The Casearc Student FAQ Sheet

The CaseArc Student FAQ Sheet

What is the CaseArc Program?
How is CaseArc Different From Programs at Other Law Schools?
What is the CaseArc Vision?
Why Does CaseArc Extend Through All 3 Years of Law School?
Why Does CaseArc Use Team Teaching?
How Are Simulations Used?
What are the CaseArc Courses and How Do They Achieve the CaseArc Vision?
Why Are CaseArc Courses Linked to Other Courses?
How are the CaseArc Courses Graded?
Who should I go to if I have questions?

What is the CaseArc Program?

The CaseArc Integrated Lawyering Skills Program is a unique blend of traditional legal education and experiential learning. The program combines classroom learning with small group interaction - lecture and discussion with hands-on practice - legal theory and doctrine with application. It is one of the most innovative lawyering skills programs in legal education today. Top

How is CaseArc Different From Programs at Other Law Schools?

The CaseArc program is different from other programs in several important ways:

1. Through CaseArc we teach fundamental lawyering skills to all of our students, and all students get practice in applying those skills in lifelike situations. In other law schools, many of the fundamental skills are only taught to students who elect to take specific courses. We believe all of our students should receive training in the most important lawyering skills.
2. We team teach the courses so that students benefit from the expertise of legal writing professors, clinical professors, doctrinal teachers, librarians and practicing lawyers all taking part in the design and implementation of the courses. Few schools have made this commitment to their students.
3. While many other law schools still foster competitive attitudes, we encourage collaboration in both the teaching of the courses and in student involvement in the learning process. We integrate our skills training with substantive courses students are taking at the same time so that there is a connection between learning the law and learning how to practice.
4. Through our capstone experiences, we seek to make lawyering experiences in real situations available to all of our students, through our real client clinics, externships and labs.

With these advantages, we believe our students will be better prepared to actually practice law than the students at most other schools.

"Our Professor seemed to really care about our learning in class and during simulations. He was fair in his verbal feedback, providing positive and negative feedback to help us improve."
- Student Comment

What is the CaseArc Vision?

The CaseArc courses are a window into the way lawyers actually do their work for their clients. While students are focused on learning the law in their other courses, in the CaseArc program students learn how to use it for their clients. So, the overarching goal of the program is for students to learn the fundamental skills of effective law practice. These include the "legal thinking skills" such as legal analysis, legal research, problem solving, strategic planning and recognizing ethical dilemmas. They also include the "social skills" lawyers use as they interact with others in doing their work: legal writing, interviewing, counseling, negotiation, oral presentation and fact investigation.
Although there certainly are other lawyering skills that are important (e.g. trial skills, appellate advocacy), the CaseArc program concentrates on those skills that all lawyers should be proficient in, regardless of the setting or type of legal work they do. Of course, the other skills that we do not consider fundamental are also taught at the law school, but are not a formal part of the CaseArc program. Top

Why Does CaseArc Extend Through All 3 Years of LawSchool?

We believe that the fundamental lawyering skills are best learned through repeated practice. The program introduces students to these skills at the beginning of law school and provides opportunities to get more practice as their training progresses. Students start out with less demanding situations and move to more complex applications as law school continues. The most fundamental lawyering skills get repeated attention due to their importance - e.g. client relations skills, legal analysis and legal writing. All of the training leads to the use of learned skills in "reality based" capstone experiences (electives) in the students' last two years of school. Top

Why Does CaseArc Use Team Teaching?

The program relies on team teaching so that our faculty can concentrate on what they do best while providing our students with a holistic approach to learning the law and lawyering skills. We want our students to benefit from the expertise of people with different backgrounds and experience working towards common goals. No one group of faculty members could adequately teach such a broad range of skills and information that the team approach provides. By pulling this diverse talent and experience together in an integrated and coordinated program, students receive a broader perspective on the law and lawyering.
Our legal analysis and writing (LAW) professors concentrate on teaching students those pervasively important skills in the many different contexts lawyers work in. Our doctrinal faculty focus on legal theory and doctrine in the areas linked to the program so that students can learn the substance of the law and the skills applying it in a deeper way. Our skilled and dedicated librarians devote themselves to teaching the most necessary and cutting edge research skills. Our adjunct practicing lawyers/professors share the benefits of their many years of practice experience to bring the day-to-day realities of lawyering work to our instructional team. Our clinical professors draw from their clinical practices within the law school and their unique backgrounds of legal practice in an academic setting to teach legal problem solving and strategic thinking skills.

How Are Simulations Used?

The simulations in the CaseArc program are designed to present students with realistic, yet controlled experiences to help them develop their legal competence before they have to represent real clients. We make use of committed actors to play roles that are carefully designed to present lawyering challenges that will provide excellent vehicles for learning. In their simulations, students are given the opportunity to practice the "social process" lawyering skills. These are the skills that involve people interacting with other people. They consist primarily of client and witness interviewing, client counseling, negotiation, collaboration and oral presentation in formal, informal, litigation and planning contexts. These skills are deceptively complex and extremely important to effective lawyering. Before students do the simulations themselves they attend a "pre-simulation" class in which they discuss the skills to be practiced, watch demonstrations, practice the skills themselves in an ungraded setting, and learn how they will be evaluated. In following weeks, students perform the simulations for credit.
We introduce students to these skills in their first year by having them only do segments of an entire exercise. For example, students do only a specific assigned piece of a client interview. They watch their peers do other portions of the exercise and are critiqued in the presence of one another by their small group (firm) professors. Students "learn by doing" and by watching their colleagues perform other segments of the simulation. In this way, students learn the components of the skill being studied and have the opportunity to practice assigned components, while not being expected to perform the entire exercise in the beginning.
As the program progresses through law school, the students are given more opportunities to practice and perfect these all-important skills. By the end of their second year, students have practiced doing complete interviews, counseling sessions, negotiations and oral presentations. But by working up to the entire exercise, students have learned these skills more thoroughly and with far greater understanding.
The simulations are closely tied to the writing assignments students complete in the legal analysis and writing components of the courses. Interviews either lead to writing projects, or research and writing projects lead to the performance of a simulation. Both the writing assignments and the simulations are based on the subject matter of the doctrinal course to which the CaseArc course is "linked." (See below for discussion of "linkage.")

"The outlines and rough drafts were essential. The comments and conferences always transformed the final paper into a superior product."
- Student Comment

What are the CaseArc Courses and How Do They Achieve the CaseArc Vision?

First-Year Required Courses (all have litigation emphasis):

1. Introduction Week: Entering students arrive one week before classes begin in the fall to attend an intensive introduction to the legal system, law study and the CaseArc program. The program is a combination of classroom discussion, observation of a simulated trial and appellate arguments and experiential role play exercises performed by the students. Organized around the theme, "Truth and the American Legal System," the program introduces students to the obligations and values of legal professionals, client interviewing, trial advocacy, students act as jurors, they observe appellate arguments in the case they decided, they attend their first law school class and compare the American legal system to others around the world. The week's activities are designed to give students an overview of how our system works to determine the truth and achieve justice.
2. Core Lawyering Skills - Part 1 (CORE I): CORE 1 is the first course in CaseArc, and is taken by all students in the fall of their first year. Students receive an orientation to the American legal system and begin the study of the methods and formats of objective written legal analysis and manual and computerized legal research. Students begin to develop the basic skills of interviewing, fact gathering and client counseling by doing segments of simulation exercises. The course is taught by a combination of classroom instruction, small group discussions and through performance and critique of simulation exercises, research exercises and writing projects. The goal is to integrate the learning and application of legal theory, doctrine and practice in an authentic manner. Students are assigned to an instructional team consisting of a doctrinal instructor, a legal research, analysis and writing instructor, a simulation instructor (who is a practicing lawyer) and a librarian. The team coordinates the assignments and exercises so that students are provided a learning experience which combines lecture, discussion and hands-on experience.
3. Core Lawyering Skills - Part 2 (CORE 2): CORE 2 is the second course in CaseArc which is taken in the second semester of the first year. Students build on their learning in CORE 1 by confronting more complex and challenging problems. The format of the course and teaching methods are similar to CORE I, but students learn more complex factual and legal analysis, and legal research and writing in the persuasive mode. Students are introduced to negotiation theory and technique and to the principles of effective oral presentation in formal and informal settings. Students learn how to formulate legal arguments and to advocate a position for a client in a brief to a trial court in a litigated case.

Second-Year Required Courses:

1. Core Lawyering Skills - Part 3 (CORE 3) (planning/transactional emphasis): CORE 3 is the third course in the CaseArc program. Students build on their learning in CORE 1 and CORE 2 by applying the principles of legal analysis, writing, and negotiation in the transactional setting. Students also learn about the challenges of applying these lawyering skills in the representation of groups and entities. The format of the course and teaching methods are similar to CORE 1 and CORE 2. But the emphasis is on learning to draft contracts and to understand planning a transaction. In the simulations, students concentrate on the negotiation process. The negotiation simulations are in the context of deal making rather than litigation (as in CORE 2.) Students take this course in either fall or spring of their second year.
2. Focused Problem Solving: FPS is the fourth required course in the CaseArc program. Students apply and expand the skills learned in CORE 1, 2 and 3 in the context of a specific area of law. The overarching emphasis of the course is legal problem solving, strategy formation and implementation. Students will identify and evaluate options to solve specific legal problems, engage in fact gathering, develop strategies for accomplishing goals, interview and counsel clients, evaluate ends/means considerations, and depending on the type of problem, function in the litigation or transactional contexts. In their simulations, students individually do an entire fact gathering interview with a client they will represent throughout the semester, in which they identify the problems presented and the goals and objectives of the client. Later in the course, students conduct a complete counseling meeting with their client in which alternative solutions are identified, strategic considerations are applied, and rigorous evaluation methods are used to help reach decisions. Students write two practice-type memoranda in the class designed to help evaluate the complex problems facing their clients. Students take this course in the fall or spring in their second year.

Capstone Experiences:
The training in the first two years of the CaseArc program is designed to culminate in students participating in the Capstone Experiences. Students must complete an "advanced legal analysis" experience including research and writing in a focused substantive area which satisfies the law school's upper level wiring requirement. Students also may complete a "reality based" practice experience which meets certain criteria. For the experiential capstone, interested students select an experience from a menu of available options. The experiential capstone arises out of a real legal problem or situation, and originates from an outside constituency. Examples of the experiential capstone are a real client problem (e.g. in-house real client clinics), a recurring legal issue as presented by an outside attorney (e.g. Death Penalty Lab), a set of problems presented by a tribunal (e.g. War Crimes Tribunal), or a decision making problem presented to a judge (e.g. Federal Judicial Externship). It involves interaction between the student and the outside players. The amount of credit allocated to the experiential capstone will vary by course. The most credit (6 credits) is awarded for the real client clinics taken through the MiltonA.KramerLawClinicCenter. Top

Why Are CaseArc Courses Linked to Other Courses?

We believe that a modern law school curriculum should combine the teaching of "legal substance" with "legal skills." In fact, we think of our law school's learning environment as combining the teaching of theory and doctrine with the teaching of application of that theory or doctrine, i.e. practice. All of our law school classes, seminars, clinics or other programs address, at least to some degree, each component of a subject matter - the theory, the doctrine and their application in practice.
We recognize that law students are adult learners. Adult learners have different learning styles. Some students learn best through reading or hearing about a subject, some through experiential role playing, and some learn through watching others. Still others learn through combinations of these methods. We think most students thoroughly comprehend a subject when they are able to apply several different learning methods to a topic.
As a result, the CaseArc courses (which are experiential in nature) are tied to or "linked" to a substantive course students are taking at the same time or in the FPS course, a subject students are interested in. This will enhance the learning of the subject matter of the doctrinal course as well as the particular lawyering skill under consideration because each will be informed by the other, giving added relevance to both. This also permits skills training to complement the doctrinal/theory training in the doctrinal course, rather than be a distraction from it. Therefore, all legal writing problems and simulations arise out of the subject matter of the doctrinal linkage course. This permits us to develop rich, content-based and life-like situations for students to grapple with in their writing projects and simulations. Top

How are the CaseArc Courses Graded?

The major goals of the grading system in CaseArc are: 1) to recognize legitimate distinctions in the levels of performance of our students, 2) to achieve consistency and fairness in the way grades are determined, and 3) to provide incentives comparable to other law school courses for students to perform at high levels. Because the courses in the first two years of CaseArc are team taught, the grades in CORE 1, 2 and 3 are based on a compilation of evaluations in the legal analysis and writing portion of the course (LAW) and the simulation performances. In FPS, the grades are based on the papers written, participation in class, and the simulation performances. The syllabus in each course describes in detail the grading methods applicable to that course. Currently, the CaseArc courses are subject to the law school's mandatory grading curve. Top

"My Professor is an invaluable resource. He's engaging and interesting and challenging in class, and out of class he's accessible and always concerned for our well-being - not just in law school, but in life. I'm so glad to have benefited from his knowledge, dedication and genuine concern for his students this year."
- Student Comment

Who should I go to if I have questions?

As students progress through the CaseArc program, questions inevitably arise. If students have questions about a particular simulation evaluation, a paper grade or the final grade in a course, they should go to the primary teacher responsible for that evaluation or grade - the simulation professor, or the LAW or FPS professor. If students have general questions about aspects of the program, its requirements or policies, they should contact the Director of the program, Professor Kenneth Margolis. If students have questions about how the CaseArc program fits into the overall curriculum at the law school, or if students have questions that cannot be answered in another way, they should contact Associate Dean Sharona Hoffman.