It's Time to Get It Right: Problem-Solving in the First-Year Curriculum
70 Pages Posted: 19 Mar 2013
Date Written: 2012
Abstract
In this article, a course entitled Practice, Problem-Solving, and Professionalism (P3), is used as a case study in legal education curricular reform. The authors contend that the problem-solving emphasis of the course and its placement in the first-year curriculum responds elegantly to the various calls for legal education reform over the last few decades. Moreover, the authors believe the course should replace separate Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) courses which have proliferated in law school curricula.
Part II of this article briefly reviews some reforms in legal practice and legal education as they relate to ADR and problem-solving. Part III details the institutional genesis of the P3 course at Hamline University School of Law. Part IV explains the actual design and implementation of the P3 course. In Part V, the authors critique the course and provide details for the revised spring 2012 iteration. Finally, in Part VI, the authors reiterate the support for a problem-solving course in the first-year legal curriculum.
Keywords: P3, problem-solving, Missouri model, Riskin, ADR, dispute resolution, adventure learning, legal curriculum, legal education, education reform, Langdellian, pound conference, mediation, Fisher, Menkel-Meadow, adversarial, negotiation, MacCrate Report, Carnegie Report, Hamline Law School, DRI
JEL Classification: I2, I21, K00, K41, J52
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation