MSLAW has published additional Learning Goals it believes are needed by those who practice law, and thus should be imparted throughout the course of study. MSLAW has disseminated these Competencies to full-time and adjunct faculty members and has requested that the faculty follows up by scrutinizing courses to ensure that each is taught and that every student learns at least most of them. (There are a few Competencies that students need not learn if they choose not to, e.g., how to try a case, but most students choose to learn these skills.) The Competencies are:  

  1. The possession of knowledge of a significant range of core substantive subjects.
  2. The ability to competently read and analyze judicial opinions.
  3. The ability to competently read and analyze statutes and regulations
  4. The ability to write trial court memoranda, motions, and appellate briefs.
  5. The ability to write competent legal memoranda.
  6. The ability to write motions and memoranda in support or opposition.
  7. The ability to draft discovery documents including interrogatories, deposition questions, requests for admissions, requests for production of documents, and responses to each of these discovery devices.
  8. The ability to effectively argue motions orally.
  9. The ability to analyze problems and correspondingly plan courses of action, whether in business settings or elsewhere.
  10. Knowledge of, and the ability to learn and use, relevant social, political, economic, and other “non-legal” facts and doctrines relevant to presenting or solving legal questions.
  11. Knowledge of the technologies that are being used, and will be used, in the practice of law.
  12. The ability to speak articulately, whether in courtrooms, in meetings, at hearings, with clients or with opponents.
  13. The ability to interview and counsel clients.
  14. Sensitivity to the needs, desires, and financial abilities of clients.
  15. The ability to ferret out facts relevant to clients’ cases or problems. 
  16. The ability to try cases.
  17. The ability to arbitrate and mediate cases.
  18. The ability to recognize and respond appropriately to the ethical and moral problems that arise continually in law practice.
  19. The ability to behave professionally, including acting with appropriate civility, politeness, promptness, etc.
  20. The ability to organize and manage law offices and work.


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