In late 2020, I reconnected with my colleagues at East China University of Political Science and Law (ECUPL). I participated in an online session with a few of my former students who achieved success in Legal English for American Law Schools (LEALS) and in their U.S. legal education goals. The students went to an impressive group of schools for J.D. and LL.M. degrees: Duke, Georgetown, UCLA, USC, and Vanderbilt, and were in my 2016 and 2018 courses. ECUPL shared an article about the event here.

That experience really inspired me to think more about the direction of my career and my options, and led to me agreeing to teach an online version of LEALS in Summer 2021 for ECUPL. I had returned to teaching as a temporary measure for University of Florida due to the pandemic (I taught a small section of LL.M. Legal Writing). After a great experience teaching online for ECUPL in Summer 2021, I agreed to teach again in Summer 2022. As I toured America over the summer, I logged in three times a week for LEALS across the world: Sunday and Tuesday evenings in the U.S. to teach and Saturday mornings in the U.S. for office hours.

With a year under my belt and all of us having even more experience with online learning, I enjoyed my 2022 experience even more. I highly encourage schools that have partnerships with ECUPL to see about offering courses like I did. And for schools that do not have a partnership with ECUPL: consider whether your partners would be interested in something similar (and reach out to ECUPL about a partnership!).

Why I really enjoy teaching for ECUPL:

1. ECUPL is one of the most important law schools in the world for global outbound mobility and its partnerships truly span the globe. ECUPL students have numerous options for exchanges, joint programs, and separate degree programs in any corner of the world. The university’s global engagement is something that its student body really values and I recall my 2016 course containing students who had just gotten back or were preparing to go to the U.S., U.K., Netherlands, and other jurisdictions.
2. The first ECUPL Dean I met at the School of International Finance and Law (ISFL) had advanced law degrees from Yale and understood the idea of a small course that focused on working at a high level with each student. While some schools want as many students as possible to take my course, ECUPL has never pushed back on my request to keep the courses small. LEALS is at its best as a course where each student participates each class (think 1L legal writing sections), where I get to know my students to help them with their goals and in writing letters of recommendation, and in providing individualized graded feedback throughout the course. I can’t do that with 100 students or even 50, and ECUPL fully supports this.
3. The support I receive from ECUPL is really fantastic and the school deeply cares about the student experience. The course has become an important part of the summer curriculum and two professors regularly join the course and are keenly aware of what is happening. They can see how the students are performing, but also get to see how I am performing and whether I am continuing to meet the expectations for this course.

Constant Improvement: Reflections on 2022 Updates to Online LEALS

I share with my students that they should attempt to improve throughout the course. I try to hold myself to the same standard. And so rather than re-teach the 2021 version in 2022, I took a step back and looked at what worked well and what I could do to improve the student experience.

1. In Summer 2021, we had four periods once a week. Although this was the easiest logistically for students and me, 3.5 hours online felt much longer than the in-person experiences in 2016 and 2018 and it was much harder to read the room the way I was able to when I taught at ECUPL’s Songjiang suburb campus. So in Summer 2022, we switched to 2x a week for 2 periods apiece. This meant students had to learn twice a week and schedule their internships and other projects accordingly. It also meant I had to plan my summer road trip for teaching 2x a week instead of 1x. But it was totally worth it.
2. While all my students have strong credentials at ECUPL, their English language skills vary. Some score in the high 105-110 range on the TOEFL while others are really learning English during this course. We worked hard to ensure a baseline English level for all participants, and one of the professors who oversees my courses joined each week to provide Chinese language translations for certain difficult phrases or ideas in the chat. This ensured that the students with weaker English language skills weren’t lost, even for the students who weren’t as actively participating in the discussions.
3. I missed the interactions in the classroom during the breaks and when students were in small groups. And so I wanted to think of ways for the students and me to get those similar experiences. Breakout rooms were too difficult logistically since I couldn’t jump between rooms like I could jump between classroom groups. So I provided students with an opportunity to make a short presentation at the start of each class. Students were able to take ownership of a topic and worked on their presentation skills. They became comfortable with PowerPoint presentations in English and presenting to their classmates in English. While I miss the breakout sessions, this was a great way to get a similar level of engagement from the students.
4. I never want a course to just be a copy and paste of a previous course. In that case I could just record the lectures and give them to ECUPL. And so I created a more focused current events section of the course where we explored themes in the news. Students were able to get a sense of key topics in the U.S. and this summer there was so much happening with stare decisis & precedent discussions with Dobbs, federalism tension in immigration law with the federal Government and Texas, and Elon Musk’s Twitter saga and the Delaware courts as the site of corporate legal issues. Students were also able to stay plugged into what was happening in America outside of the topics in the legal English discussion.
5. I also am always looking for new material! And this year I found some really great additions to the course. A recent case on what an “international tribunal” was under a federal statute for purposes of discovery requests abroad. A law firm update on whether the FCPA Opinion Procedure process is worth the hassle. And so much more. And having to course prep each week as much as I had to in 2021 really inspired me and raised the level of the course.
6. I worked hard to ensure that students from the 2021 class suggested to their similarly high-situated colleagues to join the class this year. Some of the very best students in my 2022 class either had friends in the 2021 class or attended our session with Northwestern, USC, and UVA in September 2021. These “links” ensure students understand the expectations and value of the course and are willing to work hard each week. About ½ the class was actively speaking each class, which is a really great number given the differences in spoken English confidence and in the way the course differs from lecture-driven courses the students are used to. Rather than just having 1 or 2 students speaking the most, there was really a great spread of students. And the number of active students inspired others who were a little shy early on. One of the students who did the best in the class volunteered around Class 3 or Class 4 after not speaking the first week. And became a fantastic demonstration of why doubling the number of classes by halving the length of time worked. Had we had the 4-period versions 1x a week, by the time she wanted to participate the course may have been almost over!
7. Because I was traveling across the United States during the summer, I used the road trip as an opportunity to help my students learn more about many of the states that make up the United States of America. We focused on federalism issues, court structures, cultural attractions, and of course law schools in those states. This provided a nice addition to each class as we were able to bring to life some of the many themes we covered during the course.

Verdict & Closing Thoughts

I always enjoy my experiences at ECUPL, ever since my first course in 2016. And this was another great experience. This may be the largest number of students, at least percentage wise, that have already asked me to write LORs, and U.S. law schools are a prime target destination. I hope to continue teaching LEALS in Summer 2023 at ECUPL!