The E-Comment: A Simple Exercise for Public Law Courses
24 Perspectives: Teaching Legal Res. & Writing 8 (2016)
9 Pages Posted: 15 Oct 2016
Date Written: October 13, 2016
Abstract
In the wake of calls to make law school students more practice ready, law schools across the country are reevaluating and redesigning their curricula. One example of this reform is the number of law schools that now require courses in legislation and regulation. This change was examined in the August 2015 edition of the AALS Journal of Legal Education titled “Legislation/Regulation and the Core Curriculum.” In that publication, Professors Manning and Stephenson describe a Legislation and Regulation (leg-reg) course that has been part of the 1L Curriculum at Harvard Law School since 2006. Professor and Manning and Stephenson argue that courses in statutory and regulatory law would help prepare students for growing practice areas that are permeated by regulations including environmental, occupational health and safety, health care, immigration, food and drug, securities, banking and finance, labor and employment, and tax law. Yet, as Manning and Stephenson have discovered, learning about statutes, regulations, and administrative law is not always “intuitive or accessible” for students. The challenge lies in making administrative law or leg-reg course accessible by showing students “real-life issues that cut across many areas of law and many kinds of human experiences.”
The e-comment is an attempt to address Manny and Stephenson’s concern. This article describes an exercise that can be used in any course that has a regulatory component. An exercise where students comment on an administrative comment is nothing new, especially in the context of an Environmental Law course. While resources exist to assist professionals and the public in writing administrative comments, little has been written about instructing law students on the drafting of administrative comments. As this article explains, the e-comment exercise offers numerous benefits to the students who complete this assignment and the professors who teach it.
Keywords: notice-and-comment, regulations, informal rule-making, persuasive writing, administrative law
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