Intensive Trial Practice Workshop. This seminar teaches trial preparation, trial advocacy, and strategy through a variety of teaching techniques, including lectures and demonstrations, but primarily through simulated trial exercises. Topics include opening statements, witness preparation, direct and cross examination, expert witnesses, objections at trial, and closing argument. Practicing lawyers and judges are enlisted to provide students with lectures and critiques from varied perspectives. The course concludes with a simulated jury trial presided over by sitting state and federal court judges.
Evidence is a prerequisite.
Students taking the Intensive Trial Practice Workshop are not eligible to enroll in Trial Advocacy. Completion of this workshop partially satisfies one of the requirements for admission to the trial bar of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. The student's grade is based on class participation. This seminar focuses on fundamental pretrial litigation strategies and skills, including, inter alia, creation and evaluation of legal and factual theories, pleading and motion practice, interviewing clients and witnesses, discovery planning, depositions and pretrial preparation. The seminar employs a variety of learning methodologies, including lectures, small group discussions, simulated exercises, and videotaped performances by students.