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Welcome! I'm so glad you're considering PL 100. This is an online (scheduled meetings) course that meets weekly via Zoom. Attendance at the live class sessions is expected.

Plan on roughly 7 to 9 hours per week for the coursework. There is no final exam. Your grade is built across attendance and participation, weekly reading and reflection assignments, a resume, a cover letter, a mock interview exercise, and a Courthouse Visit or Legal Work Reflection paper.

What this course is. PL 100 is your introduction to the legal profession and to what a career in it can look like. Across the term you will learn how the profession is structured, what different legal professionals actually do all day, how licensure works, how to think about ethics and professional responsibility, and how to start building the practical skills you will use to launch a career: writing a resume, drafting a cover letter, interviewing, and stepping into a legal workplace with confidence. Whether you are here to become a paralegal, to explore whether law school is right for you, or to figure out where in the field you fit best, this is the course that gets you oriented.

Guest speakers. Across the term you will hear from  and read about working legal professionals in a range of settings: private firm paralegals, public interest and legal aid advocates, Oregon Licensed Paralegals, court staff, government agency professionals, and others whose work you may not know exists yet. These conversations give you a much fuller picture of the profession than any textbook can, and they are often the sessions students remember most.

The Courthouse Visit or Legal Work Reflection. One of the term's signature assignments asks you to spend a couple of hours either at a courthouse or shadowing legal professionals in a legal work environment, and then write a short reflection on what you observed. The point is to get you out of the classroom and into the actual settings where legal work happens, so you can start picturing yourself in them.

Required text. All readings will be provided to students.

A note on AI. This course has a very clear and strict academic integrity policy on AI usage. Please read the syllabus.

About your instructor. I'm Megan Dorton, a licensed Oregon attorney and faculty member in ¶¶Òõ¸£Àûµ¼º½'s Paralegal Program. I practice in family, housing, and administrative law, and I came to ¶¶Òõ¸£Àûµ¼º½ to help train future legal professionals to increase access to justice. I love this course and I look forward to working with you. You can reach me anytime at megan.dorton@pcc.edu.