PRETRIAL ADVOCACY COURSE GOES ONLINE—PART III

 

Pretrial Advocacy Online Part I

Pretrial Advocacy Online Part II

PRETRIAL ADVOCACY COURSE GOES ONLINE—PART II

Pretrial advocacy can be taught online. When the pandemic hit us in the middle of my Spring Comprehensive Pretrial Advocacy course, I took what I learned from Seattle University’s Center for Digital Learning and Innovation about designing an online course and applied it to the remainder of the course. It was not ideal having the students argue a motion with Zoom, but it was satisfactory.

 

A good online course is quite different from one that is taught remotely. When the doors of the law school closed, the law school faculty was forced to teach remotely, lecturing and having discussions with Zoom. In contrast, an online course that is properly designed engages students in projects, discussions and other activities that have proven effective. At Seattle University, online courses are conducted on Canvas.

 

Using Canvas an online course can be designed to engage and teach students. Here are some of the activities in which students in the Pretrial Advocacy course will be involved. For example, they will collaborate online in small groups to plan the drafting of a complaint and discovery documents. They will draft and submit a complaint, an answer, discovery documents and either a motion or a response. After receiving comments on their first draft, they submit revised ones.

 

To learn about taking and defending a deposition, they can watch demonstration movies. They outline and submit on Canvas what they would inquire about during the deposition of neutral and adverse witnesses. They have a  discussion of how the deposition can be used in pretrial and trial . They take virtual field trips to the crime scene and to websites of vendors of litigation visuals and submit reports about what they learned.

 

Students taking and defend a deposition during Zoom sessions. Later, students argue the motion on Zoom, which is the final student performance activity for the course.

See Part I of Pretrial Advocacy Course Goes Online.

PRETRIAL ADVOCACY COURSE GOES ONLINE—PART I

Can you learn pretrial advocacy online? The answer is “Yes, Oh, Yes—you can.” Before the pandemic, I began taking a course at Seattle University’s Center for Digital Learning and Innovation (CDLI). I decided to take the classes because Seattle University Law School, where I teach Pretrial and Trial Advocacy, Essential Lawyering Skills and Visual Litigation and Today’s Technology, decided that, due to declining enrollment in its part-time students’ night classes, it would drop those classes and instead try something new—offer courses online to part-time students.

Originally, I was planning to teach a Visual Litigation course online during the Summer of 2020, which I did (it was so popular that it had two sections). But, one thing led to another, and now I’m teaching a Fall 2020 Pretrial Advocacy course online as well. When we entered into virus isolation half-way through the Spring semester, I had to convert my Pretrial course into an online one for the remainder of the semester.

The Comprehensive Pretrial Advocacy course is perfectly suited for this approach. Here’s a description of what the course entails, and you can see why it should prove to be a great way for law students to learn pretrial advocacy.

Using mock criminal and civil cases as a context, students develop patterns of thought and skills for the real-work practice of law. Activities will include, among others: case theory and theme development; forging an attorney-client relationship;  interviewing, counseling, negotiation, oral advocacy, and drafting of pleadings, discovery, and motions. Problem solving, decision making, and the professional role of the lawyer are emphasized. Alternatives to trial, such as mediation, are explored. Pretrial Advocacy allows a high level of student participation in discussion and role-play.

This course uses Pretrial Advocacy: Planning, Analysis, and Strategies as a text and concentrates upon pretrial advocacy in the context of both civil (Summers v. Hard) and criminal (State v. Hard) litigation. At the successful conclusion of this course, students will have acquired the skills that are essential to effective pretrial advocacy, including, among others, how to do the following:

1.    formulate a case theory and theme;

2.    forge an attorney-client relationship;

3.    interview and counsel a client;

4.    interview witnesses;

5.    develop and manage a case;

6.    visit the scene;

7.    negotiate;

8.    engage in alternative dispute resolution;

9.    take and defend depositions;

10. engage in discovery;

11. argue a motion; and

12. draft these legal documents: a complaint; an answer; interrogatories; requests for production; requests for admissions and either a motion or response to a motion.

In the next article, we can take a look at the projects, discussions and presentations that make up the online Comprehensive Pretrial Advocacy course.

See Pretrial Advocacy Goes Online - Part II