The Master of Science in Law Program has six expected learning outcomes for students in each program. Each outcome has multiple enumerated sub-skills. A successful recipient of the Master of Science in Law & Policy degree is expected to:
1. Demonstrate a firm understanding of the legal aspects of the structure, history, and values underlying the American legal system.
- Use legal terminology appropriately.
- Apply knowledge of the structure of the legal system to understand the validity of various types of legal pronouncements, rulings and regulations.
- Identify various types of legal issues when encountering them in the workplace.
- Identify the steps of the litigation process.
- Identify the basic attributes of the court system and of common-law development.
2. Identify factual situations that require application of legal principles for resolution of the underlying problem.
- Apply basic legal principles to facts seen in the workplace.
- Evaluate the likelihood of legal implications resulting from those facts.
- Understand the administrative process and the role it plays in resolving disputes that frequently arise in educational settings.
3. Research the broad outlines of the legal question at hand.
- Locate federal and state statutes in legal texts and online.
- Locate federal and state regulations in legal texts and online.
- Locate case law in legal texts and online.
- Locate legal secondary sources in hard copy and online
4. Recognize when a legal issue requires the involvement of a lawyer.
- Analyze the way a lawyer will approach a legal issue.
- Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of legal arguments regarding the issue at hand.
5. Discuss legal matters intelligently with a lawyer when called upon to do so in their professional lives.
- Apply knowledge of the relevant statutes, regulations and case law to situations arising in the workplace.
- Display familiarity with and understanding of a legal vocabulary by communicating with lawyers by properly using their vocabulary.
- Understand and follow the lawyers' reasoning process as presented orally or through memoranda.
- Understand and follow the lawyers' use of various legal practice skills.
6. Communicate conclusions clearly and logically.
- Write a logically constructed, clearly worded, properly supported paper proposing a practical solution to a legal issue in the workplace.
- Deliver to an audience with diverse backgrounds, including lawyers, a professional oral report clearly communicating factual predicate, analysis and conclusions regarding a legal issue.