Advocacy
The advocacy program is indisputably the best in the country. We back up that claim with 91 national advocacy competition titles and literally hundreds of state and regional victories. Additionally, many students win individual speaking and writing awards. No other school in the United States can claim a winning record close to that of South Texas.
Legal Research and Writing
No lawyering skill is more important than the ability to communicate effectively. Lawyers must know how to research completely and present a legal issue both orally and in writing. The full-time legal research and writing professors teach students how to think critically and evaluate every aspect of a legal problem while learning to write statutory analysis, client letters, pleadings and briefs. Our mandatory year-long lawyering skills program culminates with oral argument presentations judged by the full-time faculty.
Centers of Excellence
South Texas offers students a variety of ways to gain valuable, real-world experience in the college’s Centers of Excellence. The Frank Evans Center for Conflict Resolution allows students to learn from and interact with practicing attorneys who specialize in mediation and arbitration.
The Corporate Compliance Center involves students who are interested in working as in-house counsel, corporate counsel, outside counsel and business lawyers. The center explores issues such as how companies promote policies and procedures that ensure legal and ethical behavior and how companies detect and deter wrongdoing. The Transactional Skills Center is designed to teach students the fundamental elements of completing a business transaction such as a real estate purchase or development, buying or selling a corporation, or creating a partnership.
Clinical Studies
After the first year of required courses, students may elect from a broad array of lawyering skills development classes including direct representation of actual clients, off-site supervised field placements and mock trial and moot court simulation courses.
Students apply legal principles to real-life situations in the general civil clinic. Varied legal services are provided to the poor who are in need of help in everything from divorce and child custody problems and fair housing to settling billing disputes or obtaining health care. A recent grant from the Rockwell Fund, Incorporated has expanded services offered by the clinic to include assistance to women at the Star of Hope Transitional Living Center.
Being located in the heart of a major urban legal center, South Texas offers clinics in a variety of challenging off-campus locations: state and federal judges’ chambers, prosecutors’ offices, and a host of governmental, charitable organizations and pro bono law offices. Students working in these clinics experience the actual practice of law and use insights garnered on the job as the discussion context of concurrent clinical seminars.
South Texas’ location also allows it to take full advantage of a strong cadre of local jurists and leading practitioners in its simulation courses. Students are challenged to expand their mediation, pre-trial and trial level skills through courses which combine lectures, demonstrations, role play activities and professor critiques.
Study Abroad
International influence on the law is unavoidable. South Texas students seeking to become well-versed in international law have a variety of options from which to choose, including summer study abroad programs in England, Denmark, Ireland, Turkey, Malta, Mexico and The Netherlands. Faculty and students from across the country participate in the summer programs which offer comparative or international law courses while providing students the opportunity to learn about the legal system in the host country and to establish relationships with future colleagues from the United States as well as abroad.
Additionally, full semester exchange programs with the University of Aarhus in Denmark and Leiden University in The Netherlands allow full immersion into the culture and laws of the host country. A limited number of academic internships are available for students at The Hague. In these internships, students work under the tutelage of defenders at The Hague in The Netherlands on cases to be heard before the United Nations’ Ad Hoc International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.
Student Status
Students must elect either full-time or part-time status for both semesters of each academic year. The assistant dean and registrar may approve a change in status during an academic year for exceptional changes in circumstances.
Full-time Students
The following requirements for full-time students must be met to be eligible for the Doctor of Jurisprudence degree:
- Must take a minimum of 12 semester hours of course work each fall and spring semester
- Must meet the full-time resident study requirement: a minimum of 90 weeks of full-time study over at least three academic years
- Must not be employed more than 20 hours per week
- Are discouraged from accepting any employment during the first year
- Must successfully complete the following required courses in the following basic sequence, although the order of courses will be slightly different for spring admittees, those attending summer sessions and those with approved waivers for extraordinary need:
First Semester Full-time
| Legal Research and Writing |
2 |
| Contracts |
3 |
| Torts |
3 |
| Civil Procedure |
4 |
| Criminal Law |
3 |
| Total Hours |
15 |
Second Semester Full-time
| Legal Research and Writing II |
2 |
| Contracts II |
3 |
| Torts II |
3 |
| Constitutional Law |
4 |
| Property I |
3 |
| Total Hours |
15 |
Third Semester Full-time
| Property II |
3 |
| Evidence |
3 |
| Federal Income Taxation |
3 |
| Total Hours (Plus Electives) |
9 |
- Must take the Professional Responsibility course before completion of the 60th credit hour
- Must complete a substantial research paper as a condition of graduation
Part-time Students
The following requirements for part-time students must be met to be eligible for the Doctor of Jurisprudence degree:
- Must take a minimum of eight to a maximum of 11 semester hours of course work each fall and spring
semester
- Must meet the part-time resident study requirement: a minimum of 120 weeks of part-time study over at least four academic years
- May be employed over 20 hours per week
- Must successfully complete the following required courses in the following sequence, although some differences occur for spring admittees, those who do not attend all sessions and those with approved waivers for extraordinary need:
First Fall Part-time
| Legal Research and Writing |
2 |
| Contracts |
3 |
| Torts |
3 |
| Total Hours |
8 |
First Spring Part-time
| Civil Procedure |
4 |
| Criminal Law |
3 |
| Property |
3 |
| Total Hours |
10 |
First Summer Part-time
| Contracts II |
3 |
| Torts II |
3 |
| Total Hours |
6 |
Second Fall Part-time
| Constitutional Law |
4 |
| Evidence |
3 |
| Property II |
3 |
| Total Hours |
10 |
Second Spring Part-time
| Federal Income Taxation |
3 |
| Legal Research and Writing II |
2 |
| Total Hours (Plus Electives) |
5 |
- Must take the Professional Responsibility course before completion of the 60th credit hour
- Must complete a substantial research paper as a condition of graduation
Planning a course of study
South Texas’ curriculum provides a well-balanced education with concentration in specific areas of the law. Each area lists the foundation courses which are generally most relevant to that topic area and related courses which would be helpful in gaining a more profound understanding of the area. Students can rarely complete all suggested foundation and related courses. In fact, none of the courses is considered mandatory for success, but the guidelines are provided to help with decisions about course selection.
civil litigation – business
Foundation
Agency and Partnership
Antitrust Law
Civil Pretrial Advocacy*
Civil Trial Advocacy*
Conflict of Laws
Corporations
Insurance
Negotiation and Settlement – Seminar
Payment Systems
Texas Pretrial Procedure
Texas Trial and Appellate Procedure
Remedies
Secured Transactions
Securities Regulation
Trademarks and Unfair Competition
Related
Accounting for Lawyers
Appellate Advocacy*
Alternative Dispute Resolution
Business Bankruptcy
Civil RICO and Business Fraud
Commercial Law – Seminar*
Consumer Transactions
Damages
Environmental Law
Evidence – Seminar
Federal Courts
Intellectual Property Survey
Judicial Administration
Mediation
Mock Trial Litigation
Oil, Gas and Mineral Law
Professional Liability – Seminar
Real Estate Finance Law
civil litigation – personal injury
Foundation
Civil Pretrial Advocacy*
Civil Trial Advocacy*
Conflict of Laws
Insurance
Legal Medicine
Negotiation and Settlement – Seminar
Products Liability
Texas Pretrial Procedure
Texas Trial and Appellate Procedure
Workers’ Compensation Law
Related
Admiralty
Advanced Civil Litigation
Appellate Advocacy*
Damages
Evidence – Seminar
Federal Courts
General Civil Clinic
Maritime Personal Injury – Seminar
Mediation
Products Liability – Advanced
Problems – Seminar
Remedies
corporate & business
Foundation
Administrative Law
Agency and Partnership
Business Bankruptcy
Corporate Finance*
Corporate Taxation*
Corporations
International Business Transactions
Partnership and Subchapter S
Taxation*
Payment Systems
Real Estate Finance Law
Secured Transactions
Securities Regulation
Related
Accounting for Lawyers
Alternative Dispute Resolution
Antitrust Law
Banking Law
Civil RICO and Business Fraud
Close Corporations – Seminar
Commercial Law – Seminar*
Employee Rights and Responsibilities
Employment Discrimination
Environmental Law
Insurance
Intellectual Property Survey
Labor Law
Negotiation and Settlement – Seminar
Patent Licensing and Technology Transfer
Protection and Licensing of Computer Technology – Seminar
Privacy Law – Seminar
Real Estate Development
Regulated Industries
Trusts and Fiduciary Responsibilities
