DeanWuBlog

Courses

I encourage students, as they consider course selection, to register for the subjects in which they have the greatest interest and not necessarily the subjects that will be tested on the bar exam. In the first-year required curriculum, we ensure that students are exposed to all of the foundational areas of law. After that, other than Professional Responsibility, you are free to sign up for the classes you’d like to take.

Of course, students should be mindful of the demands of prospective employers. Those who wish to practice law with a firm, for example, should develop the background that will prepare them for the real-world problems they are likely to face. Even so, however, a few seminars in specialized topics will benefit the future attorney with a global firm, who represents corporate clients: it will be a new challenge, it is likely to lead to a higher grade than the same student would earn in another class where s/he feels obligated to attend but has no genuine passion, and it may lead to an altogether unexpected but very practical career opportunity.

I am disheartened by students who say that they must take X or Y merely because they believe it will appear on the bar exam (even worse, in some instances believing that erroneously). For almost all students, their J.D. program is the last opportunity for formal education, and they are passing up the wonderful range of possibilities for intellectual development without even considering them. And for almost all students, the post-graduation bar review is the real preparation for the bar exam, and virtually all the popular commercial courses cover every subject that can be tested within the relevant jurisdiction.

I would like to emphasize the value of a particular type of course that students are likely to underestimate: the skills course. Through our clinical programs, including the in-house offerings, the externship placements, and the Free Legal Aid Clinic (FLAC) originally established through student activism, we provide many options. The theoretical learning of Socratic method and seminar discussions is complemented by the hands-on engagement of skills courses. Indeed, there can be just as much academic learning in a well-taught clinic.

In the overall curriculum, we have made considerable improvements that increase choices. The new faculty members result in more courses: a net gain of 4 tenured/tenure-track faculty since 2004 means, because each full-time T/TT professor teaches 4 courses in a regular year, a net gain of 16 courses per year since then. Associate Dean David Moran, who oversees the academic program of the law school, has introduced innovations in scheduling that reduce the number of overlapping courses, especially those with partial overlaps (e.g., 15 minutes on one of three days). The Intellectual Property Law Institute (IPLI), formed by Wayne State University, University of Detroit Mercy, and University of Windsor, gives our students the ability to take classes at the other two institutions, which may better suit their schedules.