The study of law is both exciting and rigorous, offering all law students the opportunity for significant intellectual and personal growth. Here at Carolina Law, our Writing and Learning Resources Center houses three programs that help students face those challenges successfully, growing in professional skill and personal confidence as they move toward their goals of becoming exceptional lawyers:
- Research, Reasoning, Writing and Advocacy, our first-year writing program.
- Legal Education Advancement Program, LEAP, our academic success program open to all first-, second- and third-year law students.
- Supplementary Opportunities to Achieve Results, SOAR, our bar success program supporting third-year students and alumni studying to pass a bar examination in the jurisdiction of their choice.
Each of these programs is committed to the principles that all students are unique and that, for each student, law school is an individual journey. Carolina Law students have remarkable strengths. Nonetheless, it is the rare student who does not discover areas demanding growth - often unexpected areas of growth that appear at unexpected times - as he or she studies law. The programs and courses of study offered through the Writing and Learning Resources Center are based on sound educational principles and are designed to help students navigate these educational challenges successfully, gaining in confidence as they acquire new knowledge and new skills.
Research, Reasoning, Writing and Advocacy
Carolina Law students acquire the critical skills of legal research, legal writing, legal analysis and advocacy from the beginning of their law school studies. In the fall semester, first-year students are enrolled in a one-credit course that introduces them to the hard-copy and online legal research tools that are unique to the study and practice of law. Additionally, students engage in classroom exercises and at-home writing assignments through which they develop the analytical abilities and clear writing skills necessary to communicate complex ideas with accuracy, clarity and style.
In the spring, these skills are further honed in a demanding three-credit seminar in which students represent a fictitious client, assess that client's legal issues, research the law relevant to the client's legal concerns, and communicate their analysis in an objective memo and a persuasive appellate brief. For many students, the highlight of their first year is presenting an oral argument on behalf of their client in a mock courtroom in the last weeks of school.
LEAP (Legal Education Advancement Program)
Carolina Law is home to LEAP, a nationally recognized academic success program. The LEAP program, a tradition at Carolina Law since the mid-1980s, offers a menu of services designed to help all students - first-year, second-year and third-year students - identify their personal goals and take logical steps to achieve them. The LEAP program includes:
- A pre-orientation program open by application to all entering students. This program encourages students from non-traditional backgrounds - including students who are older or younger than average; who may have pursued undergraduate studies in atypical majors; who come from educational backgrounds significantly different from our large state law school; for whom English may be a second language; who may be members of under-represented ethnic, racial, or cultural groups; who may be first-generation college graduates; or who may, for any other reason, feel that a jump start to law school would be beneficial to them.
- Individual and group educational counseling to help students identify their goals and take logical steps to reach them.
- Educational strategy coaching (for example, enhancing new reading skills or exploring optimal note-taking techniques).
- Weekly lunchtime workshops addressing topics of interest to first-year students.
- Peer-led study groups.
- Referrals to campus and private counseling and learning resources.
- Learning style assessments to help students maximize the use of their study time.
- Tutoring services.
- A lending library of study aid materials donated by upper-class students and publishers.
In addition, recognizing that maintaining balance in our lives enhances the learning process, the program's administrative assistant offers a free weekly yoga class to the law school community.
SOAR (Supplementary Opportunities to Achieve Results)
Earning a law degree is a major accomplishment, but most law students also want to become licensed to practice law in the jurisdiction of their choice. To become licensed to practice law, a law school graduate must satisfy the bar admission requirements set individually by each state, including - in almost every state - passing a licensing examination commonly called a bar exam. Carolina Law is committed to making sure all of its graduates equip themselves with the tools necessary to pass the bar exam of their choosing. Toward that end, our SOAR bar success program offers third-year students and alumni:
- An online interactive forum where students can learn more about the bar exam, use bar preparation resources, and monitor their progress.
- Workshops on critical preparation topics, such as bar study strategies, essay exam-writing, time management and stress management.
- Individualized practice essay feedback and tutoring.
- One-on-one and small-group bar coaching.