Section B

Orientation

Reminder:  Succeeding in Law School by Herbert N. Ramy is required reading for all entering first-year students and must be read prior to Orientation.

Legal Method I - Faculty assigned at Orientation

Greetings!
 
For your mandatory Legal Methods class on Tuesday, August 14, at 10:30 a.m., please read Chapters 1, 2, and 20 in Legal Reasoning, Writing, and Other Lawyering Skills (3d ed. 2011) by Robin Wellford Slocum, as well as the very short materials under tab 4 of your Legal Methods Handbook.  Lisa Quinn will be distributing the Legal Methods Handbooks on Monday, August 13, from 8:30 – 9:30 a.m. in the lobby on the second floor and later from the faculty secretaries’ office on that floor.
 
Many thanks, and see you soon –
 
The Legal Methods Department

Civil Procedure I - Murphy

The required casebook for this class is Freer & Perdue, Civil Procedure: Cases, Materials, and Problems (6th ed.), published by LexisNexis. In addition, we will use the 2012-2013 Edition of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure pamphlet published by LexisNexis. In advance of our first class, you should have both these books in your possession. If for some reason you do not have the assigned books, it is your responsibility to borrow the books from another student so that you are prepared for class.

For our first class:

1. Please read carefully the course information memo that is posted on the Bridges website.

2. Please read the Freer & Perdue casebook, pages 1-12 and prepare carefully pages 283-289 (do not yet read “Legal Sufficiency” on page 289). In the LexisNexis rules pamphlet, study Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 1, 7(a) & (b)(1)-(2), 8(a), 8(e), 10, and 84 as well as Forms 1, 2, 11, and 17 in the Appendix of Forms to the Federal Rules.

3. Type and submit a simple complaint for Sarah Jones in the United States District Court for the District of Rhode Island based on the following facts and any additional facts that you deem warranted:
On August 1, 2011, Mark Jones was physically injured in an automobile accident. Jerry Smith rear-ended Jones’s car while Jones was stopped at a red light at the intersection of Metacom and Tupelo Streets in Bristol, RI. Mark Jones has been married to Sarah Jones since May 1, 2010. Sarah wishes to sue Smith for “loss of consortium,” which the relevant law defines as arising when an injured spouse, due to a tortious act, can no longer supply the affection and companionship natural to a spousal relationship. The relevant law thus far has recognized loss of consortium claims only when the spousal relationship is between a man and woman, and the date of marriage must have preceded the date of the tortious act. In drafting the complaint, consult the assigned Federal Rules and use as a guide Forms 1, 2, 11, and 17. In your complaint, do not attempt to make a statement of jurisdiction.

I look forward to meeting you.

Contracts I - Chung

Please read the following pages from the casebook:  1 to 17 (but do not read Sec. 5, International Commercial Law) and pages 31 to 43.

Please consider the following definition of Contracts from Section 1 of the Restatement (2d) of Contracts:  “A contract is a promise or a set of promises for the breach of which the law gives a remedy, or the performance of which the law in some way recognizes as a duty.”

Please consider the following two sentences:

1. Your attendance in class shall be recorded.
2. Your attendance in class may be recorded.

Criminal Law - Horwitz

Please read the Introduction to our casebook (Myron Moskovitz, Cases and Problems in Criminal Law (6th ed. 2012)) as well as the materials posted under First Assignment on the Bridges website.

Torts I - Argento

Read Syllabus (posted on Bridges under ‘Resources’)

Orin Kerr, How to Read a Legal Opinion: A Guide for New Law Students (posted on Bridges under ‘Resources’)

Casebook (Farnsworth & Grady, Torts: Cases and Questions (2nd ed. 2009)): Introduction: xxxv-xlviii, pp. 1-4 (through note 2)

Question: Why do the courts find Putney liable and Jewett not liable?

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