Associate Dean Sowle’s Announcements, October 30 - November 3, 2023
1L Your Way. All first-year full-time students will be required to take Civil Procedure, Property, and Legal Writing 2 in the Spring. For their fourth course, they will either take Legislation, or one of the "1L Your Way" choices described below. Part-time day students and evening division students will begin taking electives next Fall (or this Summer if they elect to enroll for the optional Summer term). The final Spring schedule, with further details, will be issued by mid-November.
Full-time first-year students will have three options in the Spring:
(1) Taking Legislation (a 3-credit required course).
(2) Taking one of several designated elective classes. The tentative list of classes includes Business Organizations (4 cr.), Criminal Procedure: Adjudicative Process (3 cr.), Labor Law (3 cr.), and Patent Law (3 cr.). (Please note that this list is subject to change.) Students may also petition to take other elective classes that fit their schedules; petitions will be considered on a case-by-case basis in consultation with the professors teaching the courses. If you take an elective, you will be in class with upper-level students.
(3) Taking the First Year Clinic option (3 credits; see the description below).
First-year students who choose to take an elective or the First Year Clinic will be required to take Legislation in the Fall of their second year. To ensure that all full-time first-year students are assessed on a common set of courses, grades for Legislation or for an elective taken its place will not be considered in calculating Spring class ranks for first-year students or for purposes of probation and dismissals, Law Review selections, or merit scholarships for first-year students. (As noted below, the First Year Clinic option is graded pass/fail and thus won't count into students' GPA's for that reason.)
We may not be able to accommodate all first-year students who wish to take one of the designated electives or the First Year Clinic, although we are hopeful there will be sufficient spaces available for all interested students. If there are insufficient spaces, we will conduct a lottery to select the students.
First Year Clinic: The First Year Clinic option allows J.D. students at the beginning of their law school career to experience a clinical internship with one of the C-K Law Group in-house practices. Students enrolled in the program become actual members of a clinic. In addition to weekly section meetings with your supervising professor, there is a weekly plenary classroom session that covers lawyering activities that arise within real life law practice. The available practice areas include civil litigation; criminal defense; employee benefits claims; estate planning, probate and transactional law; family law; mediation; and tax law. Depending on the practice area and each professor's caseload at the time, students may be exposed to such activities as: legal and factual research, client interviews, document drafting, discovery review, administrative hearings and negotiations, trial team strategy sessions, court appearances, and motion calls. The First Year Clinic will be graded on a pass/fail basis only. First Year Clinic may only be taken for 3 credits (the 4-credit options are not available to first-year students). Only full-time first-year J.D. students are eligible. Applications are now available online by clicking here.
Counseling Services. This is a reminder that the university provides counseling services free of charge for students. Click here for details on the available resources, including individual counseling through Skylight Counseling Services. In addition to resources available through the university, the Lawyers Assistance Program also provides assistance to law students. LAP provides free and confidential assistance to members of the Illinois legal community, including students, and can help you with issues of addiction, stress, anxiety, depression, focusing, worries about the character and fitness process, and having a successful first-year transition. Click here for more information about LAP and the services it provides.
Classrooms for Remote Use. If you are taking an online class this semester (or a class that meets on campus some weeks and remotely other weeks), we have reserved rooms at the Law School for you to use if you won't have sufficient time to travel from home to school (or vice versa) in between your online class and an on-site class you have the same day. These rooms will remain the same throughout the semester. Click here for the list. Please note: You will each connect to class individually in Zoom and should have earphones or headphones with you.
Counseling Services. This is a reminder that the university provides counseling services free of charge for students. Click here for details on the available resources, including individual counseling through Skylight Counseling Services. In addition to resources available through the university, the Lawyers Assistance Program also provides assistance to law students. LAP provides free and confidential assistance to members of the Illinois legal community, and can help you with issues of addiction, stress, anxiety, depression, focusing, worries about the character and fitness process, and having a successful first-year transition. Click here for more information about LAP and the services it provides.
Joke of the Week. "I hate it when my foot falls asleep during the day because that means it's going to be up all night." (Steven Wright)