Apart from their assigned mod courses, 1L students may only enroll in courses offered as 1L electives. A complete list of these courses can be found on the 1L Elective Listings page. 1L students must use the 1L class number listed on the course description when enrolling.
210 sec. 005 - Legal Profession (Spring 2025)
Instructor: Rachel E Stern (view instructor's teaching evaluations - degree students only | profile)
View all teaching evaluations for this course - degree students only
Units: 3
Grading Designation: Graded
Mode of Instruction: In-Person
Meeting:
MTu 2:10 PM - 3:25 PM
Location: Law 12
From January 13, 2025
To April 29, 2025
Course End: April 29, 2025
Class Number: 33450
Enrollment info:
Enrolled: 38
Waitlisted: 0
Enroll Limit: 41
As of: 11/23 11:55 PM
Drawing from various disciplines, this course is designed to teach you about the variety of practice settings in which lawyers work, both in the United States and around the world. While most law school courses teach the substance of the law, with a focus on the issues that are most important to clients, this course revolves around the profession you are entering, and aims to give you a sense of what you will experience once you are there.
Why study the legal profession? This course will cover many of the issues that confront the legal profession globally, such as unequal access to justice, the profession’s demographics and social structure, the challenges of maintaining independence in the face of political power, and the effects of globalization. In preparation for the role you will take up as a future leader of the profession, this course will ask you to develop a perspective on which criticisms of the profession are justified and what policy responses are appropriate. Looking at these issues in comparative perspective will also push you to develop a global view of the profession, to better understand the common challenges lawyers face around the world and to appreciate the ways in which the American legal profession is unusual.
As we discuss the legal and ethical issues that lawyers confront across jurisdictions and practice settings, we will cover many of the American Bar Association’s Model Rules of Professional Conduct. These rules are tested on the Multistate Professional Responsibility Exam (MPRE), as well as on the bar exam of California and many other states, and an important objective of the course is to make sure you are familiar with them. We will go well beyond the straightforward rule to consider ambiguity in the law and how lawyers do and should respond to it. A major theme of our discussion will be how workplaces shape lawyers’ sense of their role and obligations, as much or more than ethics rules, disciplinary committees, liability controls, and a lawyer’s individual conscience.
Attendance at the first class is mandatory for all currently enrolled and waitlisted students; any currently enrolled or waitlisted students who are not present on the first day of class (without prior permission of the instructor) will be dropped. The instructor will continue to take attendance throughout the add/drop period and anyone who moves off the waitlist into the class must continue to attend or have prior permission of the instructor in order not to be dropped.
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Requirements Satisfaction:
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Exam Notes: (F/P) In-class final or paper: students option
(Subject to change by faculty member only through the first two weeks of instruction)
Exam Length: 4 hours
Course Category: Legal Ethics and Professional Responsibility
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Readers:
No reader.
Books:
Required Books are in blue
- LEGAL PROFESSION: Ethics in Contemporary Practice
ANN. FISK SOUTHWORTH (CATHERINE L.)
ISBN: 9798887865638
e-Book Available: unknown
Price: To Be Determined