Legal Studies Minor
The minor provides excellent preparation for students interested in attending law school, or who wish to increase their marketability in other career fields. The legal studies minor also provides students from a variety of majors the opportunity to study and share a common interest in the law. Students learn how to conduct legal research using electronic databases, the Internet and the print collection of legal resources. Students are required to study the basic substantive areas of law, as well as court procedure.
As previously noted, the minor in legal studies is an excellent complement to other majors, but is not intended to fully prepare students as professional paralegals, and therefore, is not approved by the ABA.
All students in the Legal Studies minor must earn a grade of "C" or higher in each LGS course taken. Students may not retake more than two LGS courses to meet this requirement, and may only retake a course once to meet the requirement. Students must also obtain an overall 2.25 GPA in the Legal Studies minor in order to complete the program requirements for the minor.
Program Competencies
Students are expected to possess:
- The ability to read complex legal documents with understanding and to identify the legal issues at stake in them.
- The ability to identify, isolate, and analyze critically legal arguments as they occur in writing and in speech.
- The ability to conduct thorough legal research, using standard reference materials (such as Westlaw and the MSU library's print collection of legal reference materiel), in accordance with best practices in the field.
Legal Studies Minor Requirements
Core Requirements
| LGS 210 | Introduction to Law and Ethics | 3 |
| LGS 321 | Legal Research and Writing I | 3 |
| LGS 325 | Pretrial Practice | 3 |
| LGS 335 | Contracts and the Uniform Commercial Code | 3 |
| Total Credit Hours: | 12 |
Electives
Choose nine hours from the following (at least six hours must have a LGS prefix):
Total Credit Hours: 21