Legal Research & Writing Program Prepares Law Students for Legal Work

September 22, 2004

"I felt like I was prepared," former students tell Janet George Blocher, director of the Capital University Law School Legal Research and Writing program, when relating their experiences working in firms, corporations, and government offices outside the Law School.

The focus of Capital University Law School’s Legal Research and Writing program is to build the necessary legal research, writing and analytical skills that students must use as attorneys. "When students tell me they’re prepared, I know that we have reached the benchmark of success for our program," says Blocher.

The Law School’s Legal Research and Writing program was revamped in 1993 to respond to a growing need in the legal community for instruction that provided students with the necessary skills to enter practice. Capital’s small legal research and writing classes provide intense, hands-on instruction to all students.

The Law School’s legal writing requirements include:

1. A year-long class covering legal analysis, legal research and legal writing that students take during the first year;

2. An upper class writing requirement that is satisfied when the student produces a document of significant length that includes detailed legal analysis. Examples include a law review article, a seminar paper or an appellate brief; and

3. A one-semester Legal Drafting course that students take during their final year of law school.

Not only does the first year program give students practical experience, but it also has top instructors teaching the required courses and providing a high-quality education in legal writing. The Legal Research and Writing faculty teach students how to analyze, research, and construct predictive and persuasive documents, and they give one-on-one feedback to students.

Implemented as a new requirement beginning this academic year, the Legal Drafting course compliments the first year course by focusing on legal writing and legal analysis. Students are asked to write a new document nearly every week of the semester and are guided by one-on-one feedback from their Drafting Course Instructor.

The newly hired Legal Drafting course instructors are Thomas Brown, a former law director of the City of Lakewood, Ohio; Bridget Hayward Kahle, previously Assistant Chief Legal Counsel at the Ohio Department of Development; and Jeffrey C. Snapp, a solo-practitioner providing general trial, guardian ad litem, and mediation services. Mr. Snapp is also an Acting Judge for the Bellefontaine Municipal Court. Norman Plate, Senior Deputy Attorney General and Chief of the Corrections Litigation Section at the Ohio Attorney General’s Office, has joined the Legal Research and Writing Faculty teaching in the first year program.

[ More about the Legal Research and Writing Program ]