Juris Doctor Program

Required courses
Required courses account for a minimum of 36 of the 88 credits necessary for a JD degree for students matriculating in Fall 2019 or thereafter. Below you will find the schedule of required courses for full-time and part-time.  

For students matriculated from Fall 2016 through before Fall 2019, see curriculum below.

Full-Time Students       

Part-Time Students*                             

*Part-time students must take Torts in the fall semester of their second year, and Constitutional Law in the spring semester of their second year.

No student may transfer from an assigned section of a required first year course to another section of that course.

Upper level writing requirement
All Pace Law Students must complete a writing project under the supervision of a professor. It is each student’s responsibility to register for a course or a seminar in which the professor is willing to supervise a qualifying writing project and to inform the professor at the beginning of the semester that a course is being taken to satisfy the writing requirement. The professor must certify to the Registrar at the end of the semester that all the elements of the requirement have been met. Only faculty-supervised writing may satisfy the requirement. Participation in Moot Court competitions or contests does not satisfy the requirement. The necessary permission forms can be found on the Registrar's website. 

• The following may be used to satisfy the requirement:
  Courses – Any course that is certified by the Academic Dean as satisfying the requirement may be taken. A list of courses that have been certified will be included in the registration materials each semester. This list includes:
  • All seminars
  • The Federal Judicial Honors Program
  • Advanced Appellate Advocacy
  • Guided Research with a full-time faculty member
  • Any other upper-level course or clinic, if approved by the full-time or adjunct professor teaching the course or clinic and the Academic Dean.
• Law review notes – Notwithstanding the requirements for other means of satisfying the upper level requirement, students who are members of any of the law reviews may satisfy the requirement by writing their note or comment. A full-time professor must review and certify that student notes and comments meet the substantive requirements for the requirement as set forth below.
• Requirements of the written product: The written product must be in the form of a scholarly article, a legal memorandum, or a trial or appellate brief. The written product must be at least 25 double-spaced pages, exclusive of footnotes.  It must also demonstrate an appropriate level of legal research and analysis, be well-organized and well-written, and ordinarily, it must contain ample citation to legal authority. Journals, diaries, and other writings that do not reflect such research and analysis do not meet this requirement. Except for the suggestions of editors and faculty, the written product should reflect the individual work of the student.

To satisfy the requirement, a student must:

1. Complete a research and citation workshop (students who matriculate in the fall of 2013 and thereafter)
2. Submit a draft
3. Get feedback on the draft in any combination of the following forms: oral, written, checklists, and audiotapes
4. Submit a final product

To satisfy the requirement, the written product should include:

1. A required writing text
2. Research logs (not necessarily graded)
3. An outline (not necessarily graded)
4. A self-critique or peer-critique experience
5. Either (a) a minimum of two hours of class time devoted to the teaching of writing, or (b) individual student-teacher conferences. Feedback on further drafts at the option of the professor.

Required Research and Citation Workshop: As part of the Upper Level Writing

Requirement, all students must complete a Research and Citation Workshop with the Law School’s Reference Librarians some time during the second, third, or fourth year of Law School.  Completion of the Advanced Legal Research course or one of the Advanced Research Skills intersession courses will satisfy this requirement. In addition, some upper level seminars used to fulfill the Upper Level Writing Requirement that also incorporate a Research and Citation Workshop will satisfy the requirement. All students must submit a Certificate of Completion, signed by a Reference Librarian, in order to complete successfully this research and citation component of the Upper Level Writing Requirement.

Upper level skills requirement
Students must successfully complete a total of 6 credits of coursework in an approved upper level skills courses as a condition of graduation. The following courses may be taken to meet the upper level skills requirement:

• Live-Client Clinics
  Barbara C. Salken Criminal Justice Clinic
  Environmental Litigation Clinic
  Equal Justice America Disability Rights/ Health Law Clinic
  Food and Farm Business Law Clinic
  Immigration Justice Clinic
  Investor Rights Clinic
  Semester-in-Practice
• Externships
  Corporate Externship
  Criminal Defense/Prosecution Externship
  Environmental Law Externship (NY and DC)
  Family Court Externship
  Federal Judicial Honors Externship
  Legal Services/Public Interest/Health Law
  Mediation Practicum and Seminar
  Honors Prosecution Externship
  Real Estate Externship
• Simulations
  Advanced Appellate Advocacy
  Advanced Trial Advocacy
  Commercial Leasing
  Drafting Legal Documents
  Environmental Law in Commercial Transactions
  Environmental Skills and Practice
  Federal Criminal Pretrial Simulation
  Intellectual Property Agreements and Licensing
  Law Practice Management
  Lawyering
  Patent Practice and Procedure
  Pretrial Civil Litigation Simulation (PCLS)
  Survey of Dispute Resolution Processes (for up to 15 students per semester)
  Trial Advocacy

Students planning to take the New York Bar Exam must also fulfill the New York State Skills Competency Requirement. For more information about the courses that fulfill that requirement, please contact the Registrar.

Professional Development Requirement

All students entering in the Fall 2015 semester or thereafter are required to fulfill a Professional Development Requirement in order to graduate.  Students will satisfy the requirement by:

1. Registering with the Center for Career and Professional Development (“CCPD”) by December 1st [or June 1 for Spring Admits] of their first year at the Law School,
2. Attending at least one in-office meeting with a CCPD counselor before the beginning of their final year in law school, and
3. Earning six (6) professional development (“PD”) credits, in addition to their 88 academic credits, before graduating from law school.

Examples of programs attendance at any one of which will earn students one (1) PD credit are available in the Academic Regulations or from the Registrar's office.

Learning Outcomes for JD Students graduating from the Elisabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University

These Learning Outcomes represent the professional journey that a JD candidate undertakes in earning their degree at Pace.  They reflect the knowledge, skills, and values that we impart and expect our students to acquire during their studies.  Not every course in the JD curriculum reflects every learning outcome, but we expect the Haub experience as a whole to contain the following:

1.  Knowledge and understanding of substantive and procedural law

Students will be able to demonstrate understanding of the:

• Rules and policies of the fundamental areas of US substantive law, including civil procedure, constitutional law, contracts, criminal law, property, and torts, as well as subjects most frequently tested on the bar exams.
• Structures and processes of the US legal system, including the role of the lawyer within that system.
• Meanings of legal language and terminology.
• Role of case law, precedent, and statutory and regulatory law in our legal system.
• Rules of statutory construction.
• Advantages and disadvantages of various processes for resolving problems.

1.  Legal analysis and reasoning, legal research, problem-solving, and written and oral communication in the legal context

Students will be able to:

• Use legal doctrine to solve problems by:
  1. Identifying and articulating the legal issues in a factual scenario.
  2. Using cases, treatises, secondary materials and classroom studies to extract and synthesize legal rules and evaluate key rules, standards, and policies.
  3. Analyzing the hierarchy of legal authority and determining when a rule announced in a judicial opinion constitutes binding precedent, including the ability to distinguish “holdings” from “dicta.”
  4.  Expressing the position of dissenting and concurring opinions.
  5. Reconciling conflicting authorities.
  6. Analogizing to and distinguishing from facts of relevant authorities. 
  7. Drafting clear, effective, professional and well-organized objective and persuasive written documents.
  8. Delivering clear, effective, professional, and well organized oral argument.
• Apply statutory and regulatory law to solve client issues by:
  1. Interpreting statutes using rules of statutory construction.
  2. Applying statutory law in a creative way to further client goals.
  3. Correctly apply legal language and terminology.
• Conduct effective legal research, including:
  1. Creating an efficient and comprehensive research plan and implementing it.
  2. Using hard copy and digital resources to find, understand, and organize relevant authorities.
  3. Ensuring that cited law is current and applicable.
  4. Using proper citation format in all legal writing.
  5. Using librarians and professional staff to assist when needed.
• Understand the process of gathering facts, including:
  1. Forming hypotheses about relevant information.
  2. Identifying potential sources of such information
  3. Identifying missing information and creating a plan to gather it.
  4. Testing hypotheses through preliminary information gathering and, if necessary, forming new hypotheses and/or seeking additional information.
  5. Gathering information from legal and non-legal sources.
  6. Evaluating reliability and strategic significance of information in light of rules of evidence and other legal standards.
• Understand the basic requirements for drafting written legal documents, including
  1. Clear, accurate and precise use of language
  2. Significance of audience
  3. Organization
  4. Thoroughness
  5. Legal requirements
  6. Testing for litigation problems
• Understand the concepts and skills of effective client interviewing, including
  1. Building rapport and trust
  2. Gathering information
  3. Maximizing accurate fact gathering.
  4. Formalizing relationships
• Understand the basic principles and skills of effective client counseling, including:
  1. Identifying client objectives and priorities.
  2. Working with clients to identify possible alternatives and examine the pros and cons of each.
  3. Empowering the client to make decisions about goals and procedural options.
  4. Communicating clear, helpful, and accurate predictions
  5. Communicating clearly and effectively about the applicable law.
• Understand the basic principles and skills of effective negotiation, including:
  1. Determining the client’s objectives and possible solutions.
  2. Determining the objectives of the other side.
  3. Articulating the difference between positions and interests in a factual context.
  4. Applying listening skills to encourage dispute resolution.
  5. Strategically and ethically sharing information.

1.  Exercise of proper professional and ethical responsibilities to clients, officers of the courts, the legal system, and society, including the following: the exercise of professional judgment consistent with the values of the legal profession; knowledge, understanding and appreciation of the profession’s values of justice, equal access to justice, fairness, candor, honesty, integrity, professionalism, respect for diversity and the rule of law; recognizing and resolving ethical dilemmas; cross cultural competency; organization and management of legal work, including the appropriate use of technology;  and collaboration in practice. 

Students will be able to:

• Understand and conduct themselves according to the Rules of Professional Responsibility (and relevant state and local rules of practice), including
  1. Recognizing and addressing ethical dilemmas and the need for consultation, when necessary, with a supervisor or other appropriate mentor or authority.
  2. Identifying and describing the sources of law governing lawyers in the US legal system
  3. Identifying and describing and interpret the rules and policies governing lawyers in the US legal system.
• Articulate, and demonstrate  the fundamental values of the profession, including
  1. Maintaining a commitment to pro bono and public service and otherwise promoting access to adequate legal services.
  2.   Demonstrating the ability to conduct themselves with honesty, integrity, fairness, respect, empathy, civility, and cultural competence.
• Develop the ability to reflect and collaborate, including:

1. Demonstrating self-awareness and reflective capacity, including learning from mistakes, recognizing biases, and actively working to counteract them in service of clients.
2.  Demonstrating the ability to collaborate with colleagues, work cooperatively toward shared goals, and treat conflicting viewpoints among colleagues as an opportunity for improving understanding and achieving goals.

• Understand the personal, economic, and professional pressures of legal practice and the basic principles of organization and management of legal work, including available technology.