Academic Success Program  

Seton Hall Law School’s Academic Success Program ("ASP") is dedicated to the development and realization of a student’s full potential in law school. By offering a continuum of support and cultivating the analytical, writing and exam taking skills essential to success in law school, ASP better prepares students for the practice of law. ASP offers a variety of services, including large and small group instructive meetings, individual consultations, the ASP Reserve in the law library, and general workshops in the fall led by ASP, faculty or Counseling Services. The program is led by a full‐time Director, Christina Bennett, and is staffed with a select group of upper‐class student Teaching Fellows. The Program’s chief beneficiaries are first and second year day and evening students.

The first year of law school is, in many ways, the most crucial year, and experience has taught us that the process of adjustment to law school is best experienced with full support. In the program’s most comprehensive component, Skills & Methods I and II, first‐year students meet with Teaching Fellows in small group sessions for approximately one and one‐half hours per week to review, among other things, "active" case reading, outlining, organizational and writing skills, and to participate in practice exams. Led by the Program Director, formal and informal student feedback helps provide the necessary guidance to allow the Program to be tailored to the specific needs of each student.

Although ASP is not a "tutorial" per se, the students’ doctrinal courses such as Contracts, Constitutional Law, Criminal Law and Property are used as the substantive law basis for the skill development series for first year students. Skills & Methods I, offered in the fall and spring, covers all of the class preparation, organization and exam preparation skills, and Skills & Methods II, offered in the spring, focuses more on legal analysis, outlining and exam preparation. Both courses offer students opportunities to take practice examinations and receive individualized feedback. Sessions are also offered to second‐year students in the form of “facilitated study groups” with a focus on Business Associations and Evidence. In those sessions, students review problem sets, core skills such as outlining and exam writing, and take and review practice exams together.

For more information, contact Christina Bennett, J.D.