Foundations of Justice

(Law 640; 3 credits)
The Foundations of Justice course is designed to accomplish several complementary goals.  First, to assure that we implement a pervasive approach to integrating faith and reason in a search for truth with a focus on morality and social justice -- our unique and distinctive mission – we have designed the Foundations of Justice course to provide a "common reader" if you will -- a set of sources and readings everyone will have become familiar with through this class that each of us can then draw upon in some context in our other classes without having to create supplemental materials.  We also believe the foundational concepts that we will be discussing should be part of a "core, legal education."  There are any number of great thinkers/writers/scholars over the centuries, some writing from a variety of religious perspectives, some writing from a more secular perspective, who have written about justice and frameworks for thinking about justice in various contexts.  It is our goal to draw on this rich tradition to provide all students a common grounding in different approaches to thinking about justice.  The pedagogical model will involve discussion of concepts in theory, as applied in some policy context, and then as might be encountered by an attorney in practice.  This leads to the second goal, helping students reinforce their own moral compass that will guide them in the development of their professional identity as lawyers.  In its recent book entitled Educating Lawyers, the Carnegie Endowment for the Advancement of Teaching criticized legal education for its failure in helping students with professional formation – developing the moral compass they will need to be successful as members of the legal profession.  Foundations of Justice provides students with an opportunity to begin that experience of professional formation by helping them better understand and nurture their own moral compass  Finally, we want Foundations of Justice to accomplish two other goals.  We anticipate offering it in four sections of roughly 38-40 students.  We have been desirous of giving our first year students another "small class" experience in addition to the Lawyering Skills courses they take.  The Foundations of Justice course provides that opportunity for us.  With this smaller class size we also hope to facilitate/model a process of discourse about challenging issues that we believe truly is distinctive among law schools around the country.  We want to provide students opportunities to get experience disagreeing with peers/professors in a context in which they each continue to treat each other with the respect and dignity each deserves as a child of God.  This is a truly innovative and unique aspect of the St. Thomas education that we hope sets the tone for how discussion takes place among students, staff and faculty throughout the three years of law school, both in and out of the classroom. 
(Sample Syllabus)
Return to Course Index