Abstract
Civil Procedure, Property, Contracts, and Torts are all standard first-year doctrinal law school courses. They provide law students with a solid legal foundation and expose them to American rule-based and precedent-based law. The first year of law school is also often a student’s first introduction to these legal subjects. First-year law students often fail to realize how the material taught in each of these classes complements what they are learning in the other classes. Students focus on learning the material and professors focus on transmitting the information in a comprehensible manner. First-year orientation can be an opportunity to introduce doctrinal material in a creative way to show the pragmatic interrelatedness of the first-year classes. This introduction does not require a complete retooling of the professor’s teaching style or semester syllabus. It can be accomplished by relying on traditional teaching techniques such as presenting the first-year students with an introduction that highlights how the first-year courses dovetail together. The notion of a preparatory introduction to American law at the beginning of a student’s legal studies is also not novel. American law schools have a long tradition of teaching introductory courses. It is time to reintroduce and modernize this practice. By framing an introductory law discussion in a fun and creative way during orientation, students will be both more willing to proceed on the academic journey and engage early and often with their professors. The game of Rock, Paper, Scissors (“RPS”) is the perfect framing tool: the Rock, Paper, and Scissors relate easily to Civil Procedure, Property Law, Contracts Law, and Torts Law in a creative and innovative way to explain how these subjects coexist. This reimagined introduction to the first-year curriculum allows professors to segue into a discussion of the legal issues that arise in each class through an overarching, interactive hypothetical. RPS demonstrates to students how the law acts as one cohesive entity made up of many individual and connected components.
Recommended Citation
Steadman, Jean; Alexander, Aleatra; Anastopoulo, Constance; and Janssen, William
(2024)
"It’s Elementary? Let’s Play Rock, Paper, Scissors: Civil Procedure, Property, Contracts, and Torts During First-Year Law School Orientation,"
University of Memphis Law Review: Vol. 54:
Iss.
3, Article 4.
Available at:
https://digitalcommons.memphis.edu/um-law-review/vol54/iss3/4
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