The February issue of The Docket, a montly publication of the Colorado Bar Association, includes an article by a former student, Beth A. Tomerlin. The article, The Practicality of Practicums: Thinking and Acting Like a Lawyer, One Class at a Time, describes the Discovery Practicum course that I have taught at DU Law School for nearly 20 years. Beth was a student of mine in Lawyering Process in her first year, and took the Discovery course in her second year. She graduated from the law school in 2007.
Needless to say, it is gratifying to read what a student has written after taking one of your courses, particularly when it is written from the perspective of having been out in practice for several years. But this is especially true when it makes such a convicing case about how the course helped her be prepared for practice. For any teacher, seeing a student succeed with what you taught them is immensely gratifying. For a teacher like me who has given so many years to this sort of teaching - well, it doesn't get better.
Although I have to say, it takes some getting used to. I first taught this course almost 20 years ago at DU, as an adjunct professor. I felt like I was about as alone as alone could be. I thought it was working, and my students seemed to think so too (for the most part). I tweaked the course over the years, and when I joined the full-time faculty in 2003 I revived the course in the curriculum, and have taught it once or twice a year since then.
It is not like this is rocket science or anything. It can be done with virtually any law school course. It is based on the simple proposition of "Learn and Do." Learn the rules and the cases - the applicable doctrine - and then practice it in between classes. In my experience, this is best accomplished when the course is designed as what I call a "whole course simulation," organized around a rich problem set.
It is this kind of course that really needs new teaching materials, since a traditional casebook just won't work. That is why I have been serving as Series Editor on the Skills & Values Series with Lexis for the last several years, and why I authored the S&V book for Discovery. Although you could use it in several different ways, it is designed to support this kind of whole course simulation (as are the other S&V texts).
In the Discovery course, students read the rule, applicable cases, and some information about strategy and context before class (some of which is in that print book shown above, and some of which is in the Webcourse for the book online), then we review and discuss that material in class, and then the students engage in a mock litigation and *use* the discovery tools and strategies we have learned about in class. Each week, they prepare a discovery document and serve it on their opposing counsel. The next week we learn about the next discovery rule, and then we practice that one. I give them feedback on each assignment. Later in the semester they take, defend, and act as a witness in a deposition (with student court reporters taking down the transcript). And at the end of the course they settle the case in settlement negotiations, and the final paper is their settlement agreement.
There are many advantages of teaching in this way. For starters, it's more fun. For the teacher as well as the students. As a result, both are more engaged, and engaged learners are learning more. Students love this approach (you may read some of my student evaluations at the link below). Imagine such a course with a professor lecturing about the rules and strategy during class, with students taking a final exam for 100% of the grade. Well, I suppose students could learn the rules and cases in the traditional class (although I don't think they would learn more substance than what my students learn anyway), but the retention rate would be awful. And they would never actually learn how to draft the discovery documents they will soon be asked to draft in practice.
But don't believe me! Read Beth's article - it's all in there.
When I read the Carnegie Report in 2007 I was gratified to see it argue in favor of more law school courses in which Doctrine, Skills, and Professional Identity are integrated. Because that perfectly describes the goal of the course design for the Discovery Practicum. Students learn the doctrine - be assured of that. But they also begin to develop their skills of using the doctrine (and hone their legal writing skills too - always a good thing). Perhaps most importantly, the simulation creates situations in which the students are called upon to begin to develop their professional identities. What kind of lawyer do they want to be? How will they behave when this situation arises in practice? A typical law school course can *ask* students questions like that, but until they are put in a situation that requires them to confront their own decision making process, they won't really know what their answer will be. I think that when the Carnegie Report called upon law schools to do a better job integrating Professional identity formation into the curriculum, this is the sort of opportunity they were referring to.
In sum, it is nice that the course is getting some attention, finally. But mostly I am proud of Beth, for working hard in law school, thinking through what she needed out of the experience, and now for making her way in her career. And I am proud that she feels like she received a good education at the DU Law School. Her article is a good rebuke to David Segal's most recent article in the New York Times, which had the headline: "What They Don't Teach You in Law School: Lawyering." Ha.
If you would like to learn more about how the Discovery course works, read Beth's article, and take a look at the teaching portfolio on the Educating Tomorrow's Lawyers website. Also, please feel free to contact me with any questions - I would be glad to help in any way I can.
