Student Learning Outcomes

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Consistent with our stated mission, St. John’s Law is committed to educating students to be skilled, ethical, and impactful attorneys who lead by example as they serve their clients, uphold the Rule of Law, and uplift the legal profession. To achieve these educational objectives, and in accordance with ABA Standard 302, our faculty has adopted the following student learning outcomes and related performance indicators for all J.D. students.

For more information, please refer to our Programmatic Learning Outcomes Assessment Plan. You can also contact Associate Dean for Assessment and Accreditation Rosa Castello at [email protected] if you have any questions about student learning outcomes at St. John's Law. 

Student Learning Outcomes

Performance Indicators:

  • Identifying and applying concepts of law in foundational courses, core areas, and other areas as reflected by our curricular offerings.
  • Identifying and understanding how the law evolves.
  • Identifying legal issues and applying relevant law to a novel set of facts.

Performance Indicators:

  • Developing an effective and appropriate legal research strategy.
  • Demonstrating the ability to develop a case planning strategy.
  • Demonstrating the ability to conduct a factual investigation.
  • Demonstrating proficiency in interviewing, counseling, and alternative dispute resolution.
  • Locating, analyzing, and synthesizing primary and secondary sources relevant to the legal issue at hand.
  • Applying the relevant legal rules to the legally significant facts and drawing appropriate conclusions based on clients’ interests and goals.

Performance Indicators:

  • Drafting and editing documents that objectively analyze a legal problem.
  • Drafting and editing documents designed to persuade a reader.
  • Drafting and editing documents that create legal rights and obligations.
  • In oral and written communications, communicating in a clear, concise, and effective manner.
  • In all documents, employing rules of grammar, spelling, and citation.
  • Making persuasive oral arguments or presentations.

Performance Indicators:

  • Communicating an argument on an issue of law or legal policy.
  • Researching, locating, analyzing, and engaging with scholarship on the topic.
  • Citing and attributing the words and ideas of others properly.

Performance Indicators:

  • Demonstrating awareness of cultural differences that may impact representation of one’s clients, the legal profession, and the legal system.
  • Identifying the history, goals, structures, values, and responsibilities of the legal profession.
  • Identifying and applying rules of professional conduct for attorneys.
  • Understanding the importance of assisting the underserved with their unmet legal needs and providing at least 50 hours of pro bono service during Law School.
  • Demonstrating awareness of the role of structural inequities, including structural racism, in the legal system.