The University of St. Thomas

First Year Classes

First Year

In the fall semester students attend courses on an “immersion” basis, and take only four courses: Civil Procedure, Torts, Foundations of Justice, and Lawyering Skills.  This course structure gives faculty and students sustained exposure to each other and allows students to immerse themselves in the materials they are studying. This structure also allows students to address more intellectually challenging problems and reduces the number of final exams.  To assure feedback on progress each fall semester course has a graded midterm exam. 

In the spring semester, we anticipate having students take five courses: Constitutional Law, Contracts, Criminal Law, Property, and Lawyering Skills totaling fifteen credits.  Professors are encouraged to provide feedback by offering midterm exams. 

Our intensive legal research, analysis and writing program gives students the skills they need to thrive as lawyers. Lawyering Skills I in the fall semester and Lawyering Skills II in the spring semester are important parts of the first-year curriculum. Students draft objective and persuasive legal documents, including legal memoranda, opinion letters, pre-trial motion briefs and litigation documents. Students also present oral arguments to a moot court based on their briefs.

Required First-Year Courses

 
The first-year class is divided into two sections of approximately 85 students each. Each section is further divided into two sections of roughly forty students each for Foundations of Justice and into four subsections of approximately 20 students each for purposes of the Lawyering Skills classes.  Thus, in the first semester students will have smaller class experiences.