Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2011
Keywords
legal writing, legal education
Abstract
This article is an outgrowth of the author’s participation in a July 29, 2009 panel presentation, “Change in Legal Education: Practical Skills,” at the Symposium, YES WE CArNegie: Change in Legal Education after the Carnegie Report. The article responds to the Carnegie Report’s call to “bridge the gap between analytical and practical knowledge” by presenting two models for integrating skills with doctrine in the first-year curriculum. The first model, built into the curriculum at the University of Maryland School of Law, involves teaching the first semester Legal Analysis & Writing course by pairing it with another required first-semester course, Torts, Contracts, Civil Procedure, or Criminal Law. The second model is an example of one way the author built on the ideas behind the integrated curriculum by pairing a section of the required second-semester Advocacy course with a first-year elective seminar in Public Health Law. The article presents reasons why such integration is a good idea, and it includes examples of what makes these models work so well. The article concludes by suggesting ways of translating these ideas into other settings, no matter how the curriculum is structured, by recommending additional ways of integrating analysis and writing skills with theory and doctrine in law school courses.
Publication Citation
17 Journal of the Legal Writing Institute, forthcoming (2011)
Disciplines
Legal Education | Legal Writing and Research
Digital Commons Citation
Hankin, Susan J., "Bridging Gaps and Blurring Lines: Integrating Analysis, Writing, Doctrine, and Theory" (2011). Faculty Scholarship. 978.
https://digitalcommons.law.umaryland.edu/fac_pubs/978