New ETL Portfolio on Professional Responsibility

Professor Lawrence C. Marshall of Stanford Law School has posted a new course portfolio on Professional Responsibility on the Educating Tomorrow's Lawyers Website.

He writes, "The teaching method I use is one that fully integrates the Carnegie Study’s three apprenticeships: substantive knowledge; skills expertise; and professional identity.  The course gives students the real responsibility of serving as an Ethics Committee actually resolving problems arising (in real time) within our legal clinics. Other than a memorandum describing the facts of the issue we will be addressing each week, I eschew providing cases or other materials—relying instead on the student to develop research skills in finding appropriate sources that will form the basis of our discussions and decisions."

He describes the outcome as, "The evidence of effectiveness comes from seeing the improvement in the quality of the student’s research and analysis from the beginning of the course to the end. In addition, in their end-of-the-course evaluations, students often describe the class as a very significant one in the scaffold of their education—mentioning on the ways in which it integrates the theoretical framework of the topic with an intense problem solving approach."

With this course portfolio, ETL now has portfolios on Advanced Contracts, Labor Relations Law, Discovery Practicum, Family Law with Skills, Contracts I & II, First Year Contracts, State Civil Procedure, Litigation and Transactional Immersions, and Professional Responsibility.   These portfolios demonstrate in detail how to incorporate skills into doctrinal courses or how to develop innovative skills courses.  ETL welcomes submissions of course portfolios for innovative courses.

(Scott Fruehwald)