Developing Professional Skills: Bankruptcy

Provides students with the type of assignments they can expect to receive as first or second year associates. These assignments range from thorny questions requiring analysis of the law and memo drafting, to reviewing and proofreading a motion “sloppily” drafted by another lawyer. These skills are not typically taught in law school, but they are indispensable in practice.

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Developing Professional Skills: Bankruptcy is designed to give students the type of assignments they can expect to receive as first or second year associates. These assignments range from thorny questions requiring analysis of the law and memo drafting, to reviewing and proofreading a motion ""sloppily"" drafted by another lawyer. These skills are not typically taught in law school, but they are indispensable in practice. The book includes 12 exercises, some substantive and some extremely practical. The exercises are also designed to get students to write, and write and write, in a variety of contexts, for a variety of audiences. Some of the exercises expose students to the Official Bankruptcy Forms as a way of getting them to think about the information required to be disclosed in a bankruptcy case and the big picture issues implicated. Each exercise requires students to keep track of and ""bill"" their time. Particularly in consumer bankruptcy practice (but also in business practice, which may involve intense fee scrutiny) it is important to be mindful of how much a task, project or issue costs to resolve. A comprehensive Teacher's Manual provides guidance and suggestions for expanding the classroom discussion to include ethical issues, professional responsibility concepts, and the norms of modern legal practice.