This course is designed to enhance skills that are necessary to succeed in law school. The course focuses on the ability to analyze and synthesize cases and rules of law; create schema to organize and understand information in law school classes; and apply the law through essay exam writing. The course also provides strategies for taking multiple-choice questions, improving study techniques, and managing stress and time. Conditional grades in this course are subject to the Mandatory Grade Distribution set forth in the Student Handbook. In assigning final course grades, the instructor has discretion to allow students to raise their conditional grade by up to one full letter grade by completing additional assignments. Students receiving a final letter grade of “D” or below are required to take Advanced Legal Reasoning.
LMU Law may choose to make a law school preparation program available to incoming students in the summer before they matriculate. Students who complete 100% of that program and earn a satisfactory score on both the multiple-choice and essay portions of the final exam are not required to take the Legal Foundations course. The satisfactory exam scores and any pertinent deadlines shall be set forth in the syllabus or schedule for the program and shall be made available to students at the start of the program. A student who is not required to take the Legal Foundations course may still elect to take the course. Students who elect not to take the Legal Foundations course should plan to instead take an additional elective credit when they are upper-level students in order to complete the 90 credits of coursework required for graduation.