In addition to the clinical programs and advanced litigation offerings, the law school offers a number of courses and seminars, primarily for third-year students, that afford students the opportunity to engage in intensive legal problem solving. These courses require students to integrate the substantive law they have learned (often in several different courses) and the lawyering skills they have learned in simulated client representations. For example, in 601:571 Problems in Family Law and Practice, students explore advanced issues in family law through classroom study, clinical work under the supervision of cooperating attorneys on pending legal matters in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, and critical writing and reflection on family law and lawyering.
The six-hour class in Litigation offers students the opportunity to
integrate an advanced study of civil procedure with lawyering experience.
The course is structured around a simulated lawsuit. Each week, four
hours of class time is devoted to studying the law that controls each aspect of
civil litigation, from formation of the attorney-client relationship, through
pleading and discovery to the final pretrial order. In an additional two
hours per week, the class meets at the federal courthouse with federal
magistrates, who conduct lawyering exercises that correspond with the doctrinal
material studied in class. Students will draft pleadings, conduct
depositions, and argue discovery disputes and summary judgment motions, in
addition to other exercises.
