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Abstract

The recent past has seen a spate of curricular experiments in legal education, perhaps as a response to the MacCrate Report, but more likely merely accelerated by its concern with the inadequacy of the standard curriculum, especially with respect to the inculcation of "skills and values." In the first year curriculum, these innovations often take the form of introducing the skills of legal writing and research into traditional doctrinal courses. More recently, curricular reform has included the introduction of "lawyering" materials in courses in the first year and beyond. The University of Maryland School of Law has been one of the pioneers in these efforts to reform the traditional curriculum since well before MacCrate made it fashionable. As early as the early '70's we integrated the typical first year course in Legal Method/Legal Writing with the standard first year courses, the integrated course taught by full time tenure track faculty. More recently, we added to the curriculum a series of courses, including standard first year courses incorporating live client clinical experiences. Thus, Maryland has been hospitable to efforts at curricular reform, especially those designed to integrate legal theory and the study of doctrine with their application in the world of law practice. This article reports on another such experiment, a course in Trial Evidence and Advocacy, which combines the basic Evidence course with the basic course in Trial Advocacy. The remainder of Part I provides, by way of introduction, our reasons for undertaking this project. Part II provides an overview of the theory around which we designed the course, the goals we hoped to achieve and the limitations of simulated advocacy courses. Part III outlines the design of the course, and explains how we attempted to integrate theory and practice. Part IV includes our reflections on our experiences teaching the course. Part V offers a brief conclusion.

Publication Title

Clinical Law Review

Volume

7

Issue

1

First Page

77

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