Journal article
Teaching Transactional Lawyering
Drexel law review, Vol.1, p69
2012
Abstract
Drexel University's Earle Mack School of Law opened its doors to its first class of students in the fall of 2006. From its inception, Drexel's law school was going to take seriously the challenge of providing a legal education that offered a rigorous foundation in legal analysis and traditional legal doctrine, while incorporating a greater exposure to writing, skills train- ing, and "experiential learning." Starting with a blank slate, we were free to experiment and to be guided (within resource constraints) by our view of an ideal program.
The biggest experiment we undertook in introducing Drexel's first class of law students to the world of business entities and transactional lawyering was a new course entitled "Law & Finance of Transactional Lawyering." 3 In this new course, we managed to give twenty-five members of our first graduating class one of the most intensive exposures to business law practice I am aware of at any law school. We also began our efforts to construct a "keystone" course that could serve to link the traditional doctrinal courses of the early years of law school with the "experiential" and "skills" courses that come in the upper years. Our goal is to teach transactional lawyering in a manner that melds practical knowledge with theoretical insight, "hands on" experience with structured demonstration, and skill mastery with vision and judgment. Our goal is to educate experts.
I proceed as follows. In Part II, I provide a description of the Transactional Lawyering class and its pedagogical context. In Part III, I share a few of the lessons learned from my first experience with the Transactional Lawyering course and share the reactions I have received from students, lawyers, and business persons who participated in the course. I then make some concluding remarks about teaching transactional lawyering in law schools.
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Details
- Title
- Teaching Transactional Lawyering
- Creators
- Karl S Okamoto - Drexel University
- Publication Details
- Drexel law review, Vol.1, p69
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Language
- English
- Academic Unit
- Thomas R. Kline School of Law
- Identifiers
- 991021866421204721