Fall 2023
Professor(s):
Lauren Simpson (CLINICAL FACULTY [405(b)])
Credits: 3
Course Areas: 1st Year - Part-Time
Time: 7:30p-8:45p M- 102B Location: TH- 220
Course Outline: Lawyering Skills and Strategies I will focus on an introduction to the American legal system and the underlying skills and strategies that lawyers must possess to succeed within it. By working through fact-specific problems both inside and outside the classroom, students will learn to identify legal issues; to locate and to assess the governing law; to communicate with the client; to analyze legal issues within the context of particular fact patterns; to cite to the governing law; and to write clear and concise documents that reflect that legal analysis or that address the client’s transactional needs.
Course Syllabus: Syllabus
Course Description
Course Notes: (Face-to-Face) The UH registration system instruction mode for this course is listed in parenthesis. After student registration opens, there may be instruction mode changes to this course up through two weeks before the first day of classes for the term, but notice of such changes will be sent to then-registered students. For this instruction mode, instructors and students are expected to normally be physically present in the classroom. If the course has a final examination, it will be in a classroom requiring your physical presence. Other assessment, such as a mid-term exam, may also be in a classroom. Whether this instructor will offer “remote presence” (starting a zoom meeting from the podium computer to enable student remote access on an occasional basis) for part or all of the semester is not known, but students should not rely on an expectation that remote presence will be available.
**BOOKS LISTED ARE FOR PROF. SIMPSON'S E1 & E2 SECTIONS
Prerequisites:
First Day Assignments:
Final Exam Schedule:
This course will have:
Exam:
Paper:
Satisfies Senior Upper Level Writing Requirement: No
Experiential Course Type: No
Bar Course: No
DistanceEd ABA: No
Pass-Fail Student Election: Unavailable (Required Course)
Course Materials
Book(s) Required
• The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation (21st edition [2020], or latest edition) 9780578666150
• Christina Coughlin, John Malmud, & Sandy Patrick, A Lawyer Writes: A Practical Guide to Legal Analysis (3d ed. 2018) 978-1-5310-0876-5
• Tina L. Stark, Drafting Contracts: How & Why Lawyers Do What They Do (2d ed.) 9780735594777
• Kamela Bridges & Wayne Scheiss, Writing for Litigation (1st ed. 2011) (NOTE: this isn’t the most current edition: I’ve chosen an older edition to reduce students’ costs.) 9781454802730
NOTE: With the possible exception of The Bluebook, used copies of each book’s required edition should be available online at a reduced cost.