Advocacy Training at Baylor Law School

Advocacy

Law School as a Training Ground

Baylor Law School has proven throughout its history that it can produce graduates equipped to begin practicing law. While no law school can produce graduates experienced in performing all of the tasks they will be called upon to perform in practice, Baylor provides students with the opportunity to perform a wide range of lawyering tasks throughout the entire program. The law school does so with the knowledge that experience in performing one lawyering task enables a lawyer to perform other tasks competently.

Legal Doctrine

Training competent lawyers begins with teaching basic legal doctrine. Legal doctrine provides the context for learning core skills and then engaging in lawyering tasks, just as doctrine provides the context for practicing law. Learning legal doctrine does not simply mean memorizing black letter rules. Rather, students at Baylor Law School must develop a sophisticated grasp of the theory behind the rules. Abstract legal rules cannot be applied to resolve concrete factual problems without understanding the theoretical foundation of the rules. For example, contract law requires certain agreements to be in writing to be enforceable. Determining whether an agreement containing both written and oral terms is enforceable under this rule requires an understanding of the reason for the rule. Once a lawyer understands this reason, the lawyer is then able to to determine if the reason requires invalidating the particular agreement. The ability to engage in this mental process requires knowing not just the rule, but the policies behind the rule. Knowing the policies behind the rule also allows students and lawyers to intelligently question the validity of the rule.

Thinking, Speaking, and Writing

In addition to knowing the rules in this broad sense, a lawyer must also posses the skills needed to use this knowledge to resolve client problems. Lawyers essentially do three things in representing clients: they think, they speak, and they write. Thinking like a lawyer requires accurate application of rules to resolve problems. This law application process is generally referred to as problem solving or legal analysis and reasoning. Thinking clearly and analytically is thus part of being a competent lawyer. A competent lawyer must also communicate these thought clearly and persuasively. Clear speaking and writing, like clear thinking, are thus core lawyering skills. Knowing the rules and possessing these core skills are prerequisites to providing competent legal services.

Applying Knowledge and Skill

The final stage in the process of providing competent legal services is using this knowledge and skill to execute lawyering tasks on behalf of the client. A competent litigator must know the rules and think analytically to develop a theory of the case. To produce results for the client, however, the litigator must then implement this theory by skillfully executing lawyering tasks, such as drafting pleadings, conducting pretrial investigation, engaging in motion practice, selecting a jury, and examining witnesses. The challenge for law schools is to develop a program that exposes students to legal doctrine, teaches the core lawyering skills of legal analysis and effective communication, and then gives students supervised experience in performing a reasonable range of lawyering tasks.

Note: Professor William R. Trail and Professor William D. Underwood published an article titled "The Decline of Professional Legal Training and a Proposal for Its Revitalization in Professional Law Schools" in Baylor Law Review, volume 48, no. 1, pp. 201-245, Winter 1996. The information above was derived from that article.