JD First Year Curriculum

The first-year JD curriculum offers the foundation for future legal study. Over the first year, students gain the breadth of knowledge and key lawyering skills necessary for any type of legal career. This initial framework of knowledge and analytical skills is essential groundwork for the well-educated lawyer.

The entering JD class is divided into sections or “Inns” that remain together throughout the first year. All students take the first-year curriculum, which includes the following courses: Civil Procedure I (4 units), Contracts (4 units), Criminal Law (4 units), Property (4 units), Torts (4 units), either Constitutional Law I or a Statutory Course (3 units), Legal Research and Writing I (3 units), and Legal Research and Writing II (3 units). In addition, for each section one of the 4-unit doctrinal courses each semester will also include a unit of additional instruction aimed at sharpening students’ legal analysis skills.

Students must take all of the required first-year curriculum during the first year of law school, unless a reduced or altered course load is approved or required by the Dean of Students.

Because students elect to take either Constitutional Law I or the Statutory Course in their first year, students must also take, either in the fall or spring semester of their second year, the course they did not elect to take in their first year.

There is also a one-unit optional course for 1L students entering law school after studying/working in the hard sciences called Scientist to Lawyer.

• course - Civil Procedure I (4 or 5 Units)

• course - Constitutional Law I (3 Units)

• course - Constitutional Law I: Law & Process (3 Units)

• course - Contracts I (4 or 5 Units)

• course - Criminal Law (4 or 5 Units)

• course - Legal Research & Writing I (3 Units)

• course - Legal Research & Writing II (3 Units)

• course - Property (4 or 5 Units)

• course - Torts (4 or 5 Units)

• course - Transition From Scientist To Lawyer (1 Unit)