Learning Outcomes Assessment Plan

 

Juris Doctor

Georgia State University College of Law

 Assessment Report 2004-2005

I.  Mission

As part of the University’s mission to become one of the nation’s premiere research universities located in an urban setting, and to provide undergraduate and graduate programs of the highest quality for both traditional and non-traditional students, the College of Law is committed to:

 

• Providing an excellent, affordable, and distinctive legal education to a diverse student body,
• Promoting scholarship and service that enrich the legal profession and communities we serve, and
• Capitalizing on the unique environment in which we are located.

 

II.  Intended Learning Outcomes for Juris Doctor Degree

Below are the expected learning outcomes for students who complete the J.D. course of study.

 

Communication:  Students will be able to communicate in written and oral forms both to members of the legal profession and the lay community in a manner that is clear, logical, and persuasive.

 

Legal Research:  Students will demonstrate effective use of the tools of legal research (both hard copy and online tools), be able to create an effective research plan for assessing a legal problem, and demonstrate the ability to use appropriate citation form for advocacy and expositive legal writing.

 

Analysis and Critical Thinking:  Students will be able to assess complex legal and societal problems by identifying the critical facts, the legal and policy issues, and potential  options, solutions, strategies, and policy implications for both law and non-law disciplines.

 

Knowledge of Legal Doctrine: Students will demonstrate competency in the foundational legal areas of public and private law, such as Contracts, Torts, Property, Civil Procedure, Criminal Law, Constitutional Law, and Evidence, and will demonstrate competency in important advanced areas of the law that can include Business Associations, Tax, Wills, International Law, Commercial Law, Administrative and Regulatory Law, as well as other specialized areas.

 

Lawyering Skills: Students will demonstrate competency in the skills associated with practicing law such as client interviewing, investigation, counseling, drafting, negotiation, problem-solving, the conduct of litigation, and advocacy in traditional and non-traditional forums.

 

Professionalism and Ethics:  Students will demonstrate competency in understanding the ethical standards of conduct expected of members of the legal profession, be able to recognize ethical dilemmas and resolve them appropriately, and recognize the importance of pro bono service as a component of promoting justice.  

 

Preparation for Careers and/or more Advanced Legal Study: Students will be prepared for a career in the legal profession, or in a non-legal area that is nonetheless law related, or for graduate law study.

 

III. Assessment Methods

 

Communication

First Year Research, Writing, and Advocacy Program:  Students must submit three substantial legal writing products in their first year, a short legal memorandum, a long legal memorandum, and a legal brief.  Students also must participate in oral appellate arguments based on these writings. These writing products and oral arguments will demonstrate that students have achieved adequate competency in legal research, proper legal citation, effective, clear and persuasive written communication, and effective and persuasive oral communication.  Completion of this program is a requirement for graduation.  Students must pass with a grade of 60 in order to satisfy this requirement.

 

Upper Level Writing Requirement:  In addition to first year legal writing, students must complete at least one intensive research and writing project prior to graduation.  Satisfactory completion of this project will demonstrate that students are able to research and examine a complex legal problem in considerable depth and are able to produce an analytical, well-reasoned, and well written paper that is of near publishable quality.  While a grade of 60 is required to pass the course, a grade of 73 is required to satisfy the upper level writing requirement.  All students who graduate will meet this requirement. 

 

Litigation Programs and Moot Court:  Second year law students must successfully pass an intensive course in Litigation in which student demonstrate basic proficiency in client interviewing, drafting, written and oral argument, and  conducting a jury trial.  In addition, many students go beyond this basic course to participate in external mock trial and appellate advocacy (moot court) competitions against teams from other law schools.  All students who graduate will satisfy the Litigation course requirement.   Students who enter mock trial and moot court competitions receive numerical scores and feedback about their written and oral performance.

 

Legal Research and Writing:

First Year Research, Writing, and Advocacy Program:  See above under Communication.

 

Upper Level Writing Requirement: See above under Communication.

 

Externship Program Feedback:  Significant number of field placements under our Externship Program gives many students opportunities to conduct research and written legal analysis. Field supervisors provide extensive feedback to our Externship Co-Directors on the performance of these students.

 

Analysis, Legal Reasoning, and Critical Thinking

Final Examinations:  Written final examinations in semester courses will demonstrate that students possess adequate knowledge of core and advance legal doctrine and also demonstrate that they possess adequate skills of problem analysis, issue identification, and legal reasoning.  Grading of these exams is on a 100 point numerical basis. Students must achieve a minimum average of 70 in their first year courses and maintain a 73 thereafter.  Over 90% of students will meet these minimum standards.  

 

First Year Research, Writing and Advocacy Program:  As noted above, students must submit three substantial legal writing products in their first year, a short legal memorandum, a long legal memorandum and a legal brief.  These writing products will require students to demonstrate that they can support their positions with effective legal analysis and legal reasoning. Completion of this program is a requirement for graduation.  Students must pass with a grade of 60 in order to satisfy this requirement.

 

Upper Level Writing Requirement:  See above under Communication.

 

Classroom Instruction:  Faculty members often use classroom dialogue, sometimes referred to as Socratic dialogue, as a way to assess the extent that students have read the course materials, as well as assess their level of legal reasoning, analysis, critical thinking, and capacity to explore policy implications of different legal outcomes.  Some faculty members award class participation points as a way to evaluate student performance in this area.   

 

Student Evaluations:  In accordance with University policy, the College of Law asks students to complete evaluations of all courses in which they enroll.  Question 12 of the evaluation form asks students to rate “the effect of the course on my analytic and writing skills,” where a score of 1 is excellent and 4 is

poor.  Faculty members receive a statistical summary of these scores

for their classes that compares the rating of a particular course to the law school average.

 

Knowledge of Legal Doctrine

Final Examinations:  See above under Analysis, Legal Reasoning, and Critical Thinking.

 

Upper Level Writing Requirement: See above under Communication.

 

Bar Examination:  Following graduation, the Georgia Bar examination tests students’ competency in numerous legal subject areas, particularly the foundational courses from the first year as well as core electives.  The Georgia Office of Bar Admisssions provides each Georgia law school with data showing the overall pass rate of their respective test-takers, and the average score per essay question in particular subject areas.  This allows us to examine the overall success of our students in comparison to those from other schools, to examine our students’ performance in particular subject areas, and to gain a general measure of our student’s competency in the foundational subjects that form the first-year law school curriculum as well as some of our core electives.  Generally, approximately 85-92% of our students will pass the Georgia Bar Exam the first time. 

 

Lawyering Skills:

Litigation Programs and Moot Court:  Second year law students must successfully pass an intensive course in Litigation in which student demonstrate basic proficiency in client interviewing, drafting, written and oral argument, and conducting a jury trial.  In addition, many students go beyond this basic course to participate in external mock trial and appellate advocacy (moot court) competitions against teams from other law schools.  All students who graduate will satisfy the Litigation course requirement.   Students who enter mock trial and moot court competitions receive numerical scores and feedback about their written and oral performance.

 

Student Practice:  Students handle real cases and develop their lawyering skills in connection with field placements under our Externship Program, and in our live-client Tax Clinic under the supervision of supervising attorneys.  These supervisors provide extensive feedback to the clinic and externship directors on the performance of these students.

 

Professionalism and Ethics

Professional Responsibility Course:  All students must pass a two credit course in legal ethics, entitled Professional Responsibility, in which they must demonstrate a basic understanding of the ethical standards of conduct expected of members of the legal profession, and be able to recognize ethical dilemmas and resolve them appropriately.  All students who graduate will meet this standard.

 

Multistate Professional Responsibility Examination: In addition to the Bar Exam, to be admitted to practice, students must demonstrate basic competency in the area of legal ethics by passing a nationally administered exam, The Multistate Professional Responsibility Examination (MPRE).  Nearly all of our student pass this exam. 

 

Pro bono Reporting and Recognition Program: This past year the College of Law has adopted but not yet implemented a pro bono reporting and recognition program to encourage law students to engage in public service as an extension of their professional responsibilities and to highlight pro bono service as an important dimension of professionalism.   

 

Student Practice:  Students handle real cases and develop their lawyering skills in connection with field placements under our Externship Program, and in our live-client Tax Clinic.  Through this student practice, students are exposed to ethical issues that arise in the course of legal representation and discuss these issues with their clinic and field supervisors.  These supervisors provide extensive feedback to the clinic and externship directors on the performance of these students.

 

Preparation for Careers and/or more Advanced Legal Study

Surveys for Accrediting Bodies:  As part of the College’s 2000 accreditation review by the American Bar Association, the College of Law prepared a self-study that included the results of an extensive survey of students, graduates and members of the bar.  The College of Law will conduct future surveys prior to the next accreditation review.  Parts of the surveys provide information on the adequacy of our curriculum in preparing students to enter practice.

 

Exit Surveys of Graduates:  The College of Law will develop and conduct exit surveys of graduating students designed to elicit student assessment of the adequacy of the curriculum, the adequacy of their preparation for entry into the legal profession, and their level of satisfaction with their career preparation.  The College of Law will repeat this survey to the same constituency one year after graduation. 

 

Bar Exam: See above under Knowledge of Legal Doctrine.

 

IV.  Implementation Plan

 

The associate dean for academic affairs will have overall responsibility for maintaining data collection and reporting and disseminating various assessment results.  The Curriculum Committee will be responsible for considering and recommending to the faculty curricular changes in response to assessment findings.  Individual faculty members will be responsible for implementing appropriate changes in their respective courses insofar as assessment findings implicate learning outcomes in particular course areas.  Specific aspects of the implementation plan include:

 

Communication and First-Year Legal Writing Assessments:  The Legal Writing faculty will meet at the end of each semester to review overall student legal writing performance as reflected by assigned grades and written critiques, and prepare a report highlighting overall student strengths, weaknesses, and trends.  Copies of this report will be provided to the associate dean for academic affairs and the chair of the curriculum committee.  These annual reports should refer to assessments from prior years so that comparisons can be made over time.

 

Grade Reports: Annually, the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and the College of Law Registrar will prepare and disseminate a grades analysis report for all courses, grouped by curricular area and enrollment size, showing mean, median, and low end grade distributions, and trends based on reports from prior years.

 

Assessment of Attrition and Threshold Academic Requirements:  Annually, the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and the College of Law Registrar will assess data showing the number and percentage of students who have failed to satisfy good standing requirements and either have been placed on probation or excluded from the College of Law.  This assessment, which will be disseminated to the faculty, will identify trends based on data from prior years, and examine possible correlations between any changing probation exclusion rates and entering admissions standards. 

 

Bar Exam Results:  Annually, the Associate Dean will collect data provided by the Georgia Office of Bar Admissions regarding comparative pass/fail rates, comparative average MBE scores, and, if available, average scores on each substantive essay question, and submit an overall report to the faculty highlighting strengths, weaknesses, and trends in student performance.

 

Exit Surveys:  Exit survey instruments will be developed in consultation with GSU’s office of Institutional Research and implemented annually by the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and the College of Law Office of Career Services.   Results will be summarized and disseminated to the faculty.

 

Surveys for Accrediting Bodies: Survey instruments will be developed in consultation with GSU’s office of Institutional Research and implemented by the faculty committee that develops the self study report used for accreditation review.  Results will be summarized and disseminated to the faculty.

 

Externship Program Feedback:  Annually, the Co-Directors of the Externship Program will prepare a written report that will summarize the overall feedback received from externship supervisors during the course of the academic year with regard to layering skills development, professionalism, and related areas of importance.

 

 

Assessment of Learning Outcomes: Summary

 

	Final Exams	Research, Writing & Advocacy	Upper Level Writing	Bar Exam	PR Course	MPRE	Litigation Course	Student-Grad. Surveys	Externship Feedback
Analysis and Critical Thinking	X	X	X
Communication		X	X				X
Legal Research/ Writing		X	X					X	X
Knowledge of Core Legal Doctrine	X		X	X				X
Lawyering Skills							X	X	X
Professionalism and Ethics					X	X			X
Preparation for Careers and/or Advanced Legal Study				X				X