LEAF: Legal English and Foundations
Registration is now open to Northwestern University School of Law Prospective Students. If you would like to enroll in the program but you are not an incoming student for the academic year 2013/2014 please contact Ms. Mary L. Lyons, at m-lyons-2@law.northwestern.edu.
LEAF: Legal English and Foundations
Date: Monday, July 22, 2013 to Friday, August 16, 2013
Cost: $3,500.00
Registration: February 1st through April 30th: Register securely online
Registration will close on April 30th or when the course is full.
The last day to withdraw from the program with full tuition reimbursement is April 30, 2013. After April 30th, the program fee is non-refundable. Should you decide to attend another LL.M. program at a different law school but are registered for LEAF, the Admissions Office will happily work with you to adjust your visa so you may still attend our program. What you will learn will aid you in your upcoming LL.M. studies regardless of which law school you attend.
For more information e-mail: law-student-services@law.northwestern.edu
LEAF: Legal English and Foundations is a four-week intensive legal English program that improves international legal professionals’ legal communication and academic skills, with an emphasis on the ability to read and understand terminology in cases and statutes and understand and engage in discussion of legal issues.
Developed by the School of Law, the Legal English and Foundations curriculum is distinctive for its "reading and discussion" courses. These survey five first-year and two second-year law school courses that are considered most useful for international students about to begin an LLM or JD program. Specifically, the program begins with an introductory overview of the U.S. Legal System. Following the introduction, students are given short reading assignments through which they will learn about a variety of subjects such as: Constitutional Law, Civil Procedure, Torts, Contracts, Legal Ethics, and Corporations Law. Consistent with the program’s emphasis on reading and speaking, class time is spent on both small and large group discussion, guided by the professor but with students encouraged and empowered to lead and provoke small-scale and classroom-wide legal debates.
At the conclusion of each reading and discussion course a distinguished practitioner or Northwestern University professor of law provides the class a highly participatory ‘capstone lecture.’ These talks offer a direct view into U.S. legal practice, and an opportunity to interact on an intimate scale with some of the Chicago legal community’s excellent practitioners.
The other major component of the curriculum is writing and rhetoric instruction. Featuring frequent short writing exercises about topical legal subjects, and written feedback, the writing and rhetoric course enables students to write about legal issues more accurately, concisely, grammatically, and persuasively, in the rhetorical modes appropriate to legal practice.
A required emphasis on vocabulary overlays both the writing and reading and discussion courses. Students are challenged to master essential legal terminology and a Word List developed by one of the Legal English and Foundations professor of the 475 advanced English words especially common in first-year legal academic reading materials.
Every course in the Legal English and Foundations Program is taught by Northwestern University School of Law professors, who are experienced teachers of legal substance and of learners for whom English is a second language. Classes will be held on the Chicago Campus at the School of Law.
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