For the first time in 40 years, the curriculum for first-year LSU Law students will see some sweeping changes beginning in the 2026-27 academic year.
In March, the LSU Law faculty unanimously approved the changes, which are designed to enhance LSU Law’s existing bijural legal education while strengthening its foundation in comparative legal analysis. The new curriculum will emphasize building bijural bridges across courses, rather than focusing solely on substantive common law courses during one semester of the academic year and predominantly civil law courses during the other.
“The crown jewel of the new first-year curriculum will be an intensive, year-long, five-credit comparative course that explores common law contracts and civil law obligations, with a separate companion course in comparative methodology and legal systems,” said LSU Law Professor Maggie Thomas, who chaired the LSU Law Curriculum Committee in 2023-2024, when the committee made significant progress on the project.
“A large group of dedicated faculty is building new courses with shared materials reflecting an innovative, collaborative approach between faculty experts in both civil law and common law,” added Professor Tom Galligan, who chaired the Curriculum Committee in 2024-2025.
The effort to improve the curriculum for first-year LSU Law students began a decade ago and intensified under the leadership of Dean Alena M. Alena since she began her tenure on July 1, 2023. Along with investing in a comprehensive outside review of the effectiveness of the curriculum through the American Association of Law Schools (AALS), LSU Law alumni were invited in the fall of 2023 to participate in a survey that focused on employers’ expectations of recent graduates.
The survey results showed that alumni want to see LSU Law emphasize critical thinking and analytical skills, effective oral written communication, professionalism, competence with modern legal technology, the value of constructive feedback, and practical skills.
“It also showed us that a strong majority of alumni expect the Law Center to do two things simultaneously,” Thomas noted. “One, enhance LSU Law’s national reputation outside Louisiana, and two, provide a strong foundation in Louisiana’s Civil Law.”
Along with the AALS review and alumni survey results, the LSU Law Faculty Committee considered programmatic suggestions from members of the Louisiana Supreme Court who emphasized LSU Law’s leading role in preserving and developing Louisiana’s Civilian legal heritage, Thomas said.
“Throughout 2023 and 2024, there were intensive faculty discussions about how to balance many different goals,” Galligan said. “Our core value in the process was always our bijural identity, as it makes the Law Center unique and special.”
Aside from minor changes, the curriculum for first-year LSU Law students has not been significantly altered in four decades. The last time any change was made to the curriculum came in 2015, when the faculty voted to make the Graduate Diploma in Comparative Law (DCL) optional. About 85% of LSU Law students opt to earn a DCL each year in addition to a Juris Doctor.
Additional changes to the first-year curriculum approved by the faculty in March include:
- Enhancing the Legal Traditions course to introduce methods of legal analysis that support the new bijural course in contracts and obligations—examining how two systems can solve the same problem in similar or different ways. The new course will be called Comparative Legal Systems.
- Adding a year-long course on modern, cutting-edge legal research techniques.
- Adding a year-long course devoted to professional identity development.
- Moving several familiar courses from the current first-year curriculum to the upper level, including the Administration of Criminal Justice and Study of Federal Jurisdiction courses.
- Adjusting the Civil Procedure course to focus on understanding the arc of litigation and use of procedural rules as a foundational competency in the first semester.
“The new curriculum will create more space for students to explore and think deeply, with increased emphasis on modern legal research, more time devoted to developing legal writing skills, more attention to analytic methodology, and deeper mastery of civil procedure and torts in the first semester,” Thomas said.
“In the coming year, we will organize learning outcomes for every course in the first-year curriculum to ensure a strong, shared foundation,” Galligan added. “We are confident that these changes will strengthen the rigor, effectiveness, and impact of our first-year program.”
