1st Year Curriculum and Registration

studentsCurriculum

The first year curriculum is a pre-set curriculum designed to give incoming law students the conceptual building blocks essential for their professional training. During fall semester students will take three doctrinal courses: Contracts, Criminal Law and Torts. In order to link the concepts learned in these three doctrinal courses, students will take a Practicum course, held in a weekly small group setting with one doctrinal instructor. Balancing these requirements is a contextual course, Comparative and Historical Perspectives on the Law (CHLP). Finally, first-year students will take the first of two writing courses, Elements of Legal Argumentation I.
http://lawschool.unm.edu/academics/curriculum/one-L/index.php

During spring semester students will take Civil Procedure I, Property I, Introduction to Constitutional Law and Elements of Legal Argumentation II. Students may also take an optional elective during the spring semester.

Registration Steps for Fall 2013 Classes

  1. Create a Net ID (see “fall semester to-do checklist” of Admitted Students Webpage) http://lawschool.unm.edu/admitted_students/thingstodo.php
  2. A student’s Net ID is the name in which he or she will be known to UNM’s main campus computer and email system. For example, if a Net ID is jgarcia, that person’s UNM email address will be jgarcia@unm.edu. For more information on accessing and using a UNM e-mail account go to http://it.unm.edu/email/#access
  3. By July 30, students should send an e-mail from their UNM account to the School of Law at Registrar’s Office, indicating you are an incoming 1L student. By sending this e-mail, the Registrar’s office will know a student has (1) created a NET ID, and (2) set up an UNM email account.
  4. During the week of August 5, the UNM School of Law Registrar will email incoming students an assigned fall class schedule and registration instructions. Please note: this email will go only to each student’s UNM email account. It will not go to any other email account provided to the law school previously. Students are responsible for checking their UNM email accounts to receive information and register for classes.
  5. At orientation, students will receive a UNM School of Law email account and be provided with instructions on how to forward their main UNM email account to their law school account.

Flextime Program

Beginning in the Fall 2008 semester, the School of Law initiated a Flexible (Flex) Time Program. Students who wanted to be considered for this program made this indication on their law school application.

First-year students enrolled in the Flex Program are required to take 10 credit hours (3-4 classes) per semester. After completion of all of their first year courses, students in the program may request to continue in the Flex Program and take a minimum of eight credit hours per semester. Additionally, students enrolled in the Flex Program are not bound by the "work rules” for those semesters in which they are registered for less than 12 credits. The maximum time for completing a J.D. degree in the Flex Program is five years.

For first-year law students in the Flex Program, curriculum and registration will vary somewhat from the information listed above. Since this is such a small group (fewer than 10 individuals), students will be contacted individually during the summer months pertaining to course scheduling and selection.