Legal Writing Requirements/Thesis - Trial Appellate Advocacy

All Concentration students must satisfy the requirement in one of the following manners:

Legal Writing Requirement 

  • With a paper which meets the standards of the Law School's legal writing requirement, and has been written for an approved Civil Litigation Concentration course or as part of a Directed Study project with a full time faculty member; OR
  • With a law journal piece or moot court brief whose subject matter comes within the scope of a Concentration course, and has been approved by the Faculty Director of the Concentration; OR
  • With a Concentration Thesis which has been written under the supervision of a full time faculty member on a business law or financial services topic, and has been approved by the Faculty Director of the Concentration.

Thesis

  • Students who are enrolled in the Trial and Appellate Advocacy Concentration may opt to write a Thesis. (Alternatively, students may choose to satisfy their Concentration's legal writing requirement by meeting the Law School's Legal Writing Requirement in connection with an approved Concentration course.)
  • Students who choose the Thesis option must write a Thesis of publishable quality, supervised and approved by a resident faculty member.
  • The standards applied to the Thesis are beyond those applied to satisfaction of the Law School's legal writing requirement, and are determined by the supervising resident faculty member.
  • If a Thesis fails to meet the standard applied by the supervising resident faculty member, the course will be changed from a Thesis to a Directed Study on the student’s transcript.
  • The Thesis must be completed by the time of graduation, but arrangements for faculty supervision and topic approval, as well as significant work on the project, should be initiated at least two semesters before anticipated graduation.
  • Thesis topics must relate to the area of Concentration, and must be approved by the Concentration Faculty Director(s) and the supervising resident faculty member.
  • Students who complete a Thesis to the satisfaction of their supervising resident faculty member are eligible to receive their Concentration with distinction, as long as all other Concentration requirements are met.
  • The Thesis is taken for two (2) credits and may be either graded or taken pass/fail, at the student’s election. Students who elect to write a Concentration Thesis may not also receive credit in the same semester for honor board credit, a Directed Study, Research Assistantship, or participation on a moot court team.