The Pre-Law Program has developed concepts for four undergraduate courses which focus on the application of specific skills and perspectives such as; analytical thinking and problem solving, critical reading and writing, oral communication, research, task organizing and management, the values of serving others, and promoting social justice and knowledge. Each of these courses has been endowed by local law firms and each contains a lecture series component.
The first endowed Program course entitled “Social Responsibility and the Law” was awarded a $25,000 endowment from the local attorney Tom Brown, who was a senior partner in the law firm Brown, Terrell, Hogan, Ellis, McClamma, and Yegelwel. Professor David Courtwright has taught this course since its inception and teaches it in the spring semester. A number of guest speakers have addressed Dr. Courtwright’s classes including Dr. Michael Radelet, a nationally-known expert on the death penalty. Dr. Courtwright’s classes have also fielded discussions with local attorneys and doctors on tobacco litigation.
A second Program course, entitled “Pre-Law Seminar: Ethics, Standards, and Values” was endowed by the law firm of Liles, Gavin, Constantino, George & Dearing, P.A. Rutledge Liles is a past president of the Florida Bar.
The third course, “Child Advocacy” has been taught during the spring semester since 2001. This course was endowed in full by local attorney and Magistrate Judge Maria Keebler. Numerous guest speakers in the field of child advocacy have addressed this class.
The fourth course, “Mock Trial,” was created in 1995. The course was one of the country’s first three-hour credit courses in Mock Trial. It has been adopted by numerous other academic institutions and continues to serve as a model course. For further information, please click on the link to the Program’s separate Mock Trial page.
These state-of-the-art courses, co-designed by academicians and lawyers, will help the student understand the human institutions and values with which the law deals. They will introduce them to contemporary social issues, which will present challenges to the lawyers of tomorrow. The accompanying lecture series, which is open to the general public, will bring renowned legal consultants, jurists, and law professors to campus. In the future, members of the local judicial and legal community will be scheduled to teach Professional Ethics.
There is a lecture series component to the endowed courses. Beginning 2011, the College of Arts and Sciences and the Pre-Law Program jointly sponsored a new Pre-Law Lecture Series, which focuses on the intersections between law and the arts and sciences. This lecture series was created to engage students, faculty, and the public in discussions with scholars who study law as it applies to questions we examine in the arts and sciences.
The first speaker was Dr. Michael Gagarin, who is one of the foremost scholars in the areas of ancient Greek law, oratory and political theory. His works have included Drakon and Early Athenian Homicide Law, Early Greek law, and most recently Writing Greek Law (Cambridge, 2008), as well as a number of monographs and articles on the Athenian orators, and an edited selection on Early Greek Political Thought, co-authored with Paul Woodruff. Dr. Gagarin’s lecture is entitled “Law and Rhetoric in Classical Athens and Today,” was presented on March 9, 2011.
Dr. David Courtwright with Dr. Michael Gagarin
Our second speaker, Linda Greenhouse's public lecture was The Supreme Court and the Public: An Imperfect Dialogue. She is the Knight Distinguished Journalist-in-Residence and Joseph Goldstein Lecturer in Law at Yale Law School. She assumed this position in 2009 after a 40-year career at the New York Times, including 30 years covering the United States Supreme Court. Her biography of Justice Harry A. Blackmun, Becoming Justice Blackmun, was published in 2005. She received numerous journalism awards for her reporting, including a Pulitzer Prize in 1998; the Carey McWilliams Award from the American Political Science Association in 2002 for "a major journalistic contribution to our understanding of politics;" and the Goldsmith Career Award for Excellence in Journalism from Harvard University's Kennedy School in 2004. She received a Master of Studies in Law degree from Yale law School and is a regular guest on the PBS program Washington Week.
Martin Edwards with Linda Greenhouse and Peggy Baldt
