In Legal Studies 555: Drafting Preliminary, Amending, and Final Provisions, students will apply their developing drafting skills in more complex tasks. This course will focus on provisions that appear at the beginning or end of a legislative text to perform mainly technical functions. Most of these do not contain substantive rules of law. But they play important functions in establishing the authenticity of the legislation, in supporting its operation and use and in ensuring that new legislation is compatible with existing legislation. These provisions include titles, preambles, commencement and duration provisions, interpretation provisions, purpose clauses, application provisions and schedules.
In Legal Studies 600: Major Legislative Drafting Project, students will pursue a “capstone” drafting project relying upon the foundation of knowledge and skills they have developed in the previous courses in the program. This course will require the student to engage in all steps of the legislative process including analysis of instructions for legislation, legislative planning, and legislative drafting. In consultation with the program director and a project supervisor, the student will select a project, review instructions for legislation, prepare an effective legislative outline, and prepare an original bill suitable for consideration of enactment.