Legal Skills Program

Welcome to the Legal Skills Program at the University of Baltimore School of Law

Most students think that they will learn “the law” when they come to law school. Learning rules of law is an essential component of legal education, but it is only part of the picture. When surveyed about what is most important to successful legal practice, lawyers put skills in oral and written communication, legal analysis, and legal reasoning at the top of the list, ranking them even higher than knowledge of the rules of law. ¹ These are the skills lawyers use every day, regardless of the type of law they practice. And these are the skills students learn in the Legal Skills Program.

The Legal Skills Program at University of Baltimore School of Law is unique in the way it integrates training in these legal skills with learning "the law," that is, the first-year doctrinal curriculum.  In the first semester, each student will receive analysis, research, and writing skills training in connection with either Contracts, Torts, or Civil Procedure in a course we call Introduction to Lawyering Skills.  This six- or seven-credit course is led by a full-time, tenured or tenure-track professor, assisted by members of the adjunct faculty and student teaching assistants.  By combining the courses in this way, we believe students will experience the relationship between doctrine and skills as it really exists in the practice of law.   

In the second required semester, all students will take Introduction to Advocacy, which advances their skills training in the context of a simulated lawsuit.  Students will learn the fundamentals of persuasive writing by preparing and trial-level and appellate briefs as well as arguing their case orally before a court that consists of lawyers and judges from the community.  Students will receive most of their training in small groups led by adjunct faculty members:  judges, partners and associates in law firms, government attorneys, sole practitioners, and state legislators.  These adjunct Writing Professors keep the skills training grounded in real world of legal practice.

Many students say that the Legal Skills Program's courses are the most difficult courses they take in law school. Although the curriculum is challenging, students receive in-depth, personal feedback on their work in each course.   The reward for the hard work is being prepared for legal practice.

¹See e.g. Bryant G. Garth & Joanne Martin, Law Schools and the Construction of Competence, 43 J. Leg. Educ. 469 (1993).