Overview

Our curriculum teaches students not only how to think like lawyers, but also how to work like lawyers. Students write a lot, because mastery of language is crucial to success in law. They learn the perspectives from which and the contexts in which lawyers work. And they put it all together by exploring the practices of lawyers as they counsel clients; find facts; negotiate, plan, and execute legal strategies; and seek change through courts and legislatures.

Most students complete their UB Law education in a total of six semesters over three years, although we provide the flexibility for students to extend their law school career to four years to accommodate family or other needs or to pursue a dual degree. In selected circumstances, some students graduate early by taking an intensive course of study through five semesters and two summer terms.

The First Year

Traditional Offerings and More
In the first year at UB Law School, students begin to develop an understanding of the interrelationships among rules, activities, and the social setting within which they exist. First-year studies begin with an intensive, week-long introduction to law and legal institutions.

First-year students take required substantive law courses that are common to most law schools:

• Contracts
• Torts
• Property
• Criminal Law
• Constitutional Law
• Civil Procedure

It is in these traditional courses that students are introduced to legal doctrine and to the analytical art of "thinking like a lawyer."

The Legal Research and Writing Program introduces analysis combined with effective writing. In this year-long course, taught in small groups by highly qualified full-time instructors, students focus on a most basic skill: using language with precision, clarity, and persuasiveness. They also learn the fundamentals of traditional and computerized legal research and obtain extensive practice in legal writing with regular feedback.

Upper Division

Choices Abound
A flexible program enables second- and third-year students to achieve individual goals and to design a custom-made curriculum. Students select annually from approximately fifty courses and forty seminars. In addition, there are myriad opportunities for independent study, clinical courses, and externships and judicial clerkships. Students can also receive credit for up to 9 hours of graduate work in other departments in the university.

Upper-division students typically enroll in four or five courses each semester, with the option of additional offerings in a January term and in the summer term. After the first year, the only required course is a seminar of your choice that involves in-depth writing.

A law school career affords our students the opportunity for exposure to a wide range of legal practice and thought - from litigation to transactions, sociolegal studies to history, public policy to jurisprudence. The second and third years of law school at UB provide a window into these various disciplines. We encourage students to select a sequence of courses that couples this broad exploration with concentrated study in a particular area of research or practice.

Students can build their own course sequences

Students can craft their own curriculum by enrolling in sequences of courses in selected areas of specialization. One way is to enroll in any of the established curricular concentrations. Or, students can build their own course sequence in other areas of curricular strength at UB Law-real estate, taxation, state and local government law, history, social policy, jurisprudence, and more. Most law courses, including clinical offerings, are available whether or not our students select a particular concentration.

Seminars and Independent Study

Seminars and independent studies offer important educational opportunities at UB Law. They critically explore current problems and evolving areas of the law, as well as how new legal concepts in one era have become legal staples in the next. At least one seminar with a major writing component is required in the upper division.

Seminar topics cover countless areas of theory and practice, from legal history to developments in health-care regulation, from theories of justice to labor arbitration, from the globalization of trade to financing a small business, from the definition of "families" to toxic torts. Students collaborate with one another and with faculty in research and discussion, and typically produce significant papers.

You may also design and pursue your own small seminar-like independent study projects under faculty supervision.

Bridge Courses

An Inside View of Lawyering
January bridge courses link theory with practice. We offer upper-division students optional bridge courses, taught primarily by accomplished attorneys and judges. Many second- and third-year students enroll in two or three such courses during the January term. Ordinarily offered for 1 credit each, these courses bring a unique dimension to legal education by providing a focused, inside view of a lawyer's world that most students never see.

Courses

Current courses and seminars afford students exposure to a wide range of legal practice and thought - from litigation to transactions, sociolegal studies to history, public policy to jurisprudence. We encourage students to select a sequence of courses that couples this broad exploration with concentrated study in a particular area of research or practice.