St. Francis Combines Professional Lawyering Skills and Legal Doctrine

What is more important in legal education – teaching professional lawyering skills or teaching legal doctrine?  The answer is that both are needed to effectively educate a future lawyer.  Knowledge of legal doctrine will go a long way to preparing law students to pass the bar exams.  But knowledge of legal doctrine alone does not prepare a student for the actual practice of law.  Instruction on professional lawyering skills is critical.  The St. Francis School of Law J.D. program provides comprehensive doctrinal knowledge, combined with extensive instruction in practical professional lawyering skills.  Students learn legal research, legal writing, and the art of the oral argument from professors who are highly skilled.  Students draft contracts, legal memoranda, as well as wills and trusts, powers of attorney with the guidance of their professors.  Students learn about and practice negotiation, mediation and arbitration in a variety of cases involving everything from sexual harassment, to personal injury, to construction.  Students learn how to draft motions, and discovery.  They practice advising clients concerning a wide range of legal issues.  Each upper level doctrinal course features lawyering skills components that are integrated into the curriculum, to bring the legal doctrine to life, demonstrating how the legal concepts are applied in practice.  Delivering meaningful instruction on practical lawyering tasks requires a faculty with a depth of practical experience.