Mission and Learning Outcomes
The mission of the University of Idaho College of Law is to:
- Provide access across all cultures and ideologies to the highest quality of legal education;
- Lead the region in promoting civil discourse on concerns of policy and law and in providing legal service to underserved populations;
- Contribute to the local, regional, national, and international scholarly dialogue on issues of critical importance in our time.
Graduates will demonstrate knowledge and understanding of substantive and procedural law and legal institutions. Graduates will be able to:
- Demonstrate competence in the substance of foundational common law subjects.
- Demonstrate competence in the substance of U.S. Constitutional Law and related federal statutes.
- Demonstrate an understanding of tribal sovereignty and tribal court jurisdiction.
- Demonstrate foundational competence in the substantive law of the student’s chosen area of study, including the relevance of Native American Law, if applicable.
- Demonstrate the capacity to engage in sophisticated statutory reading, application and interpretation.
- Demonstrate an understanding of appropriate jurisdiction and choice of applicable law (i.e., state, federal, tribal, etc.).
- Demonstrate an understanding of the trajectory of a legal dispute or lawsuit from start to finish.
Graduates will demonstrate the capacity to engage in sophisticated legal reasoning and analysis. Graduates will be able to:
- Identify the legal rules and principles applicable to a given context.
- Identify legally relevant facts, both known and unknown, in a given legal context.
- Identify nature and consequence of ambiguities in the facts in a given context.
- Construct and support an argument grounded in appropriate legal authority and policy considerations, while recognizing and addressing weaknesses thereof.
- Understand role of legal research in identifying applicable law and developing analysis and argumentation relevant for a particular dispute.
Graduates will be proficient at communicating complex legal arguments, reasoning, and analysis, both in writing and in oral communication. Graduates will be able to:
- Produce written work that is logically organized, clear and concise, free of grammatical, syntactical, and other formal errors, and reflects an understanding of its audience and purpose.
- Orally communicate legal arguments effectively and nimbly.
Graduates will recognize that multiple different potential resolutions to a dispute exist, including avoiding disputes before they begin. Graduates will be able to:
- Identify problems and classify them (i.e., legal, business, family, interpersonal, etc.).
- Identify possible means of resolving each identified problem, including legal and non-legal means.
- Assess the probability that each identified means will resolve the identified problem and quantify the anticipated costs, risks, and benefits associated with each identified problem.
- Drawing therefrom, make a reasoned recommendation about the best course of action to attempt to resolve the identified problem.
Graduates will understand their professional and ethical obligations to their clients, the courts and the bar, and the public. Graduates will be able to:
- Demonstrate competence in the Rules of Professional Responsibility.