Family law with skills ten years later: Experiential education in the introductory family law course

Hofstra's Law School's Family Law with Skills Course (FLWS) incorporates experiential education into an introductory family law course. This article describes FLWS' recent experiential curricular innovations: (1) a transition to online learning; (2) the Navigator Program in which students provide legal information (in contrast to legal advice) to self-represented litigants in divorce actions; (3) a forum with leadership from the divorce bar nationwide that introduces law students to the nature and future of family law practice; and (4) a divorce representation simulation in which law students counsel a client with consulting help from a psychologist, asset valuator and dispute resolution expert. This article describes the contribution each of these innovations makes to the education of family law students and how they are organized. It concludes that experiential education should be part of the education of future family lawyers in the interests of improving the quality of the representation they provide and their commitment to the field.