Program Overview
The Lawyering Skills Program is a skills training center in the Law School. The Program offers courses that teach core lawyering skills in a learning-by-doing class format. The spring 11-week touchstone course, known as the Lawyering Skills Course, teaches law practice through simulations in which each student has ample opportunities to practice such fundamental lawyering skills as negotiation, oral advocacy, and communication, interviewing and counseling, drafting and problem solving. Other skills courses, Negotiation and Oral Communication are offered through the Lawyering Skills Program.
Professor Gretchen Viney, Director
Telephone (608) 262-8048
Fax (608) 263-6365
ggviney@wisc.edu
Professor Ralph Cagle, Clinical Professor
Telephone (608) 262-7881
Fax (608) 263-6365
rmcagle@wisc.edu
Courses Offered Through the Lawyering Skills Program
The Lawyering Skills Course
Overview
The Lawyering Skills Course teaches law practice through simulations
in which each student has opportunities to practice such fundamental lawyering
skills as negotiation, oral advocacy and communication, interviewing and counseling,
drafting and problem solving. Students also examine how practicing lawyers address
difficult ethical and professional problems, manage their practices, and balance
their professional and personal lives.
Course Description
In addition to nine substantive segments of the course and a variety of workshops,
the course includes a Skills Intensive Training Week. Over thirty lawyers participate
as faculty in a two-day exercise in which students represent clients on both
sides of a comprehensive legal transaction. Skills Week allows students to practice
the skills they have learned throughout the course and receive individualized
feedback from different practitioners on their performance. (For additional
information, check out the Lawyering
Skills Course Student Handbook.
Course Schedule
Classes meet from 12:25 - 3:25 PM on designated days and students
complete two
written assignments each week. The course is 7 credits with an
additional 1 credit for those students enrolled in the Advanced Legal
Writing component. It is offered only in the
spring semester, and is open to 2nd and 3rd year law students.
Enrollment is
limited.
Faculty
A unique feature of the Lawyering Skills Course is that it is taught
by a faculty of approximately 80 practicing lawyers and other professionals
who are selected not only for their professional reputation and accomplishment,
but also to reflect the diversity of the legal profession.
Teams of practitioners teach each of nine weekly segments in both large group and small group classes. The practitioners lead class discussions, demonstrate practice situations, share experiences and perspectives, evaluate student work, and serve as resources for student questions about the "nuts and bolts" of law practice and a legal career.
The course is led by two law school faculty members. Ralph Cagle, Course Director, and Gretchen Viney, Associate Director, develop the overall curriculum, recruit and train the faculty, coordinate instruction, teach individual skills workshops, and monitor the development of each student. Both professors have extensive law practice experience, are active in bar activities related to improving the legal profession, and frequently teach continuing education programs for lawyers and other professionals.
Fall and Spring Semester Lawyering Skills Program Course Offerings
The Lawyering Skills Program offers a variety of courses that teach core lawyering skills in a learning-by-doing class format, including:
Negotiation/Mediation
(Cagle, 2 cr. Fall Semester)
Get hands-on experience and individually critiqued training in planning, executing
and learning from deal-making and conflict resolution negotiations. Learn to
conduct and represent clients in mediation.
Client Interviewing and Counseling
(Viney, 2 cr. Fall Semester)
Discover how lawyers interact with clients, accurately identify their legal
needs, and assist them in effective decision-making.
Lawyers As Community Leaders
(Behnke, Cagle, Krueger, 2 cr. Fall Semester)
Examine how lawyers best provide community leadership through understanding how communities organize themselves and engage lawyers, leadership application in community settings, and develop skills, knowledge and perspectives for community leadership opportunities.
Introduction to the Legal Profession
(Cagle, 3 cr. Fall Semester)
Learn the practical, structural and ethical dimensions of how the legal profession
operates including the professional and personal choices lawyers regularly face.
(Satisfies Professional Responsibilities requirement.)
Lincoln and the Law
(Cagle, 2 cr. Fall Semester)
Examine Abraham Lincoln's law practice, selected legal issues in his political career and presidency and how his legal experience affected his thinking, rhetoric and leadership style. Draw insights into lawyering today from the experiences of Abraham Lincoln and his legal and political contemporaries. (Satisfies Legal Process requirement.)
Oral Communications
(Cagle, Plum, Peterson, 1 cr. Fall/Spring Semester)
Learn and practice the strategies and techniques of effective oral communication
in many settings in which you will be called on to speak as a lawyer. The course
is taught by experienced lawyer-communicators and uses a learning-by-doing model.
Each student has the opportunity to hone his or her skills by making increasingly
complex oral presentations. First the in-class faculty critiques the student
presentation, with helpful suggestions for improvement. Then the student goes
to video review where he or she works with a second faculty member in a one-on-one
critique of the in-class presentation. By this method of double instruction
and personal attention students improve their oral communication skills, leaving
the course equipped to communicate effectively, confidently and persuasively
with clients, colleagues, associates, and judges.
Summer Work Experience Program
The Lawyering Skills Program sponsors a summer clerkship opportunity, placing up to five UW law students in summer clerkship positions with selected law firms in small-to-mid-sized Wisconsin communities. Through these placements, students gain practical skills and experience while living and working in typical but non-metropolitan Wisconsin communities.
This placement is open to all 2L's. Students selected for placement must complete the 7-credit Lawyering Skills Course during the Spring semester.
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