Fordham Law School welcomes 14 new students from 9 countries to its spring 2021 online Legal English Institute (LEI) program. The students—who hail from Albania, Brazil, Colombia, Cyprus, France, Georgia, Italy, Switzerland, and Venezuela—bring a wealth of experience to the Fordham Law community. Three students are part of the TotalLaw program, a project of TalentoTotal, which is devoted to improving the representation of Afro-descendent and indigenous populations in positions of leadership in Latin America.
The Legal English Institute begins with an intensive Introduction to the U.S. Legal System and Law Study, in which LEI students sit side-by-side with their LL.M. counterparts. Other courses include Foundations of Private Law, Fundamental Lawyering Skills, Becoming a Lawyer, Working with Contracts, Communication Pragmatics for Lawyers, and the Legal English Tutorial.
Participants in this program often go on to enroll in the LL.M. program, while others use it as a freestanding introduction to the U.S. legal system, U.S. law, and legal English terminology.
“As with all Fordham Law programs, community is an essential element of the Legal English Institute, and signs of community being forged among the members of our new cohort are already apparent,” says Toni Jaeger-Fine, an assistant dean at Fordham Law, who also directs LEI. “The success of this program turns heavily on the participants. We do our best to facilitate the community but the students themselves are those who drive this element of the program. We are so proud of the bond that these students create—which forms friendships but also a robust professional network.”
More information about the Legal English Institute is available on the program webpage.