Colorado

Civil Procedure

Civil Procedure

Appendix to Rule 201 – Approval of Law Schools

American Bar Association Standards and Rules of Procedure

301

(a) The law school shall maintain an educational program that is designed to qualify its graduates for admission to the bar.
(b) A law school may offer an educational program designed to emphasize some aspects of the law or the legal profession and give less attention to others. If a school offers such a program, that program and its objectives shall be clearly stated in its publications, where appropriate.
(c) The educational program of the school shall be designed to prepare the students to deal with recognized problems of the present and anticipated problems of the future.
302

(a)The law school shall:

(i) Offer to all students instruction in those subjects generally regarded as the core of the law school curriculum;
(ii) Offer to all students at least one rigorous writing experience;
(iii) Offer instruction in professional skills;
(iv) Require of all candidates for the first professional degree, instruction in the duties and responsibilities of the legal profession. Such required instruction need not be limited to any pedagogical method as long as the history, goals, structure and responsibilities of the legal profession and its members, including the ABA Model Code of Professional Responsibility, are all covered. Each law school is encouraged to involve members of the bench and bar in such instruction.
(b) The law school may not offer to its students, for academic credit or as a condition to graduation, instruction that is designed as a bar examination review course.
303

(a) The educational program of the law school shall provide adequate opportunity for:

(i) Study in seminars or by directed research,
(ii) Small classes for at least some portion of the total instructional program.
(b) The law school may not allow credit for study by correspondence.
304

(a) The law school shall maintain and adhere to sound standards of legal scholarship, including clearly defined standards for good standing, advancement, and graduation.
(b) The scholastic achievement of students shall be evaluated from the inception of their studies. As part of the testing of scholastic achievement, a written examination of suitable length and complexity shall be required in every course for which credit is given, except clinical work, courses involving extensive written work such as moot court, practice court, legal writing and drafting, and seminars and individual research projects.
(c) A law school shall not, either by initial admission or subsequent retention, enroll or continue a person whose inability to do satisfactory work is sufficiently manifest that the person’s continuation in school would inculcate false hopes, constitute economic exploitation, or deleteriously affect the education of other students.
305

(a) Subject to the qualifications and exceptions contained in this Chapter, the law school shall require, as a condition for graduation, the completion of a course of study in residence of not less than 1200 class hours, extending over a period of not less than ninety weeks for full-time students, or not less than one hundred and twenty weeks for part-time students.

(i) “In residence” means attendance at classes in the law school.
(ii) “Class hours” means time spent in regularly scheduled class sessions in the law school, including time allotted for final examinations, not exceeding ten percent of the total number of class session hours.
(iii) “Full-time student” means a student who devotes substantially all working hours to the study of law.
(b) To receive residence credit for an academic period, a full-time student must be enrolled in a schedule requiring a minimum of ten class hours a week and must receive credit for at least nine class hours and a part-time student must be enrolled in a schedule requiring a minimum of eight class hours a week and must receive credit for at least eight class hours. If a student is not enrolled in or fails to receive credit for the minimum number of hours specified in this subsection, the student may receive residence credit only in the ratio that the hours enrolled in or in which credit was received, as the case may be, bear to the minimum specified.
(c) Regular and punctual class attendance is necessary to satisfy residence and class hours requirements.
306 If the law school has a program that permits or requires student participation in studies or activities away from the law school or in a format that does not involve attendance at regularly scheduled class sessions, the time spent in such studies or activities may be included as satisfying the residence and class hours requirements, provided the conditions of this section are satisfied.

(a) The residence and class hours credit allowed must be commensurate with the time and effort expended by and the educational benefits to the participating student.
(b) The studies or activities must be approved in advance, in accordance with the school’s established procedures for curriculum approval and determination.
(c) Each such study or activity, and the participation of each student therein, must be conducted or periodically reviewed by a member of the faculty to insure that in its actual operation it is achieving its educational objectives and that the credit allowed therefor is, in fact, commensurate with the time and effort expended by, and the educational benefits to, the participating student.
(d) At least 900 hours of the total time credited towards satisfying the “in residence” and “class hours” requirements of this Chapter shall be in actual attendance in regularly scheduled class sessions in the law school conferring the degree, or, in the case of a student receiving credit for studies at another law school, at the law school at which the credit was earned.
307 The law school may admit with advanced standing and allow credit for studies at a law school outside the United States if the studies

(i) Either were “in residence” as provided in Section 305, or qualify for credit under Section 306, and
(ii) The content of the studies was such that credit therefor would have been allowed towards satisfaction of degree requirements at the admitting school, and
(iii) The admitting school is satisfied that the quality of the educational program at the prior school was at least equal to that required for an approved school.

Advanced standing and credit allowed for foreign study shall not exceed one-third of the total required by the Standards for the first professional degree unless the foreign study related chiefly to a system of law basically followed in the jurisdiction in which the admitting school is located; and in no event shall the maximum advanced standing and credit allowed exceed two-thirds of the total required by the Standards for the first professional degree.

C.R.C.P. 201.14 app to Rule 201