Legal Writing Requirement
Suffolk Law's legal writing program has been ranked in the Top 10 in the nation from 2013 to 2019 by USNews and World Report. Here are the policies and requirements for Legal Writing at Suffolk Law.
Prior to graduation each student must complete a substantial piece of legal writing that demonstrates both proficiency in writing skills and mastery of the subject matter, known as the “Legal Writing Requirement.” It is strongly recommended that students complete the Legal Writing Requirement no later than their next-to-last semester prior to graduation. To satisfy the Legal Writing Requirement, students must satisfy the rules, requirements, and procedures listed below.
- General Rules
- A paper intended to satisfy the Legal Writing Requirement must be substantial, meaning a length of at least 20 typewritten pages of double-spaced text (at least 4,000 words, not counting appendices). If in the judgment of the supervising faculty member, two or more pieces of written work cumulatively are the equivalent of a substantial piece of legal writing, they may jointly qualify to satisfy the Legal Writing Requirement.
- The student’s research and writing for the paper should reflect the student’s own individual effort. It should be the student’s original work. A writing that is in whole or in part a product of plagiarism does not meet the standards of this requirement, much less the rules related to Academic Integrity set out in Regulation II (F), which should be reviewed by the student at the outset and which governs the student’s conduct. The student may not receive any assistance on the paper from anyone, unless the supervising faculty member has given the student express permission. The paper, or substantially the same paper, must not have been submitted for credit in any previous course. If in extraordinary circumstances, a student is authorized to submit the same work, or parts of the same work, in satisfaction of more than one requirement, written consent of all persons to whom the work is to be submitted must be obtained in advance and be on file with the Academic Services Office. To assure compliance with the rules related to academic integrity, and in order to submit a paper to satisfy the Legal Writing Requirement, each student should be given a copy of this Legal Writing Requirement and shall certify before undertaking it that the student has read and understood the Legal Writing Requirement, including the rules relating to Academic Integrity (Regulation II (F)).
- Each student should use The Bluebook, A Uniform Manual for Citation or its equivalent for all citations.
- The student’s paper must demonstrate proficiency in writing skills and a mastery of the subject matter. In assessing whether the student has succeeded, the following criteria will be relevant:
- the quality of the student’s research;
- the manner in which the student treated and examined open questions;
- the creativity of the student’s ideas or synthesis of those of others;
- the organization of the paper;
- the clarity of the writing;
- the quality and accuracy of the analysis;
- the editing and proofreading of the paper;
- the student’s understanding of the topic; and
- the degree to which the student’s paper concisely and simply communicates the student’s ideas and analysis.
- In the discretion of the supervising faculty member, the faculty member may consider other factors in determining the student’s proficiency in writing skills and a mastery of the subject matter, including the student’s failure to meet any of the established requirements, procedures or deadlines.
- Each student must file a form with the Academic Services Office by his or her last semester prior to graduation, indicating the manner in which the Legal Writing Requirement will be satisfied and making the required certification. It is strongly recommended that students complete the Legal Writing Requirement no later than their next to last semester prior to graduating. A student may satisfy the Legal Writing Requirement in only one of the following ways:
- Full-time faculty supervised writing: A student may satisfy the Legal Writing Requirement by writing a paper under close supervision or oversight by a member of the full-time faculty, certified by the faculty member as meeting the standards of the Legal Writing Requirement. For example, a paper written for a course or seminar, or work as a directed study project or work prepared as a research assistant to a full-time faculty member, may qualify.
- Adjunct faculty supervised writing: A student may also satisfy the Legal Writing Requirement by writing a paper under close supervision or oversight by a member of the adjunct faculty in a course or seminar, with the approval of an Associate Dean, and certified by the adjunct faculty member as meeting the standards of the Legal Writing Requirement.
- Journal writing: If the student is a member of the Journal of High Technology Law, Journal of Health & Biomedical Law, Law Review, or Transnational Law Review, the student may satisfy the Legal Writing Requirement by writing a case comment, note, or other document that has been approved by that publication's Faculty Advisor(s), by writing it under close supervision or oversight by a member of the full-time faculty, certified by the faculty member as meeting the standards of the Legal Writing Requirement. The submitted writing must be accepted for publication or certified by the Board of Editors as of publishable quality. If the student is not a member of an Honor Board, a student may satisfy the Legal Writing Requirement by writing a case comment selected through the summer author competition and accepted for publication.
- Moot Court writing: If the student is a member of the Moot Court Board, a student may satisfy the Legal Writing Requirement by completing a bench memorandum, brief, or other writing under close supervision or oversight by a full-time faculty member and certified by the faculty member or the faculty advisor to the Moot Court Board as meeting the standards of the Legal Writing Requirement. Other writing may include writing for the Journal of Trial and Appellate Advocacy, if it is accepted for publication in the Journal, or certified by the Board of Editors as of publishable quality, and otherwise meets the standards of the Legal Writing Requirement.
- Writing for competition: A brief prepared for an interscholastic moot court competition may be used to satisfy the Legal Writing Requirement only if such work is completed under close supervision or oversight by a full-time faculty member and is certified by the faculty member as meeting the standards of the Legal Writing Requirement. If the rules of a competition prohibit faculty involvement in a student’s preparation of a brief for the competition, then that brief may not be used to satisfy the Law School’s Legal Writing Requirement, unless the brief is substantially revised under the close supervision of a faculty member after the conclusion of the competition. No student may use a co-authored or team brief to satisfy the Legal Writing Requirement unless the supervising faculty member certifies that the student wrote a distinct portion of the brief that independently meets the standards of the Requirement.
- Restriction on fulfilling the experiential learning requirement: A course that is used for the Legal Writing Requirement may not also be used to satisfy the Experiential Learning requirement.
Procedures, Requirements, and Deadlines Fulfilling the Legal Writing Requirement requires due diligence and steady progress by the student involved. Every student must follow the procedures, requirements, and deadlines below in order to complete the Legal Writing Requirement, except as expressly modified by the supervising faculty member to fit the needs of a paper for a course or alternative described in section H (1) (f) (i-v). These procedures, requirements, and deadlines are ordinarily the minimum that students should be expected to meet. No student shall seek exemption from these Legal Writing Requirement procedures, requirements, and deadlines except for reasons of severe illness or for personal emergencies of the most serious nature. Prior to the due date of the paper, students must submit a signed request for extension to the supervising faculty member, which sets forth in detail the extraordinary circumstances believed to justify the exemption.
In responding to the student submissions set out below, the supervising faculty member should offer feedback to assist the student’s success, including one or more opportunities for the student to meet with the supervising faculty member. The supervising faculty member may also respond by commenting on the submissions received, suggesting ways to improve the work, and requiring, when the supervising faculty member deems it appropriate, submission of additional work or drafts by the student
- Topic The student must submit to the supervising faculty member for such member’s approval a brief topic statement (not exceeding one page) describing the topic selected and the scope and focus of the paper. SUGGESTED DUE DATE: By the end of the second week of the semester.
- Research Plan and List of Authorities The student must submit to the supervising faculty member a research plan that includes a list of authorities, relevant to the topic selected, which the student proposes to examine. SUGGESTED DUE DATE: By the end of the fourth week of the semester.
- Outline The student must submit to the supervising faculty member an outline of the paper, showing the organization of the issues relevant to the topic, including what the student will discuss and how that discussion will be organized; how the authorities are to be integrated into a discussion of the issues; and the basic structure of the student’s analysis and conclusions. (A detailed outline should essentially be a “skeleton” for the first draft of the paper, so that, for example, a mere list of authorities would not be adequate to meet this standard. At the same time, students whose research and analysis lead them into new directions should feel that they can improve on their outline for their first draft.) SUGGESTED DUE DATE: By the end of the eighth week of the semester.
- First Draft The student must submit to the supervising faculty member a first draft of the paper’s discussion and analysis of the topic with appropriate citations and footnotes. SUGGESTED DUE DATE: By the end of the tenth week of the semester.
- Final Paper The student must submit to the supervising faculty member the final version of the paper for evaluation by the supervising faculty member. Because meeting deadlines is an important professional obligation, and supervising faculty need the opportunity to submit student grades in a timely manner, no paper submitted after the last day of the grading period for that semester will be deemed to satisfy the Legal Writing Requirement. An exception may be made where late delivery occurs with approval of the supervising faculty member, after he or she considers the student’s written statement of the extenuating circumstances and supporting documentation, which the student must submit with the paper for any requested late delivery to be considered. Late papers without such approval may receive an incomplete or unsatisfactory grade or other late sanctions of the faculty member as well as be deemed not to be in compliance with the standards to satisfy the Legal Writing Requirement. DUE DATE: No later than the last day of the grading period.
Experiential Learning
ABA Standards 303 and 304 [PDF] require all students entering law school beginning in fall 2015 to complete six credits of experiential courses in order to graduate.
Experiential courses fall into three categories
- A Law Clinic. In a Law Clinic, students are provided with substantial lawyering experiences that involve advising or representing actual clients. Law Clinics include direct supervision of the students’ performance by faculty; opportunities for performance, feedback from faculty, and self-evaluation; and include a weekly seminar. Most full-year Clinics are offered for ten credits, six of which count towards this experiential requirement. Part-time Clinics and “Law Labs” are offered for fewer experiential credits (students should consult the course description for each part-time Clinic or Law Lab for the exact number of experiential credits offered).
- An Externship. An externship includes a field placement that provides students with a substantial lawyering experience that is reasonably similar that of a lawyer advising or representing clients or engaging in other lawyering tasks, as well as a classroom component or other means of faculty-guided reflection. An Externship also includes direct supervision of the students’ performance by faculty and/or a site supervisor; opportunities for performance, feedback from faculty and/or site supervisor, and self-evaluation. Students in Externships will sign a written agreement outlining the terms of their Externship and their educational achievement will be evaluated by a faculty member. Externships are offered for between 1 and 5 credits.
- A Simulation Course (listed below). Simulation courses include a classroom instructional component in which students are provided substantial experiences similar to those of lawyers advising or representing clients or engaging in other lawyering tasks in a set of facts and circumstances devised or adopted by faculty. Simulation courses also include direct supervision of the students’ performance by faculty, multiple opportunities for performance, and self-evaluation. Simulation Courses are offered for between 1 and 3 credits. The following courses meet the definition of "simulation course" as required by the ABA. This list is not all inclusive - additional courses will be added as appropriate:
Additional Simulation Courses:
| LAW-2265 | Advanced Legal Writing | 3 |
| LAW-2400 | Advanced Practice Skills | 2 |
| LAW-2518 | Appellate Practice | 3 |
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| Bankruptcy Moot Court Team | |
| LAW-2096 | Bankruptcy Reorganizations | 2 |
| LAW-2555 | Business Planning | 2 |
| LAW-2945 | Business of Practice: Hit the Ground Running | 2 |
| LAW-2998 | Coding the Law | 2 |
| LAW-2046 | Decision Making and Choice Management | 3 |
| LAW-2066 | Design Thinking for Lawyers & Business Professionals | 2 |
| LAW-2138 | Drafting Wills and Trusts | 3 |
| LAW-2951 | E-Discovery Law | 2 |
| LAW-2452 | Employment Law: Lawyering Approach | 4 |
| LAW-2678 | Energy and Natural Resources | 2 |
| LAW-2669 | Entrepreneurship, Venture Capital, and The Law | 3 |
| LAW-2160 | Environmental Law Seminar | 3 |
| LAW-2386 | Federal Indian Law and the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in the U.S. | 3 |
| LAW-2976 | Forensics | 2 |
| LAW-2957 | Housing Discrimination Law, Theory and Practice: Brainstorming and Implementing Solutions to Discrimination | 2 |
| LAW-0082 | Human Rights Project | 2 |
| LAW-2331 | International and Comparative Legal Research | 2 |
| LAW-0066 | International Insolvency Law Moot Court Team | 2 |
| LAW-2225 | Interviewing and Counseling | 2 |
| LAW-2253 | Law Practice Planning: Law As a Career And an Enterprise (seminar) | 2 |
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| Legal Practice in International and Comparative Law | |
| LAW-2156 | Lawyering: Smart Machines / Legal Tech | 3 |
| LAW-2088 | Massachusetts Housing Law Drafting and Advocacy | 2 |
| LAW-2288 | Mediation | 3 |
| LAW-2988 | Mediation Skills Training | 1 |
| LAW-2414 | Movement Lawyering | 2 |
| LAW-2987 | Negotiating Business Transactions: A Simulation Course | 3 |
| LAW-2283 | Negotiation | 2 |
| LAW-2807 | Negotiation & Mediation | 4 |
| LAW-2831 | Patent Litigation Practice | 2 |
| LAW-2301 | Patent Prosecution I - Drafting Formerly: Patent Application Practice I | 2 |
| LAW-2531 | Practice Ready Legal Research | 2 |
| LAW-2304 | Pre-Trial Civil Litigation | 3 |
| LAW-2299 | Private Placements & Venture Capital Practicum | 2 |
| LAW-2958 | Problem Solving: Legal Writing And Research for Practice | 2 |
| LAW-2975 | Process Improvement and Legal Project Management | 2 |
| LAW-2357 | State Criminal Practice | 2 |
| LAW-2457 | Trademark Practice: PTO | 2 |
| LAW-2986 | Transactional Skills | 3 |
| LAW-2736 | Transactional Skills: Intel Property | 2 |
| LAW-2009 | Trial Advocacy | 2 |
| LAW-2363 | Trial Advocacy Intensive | 3 |
| LAW-2970 | Twenty-First Century Legal Profession | 2 |
| LAW-2799 | Urban Mechanics: Boston Practicum | 2 |
FAQ
Q: Can credits earned for trial team, moot court and other simulation based competitions qualify as a simulation course or count towards the required experiential credits?
A: No, unless these activities are part of or accompanied by a required classroom component.
Q: Does Pro Bono or other work experience count?
A: No, only activities that are credit bearing count.
Q: Can one course satisfy the Legal Writing Requirement and experiential credits?
A: No, one course cannot satisfy both the upper level writing requirement and the experiential learning requirement.
Requirements
Guidelines for Completion
Students entering Fall 2015 or later are subject to the Experiential Learning and Professional Development Requirements.
Prior to graduation, every student must satisfactorily complete:
- Six credits of upper-level experiential learning courses in accord with ABA Standards 303 & 304,
- Two continuing legal education seminars, and
- A minimum of 50 hours of practice-based learning completed through in any of the following ways:
- First Year Summer Internship Program-Judicial placement;
- 50 hours of legal work completed through the Pro Bono Program; or
- 50 hours of legal work completed through the supervision of an attorney.
Upon completion of Sections 2 and 3 of this requirement, all students must submit certification of completion to the Office of Academic Services.
Part-time students in the Evening Division are exempt from section 3 of the requirement, but are encouraged to complete it.
Guidelines for completing Section 1:
Experiential opportunities are essential in preparing to be ready to work with real clients solving real legal problems. Toward that end, students are required to complete six (6) credits of experiential courses in order to graduate. Experiential courses fall into three categories: (1) a law clinic that provides students with substantial lawyering experiences that involve advising or representing actual clients; (2) an externship that includes a field placement that provides students with a substantial lawyering experience that is reasonably similar to that of a lawyer advising or representing clients or engaging in other lawyering tasks, as well as a classroom component; and (3) a simulation course in which students are provided substantial experiences similar to those of lawyers advising or representing clients or engaging in other lawyering tasks in a set of facts and circumstances devised or adopted by faculty.
All experiential education courses (clinics, externships, and simulations) will conform with ABA Standards 303 and 304.
Guidelines for completing Section 2:
It is important for law students to develop an appreciation for the importance of continuing legal education (CLE) and become active members of the legal community. To promote law student professional development, the Law School requires every student to attend two continuing legal education seminars prior to graduation. Students are encouraged to attend member free programming delivered through the Boston and Massachusetts Bar Associations identified as “Suffolk PDR,” but may attend any program offered through other CLE providers that meet these guidelines. In order for a CLE seminar to qualify as satisfying Section 2, the program must: (1) have a minimum duration of 75 minutes; (2) provide professional education for licensed lawyers related to substantive law, practice and procedure, lawyer ethics and the rules of professional conduct, practical experiences in legal practice, and/or current cutting-edge issues related to legal practice and the delivery of legal service; and 3) be delivered live and attended in person. Students must register for each CLE program prior to attending and are responsible for obtaining a certificate of completion and submitting it to the Office of Academic Services. CLE qualification questions should be addressed to your PCD counselor or the Associate Dean for Professional & Career Development.
Guidelines for completing Section 3:
Practical work experience is an essential part of legal training. Students may satisfy the practice-based learning requirement by completing a minimum of 50 hours of legal work under the supervision of an attorney through part-time or summer employment, the Law School’s Pro Bono Program, and/or a First Year Summer Internship Program- Judicial placement. All Day Division students must submit one or more completed Professional Development Requirement Form [PDF] - Employment Certifications to the Office of Academic Services after they complete 50 hours of paid or volunteer work for a licensed attorney or judge.