Academic Program
Required courses
Your studies begin with ten required courses. Eight are in substantive areas of the law that serve as a foundation for more advanced legal studies:
- Civil Procedure
- Contracts
- Torts
- Constitutional Law
- Property
- Criminal Law
- Criminal Procedure I
- Evidence
- Legal Research and Writing I and II.
The required Legal Research and Writing course, taught by adjunct legal writing instructors under the direction and supervision of a full-time faculty member, is an introduction to legal analysis and legal writing. Students compose a variety of legal documents, receive instruction in legal research and legal ethics, and participate in a moot court project for which they prepare and argue a case before a panel of judges. This is the first of many opportunities during law school to use and refine legal writing skills. - Law and Ethics of Lawyering.
The required course in Law and Ethics of Lawyering focuses on a lawyer's ethical responsibilities and the profession's oversight of lawyers' behavior. Because ethical issues cannot be separated from the practice or the study of law, the consideration of these issues is a thread that is woven through all courses at New England School of Law.
Electives - pursuing your own interests
In addition to required courses, you are able to select from among nearly 150 electives. You are encouraged to explore and experiment, as you familiarize yourself with different areas of the law. Four electives are recommended by the faculty as especially good basic preparation for practice:
- Administrative Law
- Business Organizations
- Wills, Estates, and Trusts
- Personal Income Taxation
- International Human Rights Law
- European Union Law
- Public Interest Law Seminar and Clinic
- Domestic Violence
- Civil Rights
- Mass Media Law
- Environmental Justice
- Indigenous Peoples' Rights
- Contemporary Popular Criticism of Lawyers and the Legal System
In the last year of law school, you may choose to do independent legal research, which involves a tutorial arrangement with a professor in the field and a directed legal research and writing project.
Requirements for Graduation
To be eligible to graduate:
- Day division: A student must complete at least six semesters of study and 86 hours of credit required for graduation.
(Begining with Fall 2005 incoming class) - Evening division: A student must complete at least eight semesters of study and 86 hours of credit required for graduation.
(Begining with Fall 2005 incoming class) - Special Part-time Program students, students who transfer between the day and evening divisions, and students who transfer from another law school: Equivalent requirements are set by the dean's office, on an individual basis.
- In addition, all students must fulfill certain residency requirements mandated for law schools by the American Bar Association (details are provided in the New England School of Law Student Handbook of Rules and Regulations).
- A graduating student must have completed substantially all credit and degree requirements at New England School of Law. A student may receive credit for summer study at another law school to decrease his or her course load during the academic year, providing advance approval has been obtained. However, tuition is based on the entire course of study required for a degree (three years for day division and four years for evening division), so students are charged the full tuition for their program, regardless of credits earned in summer programs. Students may also arrange to "visit out" at a member law school of the Consortium for Innovative Legal Education, Inc.
In addition to the above requirements and the 10 required courses, the following must be satisfied before graduation from New England School of Law:
- Professional skills requirement.
- Each student is required to take at least two courses from an approved list of clinical, simulation, and practice courses. The faculty strongly recommends that at least one of these courses be a clinical course.
- Public law distribution requirement.
- Each student must choose two courses from an approved list developed by the faculty. For purposes of this requirement, public law is the body of law that addresses the legal position of individuals in relation to the government and the structure and operation of the government itself. As such, public law necessarily raises issues of constitutional and social concern.
- Seminar requirement.
- Each student is required to take at least one course designated as a seminar. Usually a substantial part of the seminar grade is based on a paper.
