Teaching Civil Procedure With the Aid of Local Tort Litigation

Lloyd C. Anderson, University of Akron School of Law
Charles E. Kirkwood, University of Akron School of Law

Abstract

Law students ought to graduate from law school with at least a minimum degree of professional competence. They should be able to begin the practice of law with a rudimentary knowledge of what a civil litigator must do to represent a client competently.8 Traditional legal education teaches by providing a vicarious experience: the students read judicial opinions and analyze the legal rules and principles upon which a decision is based. Properly done, this method does an admirable job of teaching legal concepts and developing essential analytical skills. All too often, however, law students armed with these concepts and skills enter the practice of law and find it an alien world in which they feel ill-equipped to represent a client competently in civil litigation.