Sylvia J Canelos

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• Lett, S. J. (2024). Flattening the Learning Curve for International J.D. Students. St. Louis University School of Law, Teaching Lrgal Research, Writing, Communication, and Feedback, 68(3), 441-458 (17 pgs.).
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  Non-U.S. lawyers entering U.S. law schools in accelerated J.D. degree programs (known as the “AJD” – Advanced Juris Doctor Program at Arizona Law) face particular challenges adapting to 1L legal research, analysis, and communication classes. First, English is not the typical lingua franca for AJD students, many of whom come from civil law countries and are faced with the challenge of learning legal writing methods for an American common-law legal system. Second, AJD students earn a U.S. J.D. degree in only two years because these accelerated programs give one year of “credit” for their non-U.S. law degrees. As a consequence, many of these students do not have enough time to master the strong legal research and writing skills that are foundational to academic and bar success. Some of the AJDs floundered in Arizona Law’s fastpaced, mandatory year-long writing course. To respond to this problem, Arizona Law created the Introduction to Lawyering Skills (“ILS”) course. ILS was designed to provide a successful, scaffolded “on-ramp” to ensure greater academic success for the AJDs who most need an additional year of legal writing, analysis, and communication course work. This article recounts why we saw the need for ILS, how we created the learning objectives and curriculum, how students were selected for enrollment, and how we addressed expected (and unexpected) challenges along the way. Finally, it argues that a specialized course for certain AJD students not only helps better prepare them to meet the academic rigors of their other law classes and the bar exam, but it also has the side benefit of better connecting the students to a law school’s community and culture.