Professor Kayalyn Marafioti, a former Restructuring Partner at Skadden Arps who has a Certificate in TESOL from The New School and teaches the Reading Legal Texts course in the St. John’s Law Advanced Legal English Certificate Program (aka ALDA), recently brought her students to sit in on a Contracts class in the law school. This is something Prof. Marafioti or I have done each year with the ALDA Certificate students in connection with the Lefkowitz v. Great Minneapolis Surplus Store case, which serves as the basis for the Reading Legal Texts course.
The idea is that, after digging into and deconstructing Lefkowitz from various angles in order to learn to read, brief, and discuss cases, students get a chance to sit in on a large Contracts class on the day that Lefkowitz is actually discussed in order to see, hear, and feel what they need to be able to do with these cases that they read.
In the wake of this year’s “field trip” to Contracts class and subsequent debriefing with her Advanced Legal English Certificate students, here are the Top Ten Takeaways that Prof. Marafioti reported based on her student’s reactions:
St. John's Legal English Blog 