Fall 2024

5338 Legal Writing - SIMMONS/VAGENAS- 25525

Professor(s): Laurel Simmons (CLINICAL FACULTY [405(b)])
Georgia Vagenas (ADJUNCT)

Credits: 3

Course Areas: Foreign LLM

Time: 10:30a-12:00p MW Location: 211

Course Outline: This is a course in two parts: As a preliminary matter, this course focuses on an introduction to the American legal education system and the skills a student must possess to succeed. The curriculum will include instruction in the case method of the study of law in the United States, including briefing a case and recitation; the importance of outlining as a method of exam preparation; and actual exam writing skills, especially if a majority of students are more familiar with an oral exam tradition. Then this course shifts focus to a skills-based examination of the U.S. legal system. This curriculum will be problem-based, using fact-pattern simulations to develop oral communication, legal writing, research, and analysis skills essential to practice in the U.S. legal system.

Course Syllabus: Syllabus

Course Notes: (Face-to-Face) The UH registration system instruction mode for this course is listed in parenthesis. For this instruction mode, instructors and students are expected to normally be physically present in the classroom. If the course has a final examination, it will be in a classroom requiring your physical presence. Other assessment, such as a mid-term exam, may also be in a classroom. Whether this instructor will offer “remote presence” (starting a zoom meeting from the podium computer to enable student remote access on an occasional basis) for part or all of the semester is not known, but students should not rely on an expectation that remote presence will be available.

For FLLM students only.

Prerequisites:

First Day Assignments:

Final Exam Schedule:

This course will have:
Exam:
Paper:

Satisfies Senior Upper Level Writing Requirement: No

Experiential Course Type: No

Bar Course: No

DistanceEd ABA: No

Pass-Fail Student Election: Unavailable (Required Course)

Course Materials

No book required for this course

There will not be a textbook for this class. I will provide supplements with readings for class. These will be provided to you free of charge on the course page.