Article
It's Elementary. Let's Play Rock, Paper, Scissors: Civil Procedure, Property, Contracts, and Torts During First-Year Law School Orientation
Memphis Law Review
(2024)
Abstract
Civil Procedure, Property, Contracts, and Torts are all standard first-year doctrinal law school courses. They provide law students with a solid legal foundation and expose them to American rule-based and precedent-based law. The first year of law school is also often a student’s first introduction to these legal subjects. First-year law students often fail to realize how the material taught in each of these classes complements what they are learning in the other classes. Students focus on learning the material and professors focus on transmitting the information in a comprehensible manner. First-year orientation can be an opportunity to introduce doctrinal material in a creative way to show the pragmatic interrelatedness of the first-year classes. This introduction does not require a complete retooling of the professor’s teaching style or semester syllabus. It can be accomplished by relying on traditional teaching techniques such as presenting the first-year students with an introduction which highlights how the first-year courses dovetail together. The notion of a preparatory introduction to American law at the beginning of a student’s legal studies is also not novel. American law schools have a long tradition of teaching introductory courses. It is time to reintroduce and modernize this practice. By framing an introductory or elementary law discussion in a fun and creative way during orientation, students will be both more willing to proceed on the academic journey and engage early and often with their professors. The game of Rock, Paper, Scissors (RPS) is the perfect framing tool: the Rock, Paper and Scissors relate easily to Civil Procedure, Property Law, Contracts Law and Torts Law in a creative and innovative way to explain how these subjects co-exist. Civil Procedure provides the rules of the RPS game. Property law is represented by the Rock, Contracts law is represented by the Paper, and Torts law is represented by the Scissors. Relying upon RPS reimagined as the first-year curriculum, allows professors to present an overarching hypothetical to the incoming law students during orientation. Thereafter, professors segue into a discussion of the legal issues that arise in each class and demonstrate to students how the law acts as one cohesive entity made up of many individual and connected components.
Keywords
- First year subjects,
- legal pedagogy
Disciplines
- Law and
- Legal Education
Publication Date
2024
Citation Information
Aleatra P. Alexander, Constance A. Anastopoulo, Jean Steadman and William M Janssen. "It's Elementary. Let's Play Rock, Paper, Scissors: Civil Procedure, Property, Contracts, and Torts During First-Year Law School Orientation" Memphis Law Review Vol. forthcoming (2024) ISSN: 10808582 Available at: http://works.bepress.com/aleatra_williams/10/