Abstract
Law students who wish to practice in the area of health law must acquire knowledge, skills, and values that are necessary for them to have an understanding of the legal issues that challenge lawyers and that prepare them for life-long learning in this rapidly growing and changing industry. This paper explores how a concentrated health law certificate program provides students a focused path through the law curriculum. Not only does the program require students to take a range of health law courses, but students take multiple courses that incorporate experiential learning, including clinics, externships, and other courses that integrate clinical teaching methodology. This article highlights the development of a health law certificate program, designed to guide students through the law curriculum to choose among the most beneficial courses for a health law practice. To identify the necessary courses, health law faculty and health law practitioners first explored the knowledge, skills and values that a successful health law practitioner needs. This article also examines the process of developing and implementing the certificate program.
Highlights
In the United States, a law degree is a three-year post-graduate course of study
This paper explores how a concentrated health law certificate program provides students a focused path through the law curriculum
The first year typically is devoted to required courses covering a range of foundational legal areas, whereas the
Summary
In the United States, a law degree is a three-year post-graduate course of study. The first year typically is devoted to required courses covering a range of foundational legal areas (e.g., torts, property, contracts, criminal law, and legal research and writing), whereas the. There may be a few required courses (e.g., Georgia State law requires that all students take a specialized course in litigation, “Lawyering: Advocacy”) and recommended courses (e.g., topics that are tested on the bar exam, a necessary precursor to licensure), but, overall, the second and third year curriculum is primarily directed by student choices Students may base their choices on disparate factors ranging from area of interest, scheduling convenience, or affinity for a particular professor. We concur with this thesis.[7] The core insight behind the integrative strategy [in contrast to the traditional additive strategy of legal curriculum reform by adding new courses] is that effective educational efforts must be understood in holistic rather than atomistic terms For law schools, this means that, far from remaining uncontaminated by each other, each aspect of the legal apprenticeship – the cognitive, the practical, and the ethical-social – takes on part of its character for the kind of relationship it has with the others.[8]. We connect the features of our program to best practices in legal education, as well as the needs of the legal profession
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