Simulation Courses
These courses build confidence to prepare students for the demands of live-client representation.
In simulation courses, students develop lawyering skills in a controlled setting. Much of the work involves hypothetical exercises resembling real case situations. Through seminars, critiques of videotaped role-playing and of presentations before mock judges and juries, and one-on-one review with instructors, students learn and refine specific lawyering skills. Current offerings include:
- Appellate Advocacy – Research, brief-writing, oral argument, and appellate rules, standards, and practice.
- Contract Writing and Analysis – Drafting and interpreting legal documents in business transactions.
- Interviewing and Counseling – Empathic listening, fact gathering, client goal identification, and ethical and responsive decision-making.
- Mediation – Advanced theories and skills for mediators and advocates.
- Negotiation and Mediation – Introduction to the theory, process, and practice of negotiation and mediation.
- Negotiation and Settlement – Communications skills for successful negotiation.
- Pre Trial Practice – Research and drafting of pleadings, discovery, and pre-trial motions.
- Clinics – Clinical courses that encourage students to be continually self-reflective about their practices.
- Problem Solving and Professional Judgment in Practice – Theory and application of interdisciplinary approaches to ethical and responsive decision-making taught through extended case studies and hands-on role playing.
- Roles and Ethics in Practice Problem – based and role-playing approach to ethical issues and skills in interviewing and counseling, fact investigation, and negotiation.
- Trial Advocacy I and II – Discovery techniques, pre-trial court conference, opening statement, direct and cross-examination, impeachment of witnesses, proper handling of documents and exhibits, use of demonstrative evidence, and closing argument, culminating in student participation in simulated trials.
- Trial Objections – Application of the rules of evidence through role-playing exercises intended to bridge the gap between Evidence and Trial Advocacy/Clinical Courses.