The distinctive two-year Global Lawyering Skills (GLS) intensive legal writing program — ranked #13 by U.S. News & World Report in 2012 — is designed to enhance and deepen the students' experience in research, writing, and oral advocacy and produce skilled, practice-ready graduates. This required, four-semester program draws from our Legal Process and Appellate & International Advocacy courses while adding more simulations and hands-on, real-world experience.
Complementing our commitment to globalizing the curriculum, GLS integrates international and comparative law into the program, requiring students to use international as well as domestic sources to solve client problems. This comprehensive preparation has been cited as the most significant integration of international and comparative law in a legal writing program to date.
The Global Lawyering Skills program, a required four-semester program, is committed to producing practice-ready students. The Global Lawyering Skills program is "global" both in the broad range of core lawyering skills and "global" in its transnational approach to teaching legal skills. Through our program, students are provided numerous hands-on learning opportunities designed to enhance and deepen their experience with research, writing, oral advocacy and a variety of other lawyering skills.
The Global Lawyering Skills program is comprised of two required courses — Global Lawyering Skills I and Global Lawyering Skills II.
Global Lawyering Skills I — four (4) units
In the first year of law school, students are introduced to case analysis, objective and persuasive legal writing, oral reports, client interviewing, client counseling, client communications and professional correspondence, including advice and demand letters and e-mail, mediation, oral advocacy, and legal research in both national and international law, including print and electronic research, and citation (Bluebook, ALWD, and California Style Manual).
Global Lawyering Skills II — four (4) units
In the second year of law school, students receive more in-depth instruction on persuasive written and oral advocacy, including trial briefs and arguments and appellate level briefs and arguments, which culminate in a campus-wide moot court competition before local judges and practitioners. It also includes further instruction in legal research, both domestic and international, client-counseling, professional communication, and mediation, and an introduction to settlement negotiation and contract drafting.
International and Transnational Focus
The Global Lawyering Skills program is themed around international and transnational practice. This innovative component in our program takes our students' lawyering skills beyond the traditional legal research and writing curriculum. In both the first and the second year, GLS introduces our students to key concepts for international and transnational legal practice, introduces legal systems from other countries, demonstrates sources and strategies for international research, and includes research, writing, and oral argument assignments with international and transnational components.
GLS also partners with McGeorge's International LLM Program, inviting our international graduate students to give presentations on their country's legal systems to our GLS students. These presentations bring first-hand experience in different legal systems to the GLS classroom and promote cultural awareness.
Questions?
Mary-Beth Moylan, Associate Professor of Law
Email | 916.739.7223
