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The School of Law's primary mission drives its academic program: preparing students to practice law with competence and honor. We offer an education that familiarizes our students with both private and public law, and sensitizes them to the ethical considerations so often all-important to the work that lawyers do.
We teach our students to analyze problems -- identify significant facts, analyze and synthesize precedent, interpret statutes, and construct policy arguments -- and train them to write and speak with clarity and precision.
We emphasize that competent participation in the legal profession includes both an awareness of how legal doctrine evolves in response to society's changing values and needs, and an understanding of how lawyers can implement those changes through the law. Our students acquire the requisite expertise for such participation through a rigorous traditional curriculum complemented by comprehensive skills training.
In the first intensive year, students concentrate on the highly traditional and prescribed basic courses, and on a yearlong course that refines their legal analysis and writing skills -- a course the American Bar Association has called one of the finest in the nation. The principal form of instruction is the Socratic method, a case-by-case technique that utilizes dialogue between teacher and student. In this respect, the law school follows the century-old tradition of American legal education.
The upper-level, elective curriculum allows for choice, innovation, and diversity. It is during these years that our students experience the enriching blend of theoretical and practical course offerings. They may select either a broad, balanced program of study, or specialize in a particular area of law by pursuing one of twelve focus areas that range from Business and Corporate Law to Intellectual Property Rights.
Our curriculum prepares students for a variety of legal practice environments -- large or small, metropolitan or rural, public or private -- as well as for legal careers in business, management, education, government, and the judiciary. Seattle University School of Law graduates are equipped to practice law in any state in the nation.