The 1L Experience

Your first year at Mercer will be unlike any experience you have ever encountered. It will be exciting, stimulating, and a little daunting. But more than anything, it will be enlightening and mind-expanding.

Our focus in the first year is to introduce and engage students on what it truly takes to be a good lawyer. We stress to our students that it goes beyond test scores. It involves a true knowledge of the law, how to effectively communicate that knowledge, and the ability to meet the highest professional standards of integrity, character, service, and ethics.

Professionalism Orientation for First-Year Students
You will begin your experience at Mercer with an orientation program that addresses the issues of professionalism and ethics. Administered by the Professionalism Committee of the State Bar of Georgia and the Chief Justice’s Commission on Professionalism, the Professionalism Orientation brings distinguished guests to campus each year to speak and interact with first-year students. It is coordinated by the Mercer Center for Legal Ethics and Professionalism.

First-Year Curriculum
As a student at Mercer, you will develop writing and research skills that will distinguish you throughout your career. This will begin in your first year.

First-Year Courses—Fall Semester

• Introduction to the Study of Law
• Contracts
• Criminal Law
• Introduction to Legal Research
• Legal Analysis
• Property
• Torts

First-Year Courses—Spring Semester

• American Constitutional System
• Jurisdiction and Judgments
• Legal Writing I
• Sales
• The Legal Profession

The Legal Profession Course
During the second semester, you will take a course titled The Legal Profession. This required three-credit course addresses lawyer professionalism by giving students a perspective and context for the current state of the profession and its perceived problems. You will explore the validity, causes, and cures of the major criticisms of the legal profession. The course also covers the history, traditions, and functions of the adversary system, the culture and tradition with which law historically has been practiced, and the economics of law practice, among other topics.