Document Type
Essay
Publication Title
The Second Draft
Publication Date
2023
Volume
36:2
Abstract
(Excerpt)
Law schools have a critical responsibility to train students in effective oral communication skills. Indeed, the American Bar Association’s Standard 302 requires that law schools establish learning outcomes that include student “competency” in, among other things, “[l]egal analysis and reasoning, legal research, problem-solving, and written and oral communication in the legal context.” Yet, apart from clinical and externship offerings, where students can regularly interact with clients, lawyers, judges, and others, and courses like trial or appellate advocacy, which focus on essential courtroom communications, students generally have limited opportunities to practice oral communication skills in a traditional law school classroom.
While class participation, whether voluntary or part of traditional Socratic instruction or some modified version of it, can be useful for developing confidence in public speaking, the primary goal of class participation, even if graded, is typically not to teach students the art of oral communication. Rather, it aims to encourage students to stay engaged and participate in classroom discussions and debates in order to learn the law and its historical development, understand its nuances, appreciate its implications, test its boundaries, and apply it to future situations. This goal is distinct from providing students with a structured opportunity to research and present an idea to an audience, then explain, support, and defend it, and ultimately answer questions about it—all of which are vital skills for mastering oral communication.
Therefore, to address this gap, I have sought ways to integrate structured oral presentation experiences into my classes. My most successful integration occurred in my Drafting Contracts course, a limited-enrollment, upper-level advanced legal writing class, that teaches contemporary commercial contract drafting using Tina Stark’s exceptional text on the topic. The original idea for the exercise, admittedly, was not my own. Jane Scott, a former Associate Professor of Legal Writing at my institution, taught the course previously and generously shared a wealth of material with me, including an assignment that required a brief oral presentation. Over time, I modified the assignment, making it a fixed component of my course—effectively advancing the goal of developing student competency in oral communication.
Comments
Available at: https://www.lwionline.org/article/integrating-oral-presentation-assignment-course-drafting-contracts
This essay was first printed in The Second Draft and is reprinted with its permission.