Joseph L. Marino

Professor of Applied Legal Studies
Director, Applied Skills Program

Joseph L. Marino proudly carries on a family tradition of teaching bar review that has earned him a national reputation in the area of legal skills education. Professor Marino’s father started the Marino Bar Review in 1946, and Professor Marino started teaching in 1975.

Professor Marino grew up with the bar review family business, doing office work as a high school student; marketing and business operations while attending college at C.W. Post College; and editorial and publishing while a student at St. John’s University Law School, from which he received his J.D. in 1975.

“I knew early on I had a gift, one cultivated by working with my father: the ability to teach doctrinal and conceptual information within the context of its application so that a student not only understands the law but can apply it,” says Professor Marino. He started his own bar courses which became, by 1995, the second largest in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. He attributes his success to a unique pedagogy he calls the “Marino Method,” which can communicate vast amounts of substantive and procedural information by incorporating the learning process within the context of its application.

The techniques he developed in the 1970s have been widely adopted and incorporated into legal education. He developed many of the common approaches and nomenclature associated with essay writing today, emphasizing the IRAC organization for essay writing and coining the phrase “discussible transactions.”

Professor Marino also taught as an adjunct at several law schools and published articles, books, and law school study aids. In 1977, he published the first edition of Marino on New York Practice, a very popular, practical guide used by law students, attorneys, and judges. He is currently working on a new edition. From 1977 to 1984, he wrote the commentaries for McKinney’s Matrimonial and Family Law Forms for New York. In 1981, he began writing the review material for his bar course that included over 20 separate subjects. He has authored thousands of multiple-choice questions and published two books on MBE techniques and approaches.

Professor Marino expanded the approaches he used in a live classroom to distance learning. In the 1980s, he wrote a 1,000-page combination review book and hornbook with accompanying audiotapes to teach Professional Responsibility. He then wrote five interactive study systems for Contracts, Real Property, Torts, Criminal Law, and Civil Procedure that sold nationally.

He began teaching as an adjunct professor at New York Law School in 1994 when he taught New York Practice and Procedure. In 2000, he was named associate director of the Academic Skills Program, developing two courses, New York Law in National Perspective and Consolidated Legal Analysis, both of which are being incorporated as required courses for certain programs at the school. In addition to teaching, Professor Marino is now director of the Applied Skills Program.  Professor Marino has more than 30 years experience teaching applied legal skills in law school and for the bar.  He is the director of the Marino Institute for Continuing Legal Education, Marino Bar Review Course and Marino Bar Tutors.