JD-Next Program Structure and Timeline

The JD-Next course prepares students for that all-important first year of law school. The 8-week program requires 6–10 hours of work per week, or about 1-hour daily. It begins with Case Brief Workshops, where you’ll develop essential law school skills, such as analyzing cases to extract key rules and facts.

In the first half of the course, you’ll complete workshops focused on legal reasoning and case analysis. In the second half, you’ll apply these skills to doctrinal law by engaging with foundational 1L Contract Law cases, such as Hawkins v. McGee.

Each week includes interactive lessons, quizzes, and personalized feedback to help you build and refine your skills. Course videos provide concept introductions, lectures, takeaways. Additionally, professional identity videos showcase interviews with legal professionals from a variety of backgrounds. The course also includes frequent formative assessments to provide feedback to promote learning and test preparation skills to improve future test performance. Additionally, you’ll get the opportunity to routinely reinforce concepts through practical application with “problems of the day.” 

Students have the option to prepare for the JD-Next test with practice materials included in the course. Students can check their knowledge with question quizzes and essays, with model answers and grading rubrics provided for self-assessment. 

The course culminates with the JD-Next test, a comprehensive assessment designed to evaluate law school skills learned in the course. Unlike traditional standardized assessments, this test aligns strictly with the course curriculum, ensuring a fair, accurate, and equitable evaluation process.

JD-Next Program Structure and Timeline

The JD-Next course prepares students for that all-important first year of law school. The 8-week program requires 6–10 hours of work per week, or about 1-hour daily. It begins with Case Brief Workshops, where you’ll develop essential law school skills, such as analyzing cases to extract key rules and facts.

In the first half of the course, you’ll complete workshops focused on legal reasoning and case analysis. In the second half, you’ll apply these skills to doctrinal law by engaging with foundational 1L Contract Law cases, such as Hawkins v. McGee.

Each week includes interactive lessons, quizzes, and personalized feedback to help you build and refine your skills. Additionally, you’ll get the opportunity to routinely reinforce concepts through practical application with “problems of the day.”

The course culminates with the JD-Next test, a comprehensive assessment designed to evaluate law school skills learned in the course. Unlike traditional standardized assessments, this test aligns strictly with the course curriculum, ensuring a fair, accurate, and equitable evaluation process. 

• Make clearly written and organized arguments that are well supported by primary and secondary sources.  

• Apply relevant primary and secondary legal sources to specific fact scenarios using prescribed analysis and argument. 

• Apply investigative techniques to support the development of a legal argument  

• Build an effective doctrinal outline for typical law school exams. 

• Write case briefs in preparation for Socratic cold-calling and open-book exams. 

• Write an effective legal analysis of a hypothetical fact pattern. 

• Identify and articulate the legal issue in a judicial opinion. 

• Identify and articulate the dispositive facts of a judicial opinion. 

• Identify and synthesize the rule of law as applied in a judicial opinion. 

• Distinguish the legal reasoning of the plaintiff, defendant, and the court in a judicial opinion. 

• Identify and articulate the procedural posture of a given judicial opinion. 

• Identify and articulate the holding and disposition of the court in a given judicial opinion. 

• Connect your skills, values, attitudes, knowledge, and beliefs to what you have to offer the legal profession as you journey into a career in the law. 

• Make clearly written and organized arguments that are well supported by primary and secondary sources.  

• Apply relevant primary and secondary legal sources to specific fact scenarios using prescribed analysis and argument. 

• Apply investigative techniques to support the development of a legal argument  

• Build an effective doctrinal outline for typical law school exams. 

• Write case briefs in preparation for Socratic cold-calling and open-book exams. 

• Write an effective legal analysis of a hypothetical fact pattern. 

• Identify and articulate the legal issue in a judicial opinion. 

• Identify and articulate the dispositive facts of a judicial opinion. 

• Identify and synthesize the rule of law as applied in a judicial opinion. 

• Distinguish the legal reasoning of the plaintiff, defendant, and the court in a judicial opinion. 

• Identify and articulate the procedural posture of a given judicial opinion. 

• Identify and articulate the holding and disposition of the court in a given judicial opinion. 

• Connect your skills, values, attitudes, knowledge, and beliefs to what you have to offer the legal profession as you journey into a career in the law.