LAW122

This course covers the same doctrinal territory as does a typical Constitutional Law I course, but does so in a small class setting that teaches legal analysis and provides opportunities for students to strengthen their analytical, writing, and test-taking skills via multiple assignments and individualized feedback from the instructor. The course is an addition to the college's "Law & Process" suite of hybrid bar-tested doctrinal courses designed to help students master the reading, sorting, synthesizing, and arguing skills that lawyering demands. A subset of our students struggle with these skills, putting them at risk of not only receiving poor grades, but also of graduating from law school underprepared for the practice of law and, critically, of failing the bar exam. The "Law & Process" curriculum is therefore designed to give students opportunities to continue developing their legal analysis skills in a doctrinal setting, where they will be both digesting substantive material and developing learning techniques that can be readily applied on the bar exam and in practice. This course in particular is an attempt to reach the students in their 1L year where there is the potential for greater impact on the rest of the students' academic career at Hastings. This course provides the core doctrines and concepts typically covered in Constitutional Law I. This course will focus on the history and structure of the Constitution, constitutional interpretative methods, Separation of Powers, and Federalism. The analytical skill-building exercises used in this course will allow students to improve on several of the qualities needed for success on the Bar Exam and in practice, including: understanding and applying cases, effective organization, issue analysis, writing for exams and for practice, and other forms of presenting legal predictions and arguments.