Each of the nine students who recently took the year-long seminar had to select a question or dilemma to examine, research it, and come to some conclusion in the form of a resolution or proposal. It tends to be either a student's favorite course, or their most feared course. They conceive of it as abstract and conceptual, which it can be, and it's not the same thing as learning the Uniform Commercial Code.
Students have to learn to look at the problem as lawyers.
If they can do that, it can only reinforce their political views and their ability to persuade others to their political views. But, they need to master legal reasoning first. The students focus on one topic to see how legal concepts, particularly constitutional concepts, may affect personal decisions involving a person's most intimate behaviors, and to take those concepts and see how far they go in helping to provide at least a framework of analysis for the problem. I want them to learn that the critical reasoning skills we develop as lawyers help us analyze and respond to social problems. That's what legislators most of whom are lawyers have to do all the time.