U.S. Legal Practice Skills for International Law Students

U.S. Legal Practice Skills for International Law Students is ideal for training international law students in the fundamental practice skills utilized by U.S. lawyers. It functions as a "global legal skills academy" for international students who have or are currently studying American substantive law, but desire a deeper understanding of legal practice basics such as professional responsibility, problem solving, interviewing and counseling, negotiation styles, and law firm and courtroom culture. It focuses on those practice skills necessary to perform the tasks common to international law students and lawyers working with American corporations, law firms, and individual American clients: drafting memoranda, contracts, and correspondence. For international students familiar with their own legal systems, the book systematically explains such distinctive elements of American common law as a dual court system, stare decisis, case synthesis, and case law reasoning.
U.S. Legal Practice Skills for International Law Students incorporates a multicultural perspective, including discussions of cross-cultural considerations impacting the practice of law. The chapters are clear and concise, major points are summarized as bulleted highlights, and extensive use is made of headings and subheadings. Based on established legal skills pedagogy, each chapter begins with a client hypothetical and ends with a discussion of the application of the material to resolve the client's problem. The text also includes an extensive selection of sample documents, a glossary of U.S. legal concepts, a link to past Multistate Practice Tests with the bar examiners' test sheets, and a topically organized appendix of resources. The book reflects the authors' experience as lawyers, as professors of practice skills for international LL.M. students at the University of Michigan Law School, and as the creators and first visiting professors in the legal practice program for the first Western-style law school in China.