At Richardson Law School, we are committed to learning as a collaborative enterprise. Our program challenges students to grow intellectually and professionally. Faculty members engage with students as partners as well as serve as sources of knowledge. A foremost concern of the Law School is to provide assistance in learning how to learn. Students prepare for a challenging and rewarding professional life equipped with skills in legal counseling, advocacy, and decision-making. Students are encouraged to study law and legal institutions as integral parts of larger social, political-economic, and ecological systems.<br>The Law School curriculum is rich and diverse. Classroom experiences include vigorous discussion in traditional Socratic classroom settings, as well as lectures, seminars, informal small group discussions, and individually supervised field and library research projects. Writing skills are honed in small groups and on a one-to-one basis with experienced faculty and practitioners. Students participate in experiential clinical courses that provide a wide array of opportunities including real courtroom experience, simulation clinics and externship opportunities. All students in the full-time Juris Doctor (JD) program must enroll for at least 12 credits during the three-year program. A normal semester course load is 14 to 16 credit hours. Through rigorous, stimulating, and challenging study, the Law School's graduates are well-prepared to work in any jurisdiction in the country.<br>Our Juris Doctor program provides degree candidates with the opportunity to equip themselves for active and effective participation as professionals in legal counseling, advocacy and decision-making. Whether the context be in a courtroom or at a legislative hearing, attorney's office, corporate boardroom, state agency, federal commission, community center or international conference table, our graduates are prepared. Students are encouraged to study law and legal institutions as integral parts of larger social, political-economic, and ecological systems.<br><br>Techniques of instruction include the traditional 'Socratic method (in which an instructor rigorously questions individual students in a large group setting), lectures, problem-based learning, seminars, informal small group discussions, individually supervised field and library research projects, and a variety of experiential methods. Clinical components, in the form of real or simulated lawyers tasks, are an essential part of the program. Small-group work, especially in the first year, is organized around hypothetical client problems. Second- and third-year small-group seminars and clinical workshops permit students to develop lawyering skills in areas of their practice interests.<br><br>The Law School is committed to the view that learning is an enterprise in which members of the faculty should function as facilitating participants as well as sources of knowledge. Accordingly, students are expected to develop their own legal skills and abilities and to clarify their values. Successful performance of those tasks depends on the inclination and ability to learn continuously and on one's own. Therefore, a foremost concern of the school is to provide assistance in learning how to learn.