Ex-L Program
First Week Program
The First Week Program is an extra week of law school success instruction situated in one of the students' regular courses. The new 1Ls only course during that first week is either torts or contracts. The program consists of 11 hours of classroom instruction taught by the students' regular doctrinal professors and 8 hours of structured study group cooperative learning experiences (led by trained, upper-division students-see below). The students learn self-regulated learning, case reading and briefing, note-taking, basic legal civics, and they are introduced to client interviewing and counseling, outlining, applying and distinguishing cases, and applying rules to facts. This instruction occurs in the context of preparing the students for regular class sessions, for a client interview, and for an essay test in which they apply what they learned in the regular class sessions to interview their client and analyze that client's problem. The students take online personality type and learning styles assessments to provide them guidance in making law school learning strategy selections, and the doctrinal class sessions include "regular" sessions followed by "man behind the curtain" discussions of what is going on, what students are including in their notes and why the professor is asking the questions she or he is asking. They also keep a reflective journal and a time management/self-monitoring log to build their self-directed learning skills. During first week, the students also work in their structured study groups (see below) to construct an Oath of Professionalism. Each group creates an oath; the best one is administered to the students by a Kansas judge.
Structured Study Group Program
All entering students are assigned to a structured study group. Each group is facilitated by a carefully-trained and closely-supervised upper-division student. The groups meet twice per week, one hour each time and range among all the students' first-year subjects. One meeting per week focuses on law school learning skills, including: outlining and creating graphic organizers, synthesis, developing broad and narrow holdings, spotting issues, planning and editing LARW papers, developing examples and non-examples of all their concepts, creating their own law school exam-like hypos and memorization. The other meeting always involves writing answers to practice hypos. The groups start with an ice breaker exercise focusing on their reasons for being in law school and then work to consensus on the principles by which they will operate their group, signing a contract on a form I have developed. The groups continue throughout the entire fall semester. The group facilitators do not teach substantive law. Rather, they get the students to teach each other because studies show that 90% of people can learn when they have to teach someone else, but only 10% of the population can learn from lectures. The leaders must read a 60-page training manual, and each must attend a six-hour summer training program. The leaders also meet with the Ex-L director one hour per week for additional training. The students evaluate their facilitators mid-semester, and each facilitator's group sessions are visited at least twice per semester (all visits are unannounced) by a peer or by the director.
Raise the Bar Program
Bar takers may take advantage of as much or as little of the law school's bar pass programming. First, the law school offers a hybrid remedies/ bar pass course in which the remedies law is a vehicle for teaching bar pass skills, and the bar pass skills instruction is a vehicle for teaching remedies law. The students must answer a minimum of 200 out of class practice multiple choice questions and dozens of in-class multiple choice questions. They also must take a five-hour course on writing bar essays, and they write six practice bar essays, on which they get individualized feedback, and they do one in-class/out-of-class performance-style exam question. Finally, as part of the remedies class, the students learn how to read bar outlines, how to learn from bar lectures, and how to best manage their bar study time. Second, the law school offers a bar essay focused program, Essay Advantage, in which they take a five-hour course on writing bar essays, and they write three practice bar essays, on which they get individualized feedback. Third, all students have the option to participate in a program in which they become eligible for bar review course discounts if they take practice multiple choice questions. Finally, the law school starts every bar pass program off with a Bar Pass Kick-Off Event, in which students learn about the structure of the bar exam, their risk of not passing, the consequences of not passing, and the best practices of successful bar takers.
