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College of Law

Juris Doctor

The Juris Doctor requires 84 s.h., including required and elective courses. All entering students are expected to take all courses designated as first-year courses and may not register for different courses or fewer semester hours without permission of the associate dean. No student may be enrolled during any fall or spring semester for more than 15 s.h. applicable to the J.D., or for more than 12 s.h. during any two adjacent summer sessions.

To be eligible for the J.D., a student must:

receive course credit for 84 s.h.;

take and complete all required courses;

satisfy the writing requirements;

complete the course of study required for the degree in no fewer than 27 months after commencing law study at the College of Law or at a law school from which transfer credit has been accepted and no later than 84 months; and

achieve a cumulative g.p.a. of at least 2.10, a C average.

Receiving credit in a course is dependent upon successful completion of a final examination, or all assigned work, or both. In order to take the final examination, students must satisfy all requirements established by the instructor, including class attendance, written work, special readings, oral reports, and so forth.

First-Year Curriculum

One of the distinctive benefits of law study at Iowa is the College of Law's focus on providing students with a foundation in basic skills that will support more advanced study and professional work. The first-year curriculum emphasizes careful reading, essential writing skills, legal research, and argumentation. Students concentrate on developing analytical skills (for example, reading and understanding judicial opinions), gain a sense of the role of legal institutions in society, and focus on developing good writing and research skills.

All first-year students take091:130 Legal Analysis Writing and Research I and 091:131 Legal Analysis Writing and Research II (LAWR), a two-semester, 4 s.h. course designed to equip them with effective skills in oral and written communication, legal research, and analysis. LAWR is staffed by full-time faculty members with expertise in teaching legal research and writing. Class size is small, with around 20 students in each section of the course.

LAWR helps students develop legal analysis skills gradually. It teaches the value of critical reading, how to analyze facts and frame legal issues, how to determine which facts are legally significant, and how to extract legal rules from judicial opinions. As the year progresses, students learn how to generate arguments and counter arguments, and how to interpret facts in order to predict the likely outcome of a client's case. They also learn varied methods of legal analysis, including precedential analysis and analysis by analogy.

The first-year program emphasizes writing in small increments, with short assignments, frequent feedback, and revisions of written assignments. Because students will eventually practice in a range of legal settings, the program exposes them to varied forms of written documents, such as memoranda, trial briefs, client letters, motions, and appellate briefs, and provides instruction in appropriate formats for the varied documents (e.g., questions presented, argument headings).

LAWR uses peer review, requiring students to assess, discuss, and critique their peers' writing assignments. This cooperative process helps students gain insight into their own legal writing abilities and learn to appreciate different approaches to the same task. It also prepares them for the experience of collaborating as practicing lawyers.

Students begin to learn about research early in the first year, completing increasingly complex research tasks as the year progresses. LAWR reinforces research techniques covered in the classroom by integrating them into written assignments. It also teaches students the fundamentals of legal research by requiring hands-on library workshops.

First-year courses are as follows. Entering first-year students are expected to take all first-year courses and may not register for different courses or fewer hours without the associate dean's permission.

Fall Semester 

Spring Semester 

A mandatory curve is applied to the grade distribution in all courses.

Upperclass Curriculum

In the second and third years, students take courses in a broad array of substantive areas of the law, with focus on fact gathering, interviewing, counseling, drafting, transaction planning, negotiation, and litigation. They also concentrate course work or writing and research opportunities in particular areas of interest.

Very few common requirements exist in the second and third years. All students must take 091:232 Constitutional Law II and a course in professional ethics.

Writing Requirement

All students must earn four upper-level writing units in order to graduate. At least two of the four units must be earned under direct faculty supervision, in courses, seminars, research projects, or legal clinical work. The remaining two may be earned through a combination of courses and activities that carry writing credit, including 091:402 Moot Court Board, advanced appellate advocacy activities, and journals, including the Iowa Law Review, The Journal of Corporation Law, The Journal of Gender, Race & Justice, and Transnational Law & Contemporary Problems.

Concentrated Study Opportunities

Students may pursue their interest in a particular subject area by selecting appropriate course work and independent research projects. For example, in the intellectual property and competition law focus area, students may take several courses: 091:208 Antitrust Law (3 s.h.), 091:283 Copyrights (3 s.h.), 091:286 Introduction to Intellectual Property Law (3 s.h.), 091:324 Patent Law (2 s.h.), 091:369 Trademarks and Unfair Competition Law (2 s.h.), 091:608 Advanced Topics in Intellectual Property (arr. s.h.), 091:626 Federal Antitrust Policy (arr. s.h.), 091:604 Patent Prosecution Seminar (3 s.h.), 091:241 Corporations I (3 s.h.), 091:306 The Law of Electronic Media (2 s.h.), 091:355 Securities Regulation (arr. s.h.), 091:618 Cultural Property/Heritage (arr. s.h.), and 091:624 Cyberspace Law Seminar (arr. s.h.).

Seminars

Students should direct questions about a seminar's requirements to the College of Law registrar or the instructor before the seminar begins, because they may not be permitted to drop the class after it meets the first time.

Seminars usually offer up to 4 s.h., including up to two writing units. Seminar formats vary widely; consult the College of Law Guide to Courses and semester registration materials for details. Students are graded on the basis of a research paper, and at the instructor's discretion, for class participation and other seminar requirements.

A common seminar format consists of a class portion for 2 s.h., and a writing portion for 2 s.h. Reduction of credit for seminars requires the instructor's consent. In some seminars, the instructor may permit the student to enroll for the class portion but not the writing portion. The students' performance in the class portion is evaluated on the same basis as for other courses--by examinations, papers, class participation, or other methods at the faculty member's discretion. Students must obtain the instructor's consent before registering.

Papers produced for seminars may be eligible for entry in competitions sponsored by varied groups. Cash prizes frequently are available. Competition announcements are posted on the bulletin boards outside the college's Writing Resource Center.

Clinical Programs, Internships, Clerkships, Externships

Students who have completed the equivalent of three semesters toward the J.D. (at least 39 s.h.) are eligible to apply their theoretical knowledge to real cases and projects under the supervision of faculty members and other attorneys through participation in the College of Law's Clinical Law Programs.

Some 30 students participate each semester and summer session in the in-house programs. They may represent individual and organizational clients in a variety of areas including immigration, domestic violence, criminal defense, consumer law, disability, civil rights, employment law, and general civil practice.

Other students may enroll in externships in Iowa City and the surrounding area, where they act as staff attorneys, assisting in all phases of the legal process. Typical placements include the City Attorney's Office, the Human Rights Commissions, and Student Legal Services in Iowa City; the federal public defender, Iowa Legal Aid, and Kids First in Cedar Rapids, Iowa; and HELP Legal Services and the U.S. Attorney's Office, Davenport, Iowa. A clinical semester also is available, in which students spend an entire semester in the Iowa Attorney General's Office, the U.S. Attorney's Office, the Youth Law Center, or the federal court, all in Des Moines.

Some students find placements in judicial externships, which provide opportunities to work closely with a federal district court judge or state appellate judge. Students register for 091:407 Clinical Law Program--Externship and earn 9 s.h. per semester; in some cases, they may arrange to earn 15 s.h. with an independent writing component. Under the supervision of the judge and the judge's staff, the student researches and drafts a wide variety of legal memoranda, orders, and opinions. The extern also assists in hearings and performs other duties associated with a judicial clerkship. Each judicial extern meets weekly with a faculty supervisor to discuss the externship work in chambers and takes part in biweekly classroom discussions with other externs.

Judicial externs must have strong research and writing skills and must be able to produce acceptable work under tight deadlines. Externs conduct much of their work independently. Only students who are able to meet these requirements should apply for judicial externships.

Students may earn a total of up to 15 s.h. in the Clinical Law Programs and up to 20 s.h. for clinic and non-law courses offered in other University of Iowa colleges.

The College of Law also is involved in programs that do not carry academic credit. Each summer it participates in the County Attorney Internship Program, through which students work as paid employees for county attorneys throughout the state, and in the Poverty Law Internship Program, which places students in Iowa Legal Aid offices. The college also helps place students in a variety of unpaid clerkships and internships nationwide that provide insight into the workings of the legal system.

Academic Advising

The Associate dean for academic affairs works with the dean on academic programs and issues of the law school.

The Associate dean for student affairs provides academic advice and counseling to students; advocates for student concerns; offers information and makes referrals for students with professional, personal, or family problems; facilitates operation of the student discipline system; and arranges reasonable accommodations for disabled students. The associate dean also advises law students pursuing combined degrees in University of Iowa graduate programs and serves as the liaison with those programs.

Each faculty advisor advises five or six students on course selection, academic matters, and when necessary, other concerns.

Small section instructors advise students enrolled in their small sections during students' first year of study.

Each year one or two tenured faculty members are selected by the Iowa Student Bar Association to serve as College of Law ombudspersons. Students who have a problem or grievance should seek an ombudsperson's help. All complaints are handled in strict confidence.

The College of Law registrar is in charge of student record keeping and should be students' first recourse for information about course enrollment, scheduling, combined program status, student certification for state bar applications, and progress toward graduation.

The Student Services Committee oversees coordination and periodic review of how the college provides academic and curricular counseling to law students. The committee reviews and coordinates the college's efforts to provide information, offer services and programs, and make referrals regarding its students' mental and emotional health. The committee has oversight for assignment of faculty academic advisors to law students, for matters of faculty/student collegiality, and for the Academic Achievement Program.

Academic Achievement Program

The College of Law Academic Achievement Program (AAP) helps students achieve their potential as they go from successful undergraduate careers to the unique challenges of law study. Although AAP focuses on helping first-year students, its programs are open to all.

AAP presents a variety of programs, including a fall-semester lecture series for new students. Examples of content areas include time management for law study, developing effective study groups, outlining and organizing class notes and course materials, taking essay exams, and answering multiple choice tests. Several weeks before exams, a voluntary practice exam is administered. AAP also provides a number of social gatherings for all students.

Spring semester programming responds to special challenges of the second semester, including reviewing and learning from fall exams, taking on complex writing projects, exam preparation, and other matters.

In addition to offering group programs, AAP provides individual help with study skills. When personal issues affect a student's concentration or studying, the program provides direct help and refers students to University and community support resources.