Possible experiences for Ukrainian grantees on the Fulbright program in areas related to law may vary greatly. This summary attempts to discuss a few aspects where description or perspective may be helpful.
UNIVERSITY STRUCTURE AND RELATED ASPECTS
Qualification as a "practicing lawyer" in the U.S. basically requires just two steps: (1) graduation from a law school, which is 3 years of full time (or equivalent) study after a 4-year college program in a subject area usually different from law; and (2) taking and passing a Bar Examination in the State where the lawyer is going to live and practice. While there are numerous details that could be added on these points, they are basically what "being a lawyer" requires.
What "being a lawyer" means, in this respect, is that the person who has qualified has a license (after paying a small entrance fee, being sworn in and thereafter maintaining qualification and registration by various minor requirements) to (1) describe himself or herself as an "attorney" or "lawyer" in conversation, in a resume, with business cards, in some kinds of advertising and otherwise; and (2) to represent people and organizations in courts and other settings, such as government administrative agencies.
Large numbers of people attend law schools but do not graduate and are therefore not lawyers as such, but they may do work for lawyers, or under their supervision, often involving tasks which have a significant legal dimension even though it is not representing someone before a court and does not involve characterizing or advertising as a lawyer. Similarly, many people doing such work may actually have law school degrees but may never have passed — perhaps not even attempted to pass — a state entrance examination for admission to the Bar. Approximately 10% to 30% or more fail the bar examination each time it is given — in most states, it is given twice a year — and some people give up after one or two attempts. Although there are actually no limits on the number of times a law school graduate may try to pass, taking the exam can be costly and a passing grade is probably less and less likely as additional time passes after the years of law school attendance.
Law schools are sometimes independent institutions which provide few or no courses beyond studies for three years (or part-time programs that would be the equivalent of three years full time) in legal areas designed to prepare the students for passing the bar examination. The bar exams differ from state to state since each state has its own body of law in most subject areas. "National" law enacted by the U.S. Congress at the Federal government level is very limited in most legal areas that govern ordinary activities in the U.S., ranging from most property law to most commercial law, most corporate governance, most family law, most criminal law and so on.Therefore, some law schools focus on instructing students in the laws of their own State although others have more "national" curricula since the patterns of law are very similar among nearly all of the States.Furthermore, most states use a bar examination format which includes one day out of three devoted to a "multi-state" examination which is the same questions for all of the states using it.
Law schools' relationships to larger universities may vary. Some law schools are physically separate from the rest of the university to a greater or lesser degree; some have largely or almost completely independent governance, financial structure and other formal separation (and almost always a high degree of autonomy by virtue of the faculty influence on most matters of curriculum, hiring of professors and the like); and most have programs that are predominantly not interrelated with other parts of the university (such as the graduate schools in the social sciences, humanities or hard sciences, or the medical school, graduate school of business administration, etc.)
Aside from law schools and training of lawyers, many universities have a wide variety of other programs in the law area, many of these for students in two or four year courses of study following their graduation from high school — that is, these are "undergraduate" programs — but also many kinds of graduate degrees, that is, "masters" or "doctorate". These programs may be in criminal justice (looking toward careers as police officers or as various kinds of law enforcement specialists, penal system officers or specialists, specialized employees of Court systems, etc.) There are also a wide variety of programs relating to the philosophy of law, sociological aspects, history and other study involving law or legal institutions. In addition, a very large number of students study in programs for legal assistants (often called "paralegals"), usually two or four years of college-level study as a major field or a "minor" concentration, to qualify to work on legal matters in organizations but not obtain the license to be a "lawyer".
Many universities have a wide variety of structures that may or may not tie law schools and these other legal programs together in various ways. Many universities also have a wide variety of structures that create linkages between law schools, or legal studies other than law schools, and other parts of the university. Many universities also permit individual students to combine their field of study with law, even though formal cooperation or links many not exist to stimulate such programs.
Many American universities offer courses that might be of value for a Ukrainian Fulbright student pursuing graduate study in some aspect of law. It is also probably possible in most universities to attend on an "audit" basis, that is, be present but not receive formal credit, probably not taking exams and perhaps being somewhat limited in active class participation, almost any course or number of courses that the student might want. In most universities, this would probably best be done by asking the professor's permission but it is highly likely that most will readily agree most of the time.
CLASSES AND STYLE OF TEACHING
The way classes are conducted will also vary widely among universities, among professors and between types of study.For example, law school courses almost always focus largely on a "case method" to discover and discuss legal principles and doctrines through examination of historical law cases. It would be common to be assigned to read some pages of a textbook for each class that contained the essential parts of legal opinions from several law cases and then to find the class devoted to discussion of what occurred in each case, what legal issues arose and how those legal issues and their resolution fit into the pattern, principles and philosophy of law being taught with those cases.
In other programs, more conventional lecture formats may be more common or prevalent. Similarly to law schools, some other programs may, however, also use the case method from time to time.
In most universities, for most courses, and almost certainly for some courses anywhere, there may be a significant amount of class participation and/or encouragement or requirement of class participation. That is, class participation may in a few courses where lectures are given to large numbers be largely limited to questions when the professor has finished giving a prepared lecture. More common, however, and likely to exist for some classes even in the large lecture format, are classes which involve questions to students and discussion of ideas from material read in preparation for class, material presented by the professor and the like. In short, an interactive format is extremely common. Also, although there are certainly variations, it will probably be found in most courses that lectures by professors are typically not so much "read" as given somewhat more spontaneously and perhaps with significant variation as reactions, questions and other interaction with the class stimulates.
For the foreign student, these interactions can be challenging. On the one hand, using English, participating in discussion and otherwise exercising one's skills and improving them is much of the benefit to be derived from study at an American institution. Further, many foreign students may lack confidence in their English speaking even though they are, in fact, able to participate. Many may also be shy, either by personality or by virtue of the unfamiliar surroundings, format and other elements. In short, overcoming reluctance is important. On the other hand, it is also fair to remember that other students and sometimes professors might find some discussion or questions divert the class too much away from productive discussion, so it is obviously necessary to try to exercise good judgment in class discussion and questions for any student and perhaps more so for a student who has difficulty in understanding or being understood.
OTHER STUDENTS
Being in the U.S. is likely to bring culture shock in many respects far beyond what this discussion attempts to discuss. One dimension worth noting, however, concerns other students. There may be great differences among them, depending upon university, program or particular course. In some instances, one may find many or most of the other students are in undergraduate programs or even graduate programs that followed after previous studies without a break — that is, most of the students may have graduated from high school at age 18 and be in the process of four years of full-time undergraduate study for their B.A. or equivalent, or even in graduate school following immediately after completion of the four undergraduate years. In other instances, especially in graduate schools, the students may have interrupted their programs for one year (not at all uncommon even during the undergraduate years or between graduation from high school and beginning at the university) or for many years of working, perhaps even in the profession or area for which a graduate degree is now being sought (to improve skills, create eligibility for promotion or increase likelihood, etc.)
It is also not at all uncommon in many programs for students to be attending part-time, often working at full time jobs (typically by day while attending classes in the evenings) or working part-time.
Whether or not students work while attending graduate school may reflect the students' varied economic status. In some settings, one might find large numbers of students from economically comfortable families while other universities or programs may have far larger numbers of students for whom financial concerns are very significant. Many students may receive various forms of financial aid at most institutions (the fact of which, however, probably will not be generally known to other students). Public universities will generally have larger numbers of students from less affluent families but this generalization does not necessarily hold true in many instances.
In short, the behavior and attitudes of students may vary widely.The Fulbright grantee will simply have to figure out who the people around him or her seem to be. Perhaps, to get the most out of the experience, a Ukrainian Fulbrighter should keep in mind that any place is almost inevitably is only a very limited environment within a larger university system with great variations in who goes, how good the students are, how hard the students work, and so on.
BOOKS AND LIBRARIES
Most courses will assign a major textbook, which is often quite expensive (approaching or even exceeding the $100 range) and almost always necessary to have or buy. There are some ways to acquire these at reduced cost in some instances (buying used books resold by students to university bookstores or trying mail order or online methods such as www.half.com or others). In all likelihood, however, these are simply large expenditures that need to be made in order to get the benefit of a course. Many courses also assign other books to be read in whole or in part, many of these also expensive; depending upon the course, some of these may be sufficiently available from libraries, or it may be possible again to by these used, online, etc.
Beyond the specific topic of books assigned for course reading, a note on libraries may be worth emphasizing. Most universities will have an excellent library system and it is likely to be widely available to the Fulbright grantee — typically the right to borrow for free any of a great volume of books and often providing computer access, video and audio tapes and materials, and much more. Further, in many cities, the local public library will often be excellent as well and it will normally be equally available. Access to email and internet resources, for example, may be available in most universities rather easily in many classroom buildings or other locations, but both the university libraries for students and public libraries in most cities for residents and usually visitors from out of town should allow the Fulbright grantee excellent opportunities for both email communication and extraordinary ranges of material available through the internet.
OBJECTIVES OF LEGAL EDUCATION
Many lawyers and legal educators would probably identify a central focus of a legal education as teaching lawyers to reason in an orderly manner — often said to be "thinking like a lawyer." Especially at the better law schools and with better students, it is also very much recognized that lawyers are very much "problem solvers" for businesses and individuals who hire lawyers to take leading roles in transactions, to represent in court cases or to provide other kinds of assistance and advice.
These concerns are reflected in the atmosphere of law school classes in many ways. Reading cases, participating and figuring out the meaning of a series of case examples, or working with judicial opinions or hypothetical legal situations, and other such active involvement are all part of the process of developing the method of orderly analysis. Because of this, much less emphasis might be given in many classes to traditional lectures and reading. Likewise, it might be expected that law students will exercise individual initiative to figure out what they need to be learning and law students may often be those who are most comfortable and effective in this activity.
CONCLUSION
This summary just touches, of course, on a few aspects of some kinds of higher education related to areas of law in the United States. It is necessarily limited because my experiences are limited. If some of this raises questions, however, or I can be of further help, I am happy to try and can be contacted by email to rweller@kent.edu or robertrweller@post.harvard.edu.
