A Law Student's Guide

The Law Student's Guide is for the newly admitted and prospective law student. The Guide helps students prepare for and benefit from the law school curriculum. It also helps prospective law students evaluate whether they are interested in law school. The Guide follows the urging of the Carnegie Foundation report Educating Lawyers to make the law school curriculum more explicit and to better integrate the knowledge, skills, and ethics dimensions of legal education. The Guide not only offers short sections on a variety of important principles of legal education, sources of law, and justice systems, but also addresses legal analysis, law practice, and lawyer ethics. Each of the Guide's sections begins with bullet points listing the topics addressed and ends with a set of reflective questions anchoring the curriculum in the student's experience. Each section also ends by stating the curriculum aims and identifying the courses and opportunities that help students meet those aims. The Guide also offers famous-lawyer biographies, new-lawyer vignettes, practice vignettes, career advice, and lawyer wisdom.

Nelson Miller is Associate Dean and Professor of Law at Thomas M. Cooley Law School.