First Year Program

First Year Courses

Number of credit hours shown in parenthesis.

Fall

Spring

More information about the first year of law school is available under curriculum.

Success From the Start

Your first year at Washburn Law will provide the academic base upon which to build your overall legal education. The curriculum has been constructed to provide a meaningful start. Additionally, the low student-faculty ratio allows for informal advising, particularly in your first year of study. Your first-year small-section professors are likely to become your informal advisors throughout law school.

Expert Learning Program

Washburn Law has developed a nationally recognized first-year program, Expert Learning (Ex-L), to help students maximize their potential for success in law school, on the bar exam, and in law practice.

Ex-L begins with an elaborate and rigorous First-Week Program, which provides learning strategies for growth from a student to a practice-ready professional. Incoming students begin law school a week in advance of the second- and third-year classes. You will work on daily assignments and special projects in small “law firms,” study groups consisting of four to five new students and a carefully-trained and closely-supervised upper-division law student "partner."

After the First Week, these study groups meet twice each week to develop the skills needed for academic success. These group sessions help students learn from each other and de-emphasize competition.

Mentor Program

With the involvement of an actively-engaged alumni base, Washburn Law provides a meaningful mentoring program for first-year students. Students are paired with practicing lawyers to give them a connection to the community and a resource for discussing issues related to their careers. Many mentor relationships extend throughout law school and beyond.