Thursday December 04, 2008

Procedure for the Approval of Writing Requirements

Each student in the graduating class of 1978 and thereafter must complete satisfactorily two substantial legal writing projects. For students in the graduating class of 1986 and thereafter, one of the two writing projects referred to in the procedures below must be directly supervised by a faculty member. This change permits only one of the two required writing projects to be satisfied by a writing conducted under Law Review or Moot Court Association supervision. In order that proper records can be maintained and each student’s progress in fulfilling the requirement may be monitored, the following procedures are established:

The student will complete items 1 through 8 on the Status Report. If the student does not intend to work on a writing requirement for the semester, the student must indicate this on item 5 of the form.
The student will then secure the approval of the faculty member supervising the project; or if the writing requirement is to be accomplished through Moot Court or Law Review, the signature of the President of the Moot Court Board or Editor-in-Chief of the Law Review.
The student will then return the Status Report to the Office of the Dean. The Status Report must be returned no later than 4 weeks after registration each semester.
If the project is either:

a) Satisfactory completion of a course or seminar which provides an intensive writing experience;
b) Satisfactory completion of a special project which provides an intensive writing experience;
c) Satisfactory completion of substantial, similar written work in academic contexts; the supervising faculty member must report the satisfactory completion of the project to the office of the Dean and sign item 12 on the Status Report. The faculty member will also deliver one copy of the project to the Office of the Dean.

If the project is:
1. d) Participation in a Moot Court competition which has been approved for the purpose of this requirement;
The President of the Moot Court Board must report in writing the satisfactory completion of the project to the Office of the Dean and deliver the completed project to the Office of the Dean. The project will then be delivered to the Chairperson of the Curriculum and Academic Standards Committee. The Chairperson will report the approval or disapproval of the project to the Office of the Dean and sign item 12 on the Status Report.
If the project is:
1. e) Preparation of either a publishable note or publishable recent case comment for the North Dakota Law Review.
The Editor-in-Chief of the Law Review must report in writing the satisfactory completion of the project to the Office of the Dean and deliver the completed project to the Office of the Dean. The project will then be delivered to the Chairperson of the Curriculum and Academic Standards Committee for approval of the Committee. The Chairperson will report the approval or disapproval of the project to the Office of the Dean and sign item 12 on the Status Report.
Except as specified below with respect to writing requirement projects undertaken during the final semester of law study (whether commenced during the final semester or commenced during a prior semester but continued into the final semester), there is no specific date by which a project must be submitted by the student or by which a student must be notified of a submitted project's acceptability. In fairness to students who submit projects for writing requirement credit, the faculty member or committee having review and approval authority as to the project should endeavor to determine the acceptability or non-acceptability of projects as soon after submission as is practicable, and inform the student of the decision. The faculty with approval authority shall have the responsibility to review and accept or reject any projects within a reasonable time, commensurate with other faculty duties and responsibilities. Any dispute or question as to whether a reasonable time has passed shall be determined by the Dean of the School of Law at the request of an affected student.

In order to assure sufficient time prior to graduation for substantial legal writing projects to be judged by the individual faculty supervisor as satisfactory or unsatisfactory, and to allow sufficient time for a project to be improved should it be judged unsatisfactory, when a student undertakes or continues a required writing project in her or his final semester of law study the faculty supervisor and the student shall determine together a mutually agreeable date by which the project shall be due and a mutually agreeable date by which the faculty supervisor shall notify the student whether it is satisfactory or unsatisfactory. The faculty supervisor should remind the student at the outset of the project that approval of the project as a writing requirement is required for that student’s graduation, and that failing such approval the student would not be allowed to participate in commencement exercises. The student should be further advised that more than one draft may be required before that project is approved.

In order to assure sufficient time prior to graduation for substantial legal writing projects to be judged by the Curriculum and Academic Standards Committee as satisfactory or unsatisfactory, and to allow sufficient time for a project to be improved should it be judged unsatisfactory, a student who is undertaking or continuing one or more required writing projects in his/her final semester of law study must have any project required to be reviewed and approved by that Committee completed and submitted no later than the beginning of the seventh week of regular classes in that semester. The Curriculum and Academic Standards Committee shall determine whether any timely submitted project has been satisfactorily completed no later than the end of the tenth day of regularly scheduled classes following its receipt of the project from the Office of the Dean. In the event that a student does not have such project(s) completed and submitted within the time required hereby, the student shall not as a matter of right be eligible to graduate on schedule or to participate in the commencement exercises; the Curriculum and Academic Standards Committee shall exercise due diligence, consistent with other faculty responsibilities occurring toward the close of any semester, in promptly reviewing untimely projects in an attempt to determine prior to graduation whether they are satisfactory. In the event that any timely submitted project is determined unsatisfactory, the student shall not as a matter of right be eligible to graduate on schedule or to participate in the commencement exercises; the Curriculum and Academic Standards Committee shall be, consistent with other responsibilities, provide such counsel as the student may reasonably request regarding raising the level of the project to satisfactory, with a view to achieving such level in time to participate in the scheduled commencement exercises. The Committee shall establish guidelines for the timely consideration of projects required to be reviewed and approved by it, including procedures for accepting or rejecting papers and notifying the student of the action taken.
A file will be maintained and indexed within the Library of the School of Law in which all legal writing projects fulfilling the writing requirement shall be kept.

Adopted Administratively August 1976
Revised by Faculty Committee September 22, 1977
Revised by Faculty Committee April 27, 1984
Updated September 5, 2002