AB INITIO - THE BIRTH OF A LAW SCHOOL

Prior articles in this series have stressed how the University of St. Thomas School of Law will differ from other law schools. Both the University’s Board of Trustees and the School of Law’s Board of Governors have embraced the recommendation of the feasibility study that St. Thomas should proceed with opening a new law school only if the school will be unique. Most of the articles in this series have focused on describing why St. Thomas will not be “just another law school.”

As this series draws to a close, it may be helpful to describe the ways in which St. Thomas will not differ from traditional legal education institutions. Although St. Thomas will be unique in many ways, one of the core goals of its program will be the same as that of every other successful law school: turning law students into highly competent practitioners.

Rule 1.1 of the Model Rules of Professional Conduct requires lawyers to “provide competent representation” and states that competent representation requires “legal knowledge, skill, thoroughness and preparation.” Every law school, no matter what its particular niche, must equip its students to “provide competent representation” - not only so that they are able to pass the bar examination, and not only so that they are able to practice in any field of law, but so that they can give clients the level of service demanded by the rules of professional responsibility.

Legal knowledge: To make certain that its students gain the legal knowledge necessary to provide competent representation, St. Thomas has hired an experienced faculty. Every one of the ten members of its first year faculty - without exception - has substantial experience teaching at established law schools. In this sense, St. Thomas is not really a “new” law school. It is a place where experienced law teachers are coming together to take up a new challenge.

The faculty members at St. Thomas do not need to learn how to teach. All of them have received excellent teaching evaluations at other institutions. All of them know how to help students, whatever their style of learning, to do their personal best. All of them know how to recognize when a student is struggling and how to give that student the extra attention that he or she needs to succeed.

St. Thomas is located at the heart of one of the largest and most dynamic legal communities in the country, and it will take full advantage of that fact by hiring a number of adjunct professors. Adjuncts typically teach an upper division course while continuing to practice full-time. Some of St. Thomas’s adjunct professors will be experienced teachers; others will have been inspired by St. Thomas to try teaching for the first time. But all adjuncts will be successful and ethical lawyers - men and women who are out on that “mountain” that St. Thomas students will have to “climb.”

Gaining the legal knowledge necessary to be a competent lawyer requires not only a strong faculty, but also a rigorous curriculum. St. Thomas will require all first year students to take civil procedure, constitutional law, contracts, criminal law, property and torts. First year students will also have to take a legal research and writing course in the fall, and an additional legal research and writing program in the spring. Finally, first year students will participate in a mentor program, which will focus in particular on issues of ethics and professionalism. In the upper years, a number of core courses, such as studies in administrative law, corporate law, ethics, evidence, intellectual property, international law, jurisprudence, and taxation, will either be required or be highly recommended, and students will continue to participate in the mentor program. There will be a large enough number of electives to allow students to specialize.

Skill: St. Thomas will teach its students the skills they need to practice law successfully in a variety of ways. Some of that instruction will take place in the classroom, in the required legal research and writing courses and in such elective courses as trial advocacy and alternative dispute resolution. Some of that instruction will take place outside of the classroom, in the moot court and client counseling competitions and in other programs. All students will learn some basic skills through the mentor program, and those students who participate in St. Thomas’s unique inter-professional clinic will have intensive exposure to “real world” lawyering.

Thoroughness and preparation: Faculty members will convey the importance of thoroughness and preparation both in the example they provide and in the way they teach their courses.

St. Thomas’s faculty members are themselves accomplished lawyers and scholars. All of them will be engaged in significant research and scholarship and significant outside activities related to their academic work. And all of them, of course, will prepare for class. They are people who set high standards for themselves and who work hard to meet those standards; they will provide role models of thoroughness and careful preparation.

Faculty members will also set high standards in the classroom. Students will learn that preparation and thoroughness are rewarded. Students who come to class unprepared or produce inadequate work will not only receive appropriately low grades, but will be required to perform better in the future. Sometimes the work of those students will have to be redone. As experienced and effective teachers, faculty members at St. Thomas will work with students who are struggling as well as with students who are excelling. The faculty will expect the best of each student.

In every field of representation: St. Thomas will graduate a microcosm of the legal profession. Some of its graduates will practice in large law firms or in large corporations; others will work for the government or for public interest employers; others will hang out their shingles as solo practitioners. Some will not practice law at all, but will take the problem-solving skills that they learn in law school into careers in business, medicine, politics, education or one of a variety of other fields.

Model Rule 1.1 does not require a lawyer to be competent in every field of representation, but only in those areas in which he or she practices. However, because of the diversity of its student body, St. Thomas must provide an education that will make a student competent to serve in any of the many fields of representation that he or she might undertake. For example, St. Thomas needs to have a strong business track, a strong litigation track, a strong intellectual property track, and so on.

This is becoming more challenging. The practice of law is not only becoming increasingly specialized, but it is also becoming increasingly interdisciplinary. The University of St. Thomas is fortunate to have many well-regarded graduate programs. The law school will take advantage of those programs by offering joint degrees with the graduate schools of business, entrepreneurship, social work, professional psychology, education, divinity, and software - such as a general J.D./Master of Business Administration (MBA), a J.D./MBA Entrepreneurship, a J.D./Master of Social Work, and a J.D./Master of Psychology. These programs will be developed with the assistance of our newly hired Director of Joint Degrees. The availability of a variety of interdisciplinary courses - as well as the inter-professional clinic - will prove valuable even for students who are not pursuing joint degrees. We live in an interdisciplinary world.

Father Theodore Hesburgh, C.S.C., the President Emeritus of the University of Notre Dame, once said about lawyers, “Compassion without competence is a cruel hoax on those whom [lawyers] serve.” The faculty members of this new law school agree. Whether a St. Thomas student chooses to be a business lawyer, litigator, public interest advocate, prosecutor, corporate counsel, or any other kind of counselor or advocate, she or he will be more than ready.

David T. Link
Dean
University of St. Thomas School of Law

posted May 17, 2001

For more information please contact:

University of St. Thomas School of Law
MPL 440
1000 LaSalle Ave
Minneapolis, MN 55403

E-mail: Lawschool@stthomas.edu
Web: http://www.stthomas.edu/lawschool

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