Introduction to Litigation Skills

Litigation is built on a core set of skills, reading carefully, analyzing precisely, and communicating clearly. This course is designed to help second-year law students strengthen those fundamentals through hands-on, client-centered tasks. Each week, students will engage with assignments modeled on the kinds of tasks litigators actually perform. Students will follow a single case through the pleading stage, building practical litigation skills at each step and gaining the kind of hands-on experience that helps make graduates practice ready. The course is also designed with an eye toward preparing students for the NextGen Bar Exam. Students will produce written work product across bar-tested litigation-centric subjects including Civil Procedure and Torts and the course will include assignments modeled after NextGen Bar Exam Performance Tasks and Integrated Question Sets, giving students early exposure to the format of the exam and helping students build skills that the exam demands. Students will have regular opportunities for one-on-one feedback with the professor and will participate in small-group work throughout the semester. Written assignments are the primary graded component, and detailed feedback will give students a clear picture of their progress and a concrete path forward. This is a two-credit course that satisfies the Additional Upper-Level Writing Requirement. This class is limited to 2F, 2P and 3P students only.