This summer was special for me in many ways. For one, I came back to Philadelphia, a city where I spent half a year as a visiting scholar with Temple Law in 2013. It meant enjoying the beauty and historical sightseeing of this city one more time, meeting old friends at Temple Law, and making new ones. Coming back to Philly to do part of my LL.M. program as a full-time student with my Chinese classmates also meant an unexpected opportunity to experience campus life once more. What’s more, I was extremely looking forward to meeting Temple Law professors to learn from them, and to get a better idea of how American law schools prepare law students for their legal careers.
With all those thoughts in my mind, I arrived in Philly. It turned out to be something more amazing and wonderful than what I had expected.
During the two-month program, we took 3 courses focusing on the practical aspects of American legal education. We got the big picture of American trial advocacy; we learned how to perform and make arguments in the courtroom. We learned how to prepare and write legal memos. We also took several field trips to American courts, prisons, and law firms. We even had a chance to visit the Supreme Court of United States and had a talk with Justice Alito. All of these trips and skill training classes exposed us to the real-life American legal system. It was so real that we couldn’t help relating it to scenes we watched in the movies.
What is particularly impressive is the way American law schools train their students in the classroom. At Temple Law, they incorporate performance skills training components into the traditional course. During that course, we were supervised and guided by former legal practioners to role-play and do mock trials. We were required to apply the jargon and expressions used by lawyers in their practice. What amazed me is that the words, expressions, and processes that we learned in the classroom were soon observed during our field trip to court. That really made the legal education more relevant and meaningful.
During the program, we met professors with different but charming personalities. Professor Jules Epstein, who taught us introduction to Trial Advocacy, is an amicable professor. He is the superstar of the program. His way of delivering his lecture made the class vivid, attractive, and served his teaching objective in the most effective way. He has the capability to explain the material with the simplest words which makes the content much more accessible to foreign LL.M. students like us. Professor Sara E. Jacobson is an extremely strict but responsible professor. I love her way of treating us as adults. I also love her logical way of teaching. It looks like a dilemma: how could a professor as tough as she is be so popular with students? It is a miracle! Professor Robin M. Nilon was a totally different type of person from all the other professors. I admired her innocence, which is unbelievable for a professor with her experience.
Campus life felt familiar, but because most of us have been established legal practioners or regulators for years, not something we had experienced for a while. The summer program offered us a chance to re-experience it. We stayed in the same student dorm; we attended classes in the same classroom; we traveled as a group on weekends. Looking at the pictures along the way, I can’t help thinking of those beautiful days and nights this summer which I will remember for the rest of my life.
Vinee (Xuemei) Hu, Associate Professor of Law at the School of Government and Law, Beijing Normal University Zhuhai campus, poses for a picture in Philadelphia.
What made this summer even more meaningful and interesting is that some of us even had access to one or two-week intern program offered by some big law firms. The intern program I took was offered by the law firm Blank Rome LLP. During our two weeks, we were introduced to 48 legal practioners in a variety of fields of law and administrative specialists at the law firm. Through our communication with them, we not only formed a general idea of American law, but also benefited a lot from the way they do things so professionally and passionately. We also made some good friends. The friendship and experience we gained through the intern program will definitely help us in terms of our future career development.
I think I owe Temple Law and Tsinghua Law a big “thank you” for all the benefits I have received. Functioning as a bridge of friendship and cross-border culture communication, this co-run program offered me the opportunity to enjoy a unique experience in Philly this summer.
Thank you, Temple Law! Thank you, Tsinghua Law!
