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00 THE TO URO LAWYER FALL 201 5 Touro Law Center implemented a five-year strategic plan called Portals to Practice. This program reconceives and restructures the law school experience. Portals to Practice expands the scope and quality of legal education by focusing on the development of legal professionals from pre-law through post-graduation. Each of the portals prepares Touro Law students for the practice of law by integrating the knowledge skills and values learned in law school classrooms with experiential opportunities that encourage students to develop and apply to the real world what theyve learned inside the walls of law school. The traditional continuum of legal education is transformed from a chronological sequence of learning to a multidimensional portal to the profession. At the center of the portals is an innovative curriculum that provides Touro Law students with immersive and sequential programs in diverse fields of practice. Over the course of their legal education from their admission to law school through their admission to the bar Touro Law students will be engaged in increasingly complex practice activities. The portals are designed to contemporaneously expose students to sequenced coursework and practice opportunities that correlate with the level of doctrinal and skills development students have achieved. The curricular offerings embedded into the portals positions our students to enter the legal profession competently and confidently in a range of settings including private practice in a solo small or large firm public interest organization government office or a law-related field where a J.D. is preferred. Touro Laws commitment to excellence in teaching scholarship and service on the part of our faculty to professionalism and dedication to service on the part of our students and alumni to access to a legal education for all qualified students and to access to justice for the vulnerable members of our community informs the substance of each of our portals. While the four portals are chronologically organized they are interdependent in terms of how they create competent and ethical members of the legal profession. Students enter the first portal during their first year where traditionally they are taught legal doctrine Touro Law students are also provided with meaningful and appropriate opportunities to engage in practice-related activities and learn professional values working with litigants before the end of their first year. Even in this first portal there is a merging of doctrine theory and practice skills but at a level that a first-year student can master. The second portal continues the learning begun in the first portal focusing as much on continuing to develop core competencies related to substantive law through sequenced courses in concentrations or other fields of practice as on skills related directly to practice. The learning process is incremental growing in complexity as the student moves through the portal. In the third portal during an apprenticeship final year students immerse themselves in practice through clinical education externships advanced coursework in concentrations and licensure activities. The balance among knowledge value skills may alter somewhat within the portals but each area is an integral part of the students educational experience from the first through the final portal. The final portal reflects the Law Centers commitment to the transitional and integration of our students into the profession including an opportunity to participate in an incubator program for entry-level attorneys. TOURO LAW CENTERS PORTALS TO PRACTICE A Five-Year Strategic Plan to Restructure Legal Education 54 THE TO URO LAWYER FALL 201 5