistic reasoning.
The Foundations of the Legal Profession explores the myriad ways a law degree is used to serve the common good. Taught as a one-week intensive followed by a weekly series of workshops, this course emphasizes collaborative learning, early career planning, close relationships with faculty, and regular interaction with mentor-practitioners. The goal is help each student develop specific career plans and personalize their last two years of study.
Goals
The Academic Success Program (ASP) aims to assist students in fulfilling their academic potential and achieving their maximum level of academic and professional success. The ASP provides proactive support to students, empowering them to achieve a higher level of effectiveness by:
- Welcoming first-year students into an environment they may find unfamiliar and assisting them in making a successful transition from their varied backgrounds to their new roles as law students and future members of the legal profession.
- Offering Orientation programs to facilitate students’ transition into law school.
- Integrating first-year students into the law school process and curriculum through the development of crucial skills that will help students learn, analyze, and communicate the law, and improve their performance in the law classroom, on law school exams, on the bar examination and in the practice of law or in the professional world;
- Pairing each first-year student with a Dean Fellow (an upper level student) who will serve as a resource and mentor to the first-year student throughout their initial year of law school.
- Providing an avenue by which all students can take advantage of the resources available to them; and
- Encouraging students to develop and successfully use their own individual learning styles.
Services
The Academic Success Program provides several services for all students and to students who have particular needs. These services include:
- Academic Success Workshops: General Study Skills, Time/Stress Management, Note-Taking Skills, Case Briefing and Analysis, Outlining, and Test-Taking Strategies;
- Course Specific Workshops;
- Dean Fellows Small Group Sessions;
- One on One Workshops to develop study skills; and
- Study Skills Library located in the Jones School of Law library.