New Georgetown Online Legal English Course: “OLE: Reading Cases”

Post by Prof. Stephen Horowitz, Legal English Lecturer

Research Help | Georgetown Law Library | Georgetown Law

I’m very excited to share that Georgetown Law’s Center for Legal English is now offering a second self-paced online legal English course titled Online Legal English (OLE): Reading Cases (beta version) which is currently available to all incoming Georgetown LLM students (1-year LLMs as well as those in the 2-year LLM program.)

I created the course last year as a complement to the first course I developed–OLE: Orientation to the US Legal System. And this spring we began offering both courses at no additional cost to all incoming LLM students so that they can start preparing for the fall semester and gain relevant background knowledge in a way that is as convenient for them as possible.

(Note: I think this makes us the first and only law school to offer entirely asynchronous, self-paced legal English courses. But if anyone knows of any other ones out there, please let me know and I’ll post an update here.)

While OLE: Orientation to the US Legal System focuses on the US legal system, separation of powers, and federalism in a way that enables students to improve their legal English through the study materials and activities, OLE: Reading Cases introduces students to the concept of what a case is (and isn’t) in the US legal system and teaches students how to analyze the language and discourse of cases in order to better comprehend them and better anticipate the questions they will need to address in class and on assignments.

The course is unfortunately not able to be made available to non-Georgetown students for technical reasons beyond our control, but below are a few screenshots to give a sense of what it contains.

[Update: A few people have contacted me to say they’re not a Georgetown student but would love to be able to take a course like this. If you’re not a Georgetown student but are interested in finding other online legal English options, just get in touch with me at sh1643@georgetown.edu and I’m happy to help.]

And I’m always happy to chat and share about the ideas and planning that went into the course if anyone is ever interested in discussing. Just get in touch.