Law School Awaits Results Of Term's New Curriculum

The Law School is currently marking time as it watches for the first results of the broad revision of its curriculum which went into effect three weeks ago when the School opened this fall.

Such changes as a modernized course structure, a step-up in hours, teaching follows as guides for first year students, and a program to improve seniors' legal writing have all been instituted this term. But it is "still too early" to tell how the new curriculum is working, Lon, L. Fuller, Carter Professor of General Jurisprudence, said yesterday.

Six-Man Committee

Professor Fuller heads a six-man Committee on Legal Education which spent three years in study aided by opinion surveys, to plan the School's new curriculum.

Although the revised Law School program hits second year men especially by Jumping their number of courses from five to eight, each of the three Law School years, has undergone changes under the new plans:

(1) Six teaching fellows have been appointed to assist first year students in a kind of "orientation" program. This move is designed to "tie together courses and thus take some of the heat off the main classes," according to Professor Fuller.

A realistic mock trial was presented for first year law students last night as an experiment sponsored by the teaching fellows of the Law School. A Law School professor and a prominent Boston attorney argued the case of Starr vs. Keene before a Federal District Judge in the Langdell Court Room.

Other changes affecting first year students are the addition of an extra hour of class work per week and the abolition of the mid-year final examination if favor of a year-end final with a comprehensive exam given at mid year. In addition, first year students will have to take a summer "historical" reading program.

(2) Seven of the eight courses second year students must now take are required courses; the eighth is an elective to be chosen from five specified fields.

Benefits of this second year stop-up, Fuller says, are greater course variety and a more leisurely pace in courses. "This should mean coverage without pressure," he explains.

(3)Third year courses will not change immediately, although in the future it is expected that these men will have mere time to specialize, having squeezed in eight courses in their second year. The plan to develop legal writing ability will require that all third year students submit a "satisfactory" piece of writing. Several means for consultation and advice in writing have been set up