Simulations

Negotiations

Negotiation is a central feature of human interactions and particularly vital in the practice of law. Negotiations incorporates perspectives on negotiation from disciplines including law, social psychology, organizational behavior, communications, and game theory. Class time is devoted to assessing and building upon the elements from the readings and negotiation experiences.

A major component in Negotiations involves participating in negotiation exercises of various lengths and complexity, performed both in and out of class. In addition to negotiating with fellow class members, exercises involve cross-college negotiations with students in other professional programs across campus - those in graduate courses on negotiation at the College of Business (MBA), and/or Institute of Labor and Industrial Relations (ILIR).

For example, MBA students may represent business clients and law students serve as lawyers involved in a negotiation. Another exercise includes an e-mail negotiation with MBA students. The course may include a team negotiation reflecting a labor negotiation where ILIR students serve as union officials on one side and city managers on the other. Other "client" negotiations take place each semester, some involving "real people" versus other students, which can be quite eye-opening. A cross-cultural negotiation assignment, based on a real case, demonstrates various cultural challenges.

During Negotiations, negotiation scenarios increase in complexity. Exercises and class discussions also emphasize ethical dimensions or the processes, particularly as an agent for others.

CFI: Counseling, Investigation and Interviewing

Effective attorneys must know how to establish effective trusting professional relationships with their clients, have the skills to convey information-including that clients might not wish to hear at times, and must be able to gather facts from witnesses ranging from the friendly to the hostile. This requires a range of skills from ethical requirements for interacting with client to interpersonal skills and a knowledge of psychosocial dynamics.

CFI teaches these skills in a real-world, problem-based simulation course. Students gain specific skills, building upon them sequentially as the semester proceeds with a combination of readings, practice in guided exercises, and feedback on their work. Students see demonstrations of practicing attorneys performing the same exercises they are doing and submit memoranda on their progress to their managing partner (the course instructor). Guest speakers with diverse expertise from psychology to law enforcement interact with students. Assessment is based on a combination of written analysis and demonstration of skills through videotaped performances.

The first section of the CFI is devoted to developing foundation skills and practicing them with simulated clients. These "clients" are sometimes actors and sometimes students in other professional programs on campus who are themselves learning the professional skill of interacting effectively with attorneys: exercises include interviewing School of Social Work graduate students studying child welfare, community volunteers and UI theatre students who portray clients in a variety of reality-based legal interviewing and counseling scenarios.

The culminating, month-long exercise requires law students to use all the skills they have developed in a comprehensive exercise that requires interviewing, fact investigation and counseling skills. It has the additional feature of training future attorneys and physicians to work with each other. One case involves the law students representing the physicians in a proceeding involving a complaint by a former patient being investigated by the Illinois Department of Professional Regulation: students must interview their "clients," gain information from them and from the medical records, counsel their clients on effective ways to approach the investigative interview and then represent the client at that "hearing." Another case portrays physicians facing review of their hospital privileges in an internal investigation by a hospital attorney (preparatory to the medical review hearing), and deals with "end of life" issues for a patient and her family with a terminal illness and a medical treatment decisions in the context of surrogacy and a Medical Power of Attorney. The dynamics of the medical-legal issues provide a unique educational context.

CFI fits naturally as the first of a sequence of theory-based skills courses. Interviewing, counseling and fact investigation naturally precedes Trial Advocacy, the Clinics, and Negotiation.

CFI was designed and is overseen by Professors J. Steven Beckett and C. K. Gunsalus. The lead instructor is Adjunct Professor Lorna Geiler, a practicing attorney. Collaborators include the Department of Theatre graduate program, Professor Tonya Manselle (Social Work), Dr. Robert Kirby (College of Medicine) and Dr. Joseph Goldberg (College of Medicine).

Trial Advocacy

Steven Beckett
Director, Trial Advocacy Program

The Spring Trial Advocacy program consists of case preparation in either a criminal or civil jury trial. For both Trial Advocacy trials and Trial Team, the spring semester courses consist of jury trial opportunities within the law school mock trial program, or at competitive trial team competitions. All sections include pre-trial preparation, planning, and a jury trial presentation. Student work in pairs to prepare and trial the cases.

The Spring semester of trial advocacy is an elective course — participation in the Spring session is not required to receive credit for the Fall session of Trial Advocacy. Fall Trial Advocacy is a mandatory pre-requisite for spring Trial Advocacy, however. The Spring Trial Advocacy class meets once per week during the first eight weeks of the semester on Wednesdays (civil cases) or Thursdays (criminal cases) at 5 p.m. in the Law School courtroom. These course meetings deal with issues of substantive law, scheduling and procedural issues. All other course meetings are in the nature of pre-trial hearings and are arranged with Professor Beckett (criminal cases) or Professor Ansel (civil cases). Each faculty member will supervise the pairs of students who are opposing each other for trial preparation and trial. Students should register for Section A, Wednesdays, of this course if they want a civil trial and for Section B, Thursdays, if they want a criminal trial. Students are assigned in pairs to a case file and take all pre-trial steps necessary to prepare the case for trial. They then conduct a jury trial on an assigned date in mid-March. The course requirements are met with the conclusion of the jury trial. This is a two hour ungraded (credit/no credit) course.

Students on the Trial Team should register for Section C. Trial team meeting times will be arranged with Professor Beckett, however normal practice times are Monday afternoons in the law school courtroom. The course requirements are met with the conclusion of the intercollegiate law school trial competitions. Trial Team is a two hour ungraded (credit/no credit) course.

Moot Court Program

Sara Benson
Visiting Assistant Professor
Legal Writing Program

Developing effective oral and written advocacy skills is critical to success in law school and beyond. The Moot Court Program offers experiential learning opportunities in which students can develop these important skills. Second- and third-year students are eligible to participate in one of seven internal moot court competitions:

Bankruptcy Moot Court Competition
Environmental Moot Court Competition
Frederick Douglass Moot Court Competition
Frederick Green Moot Court Competition
Hispanic National Bar Association Moot Court Competition
Intellectual Property Moot Court Competition
Jessup Moot Court Competition (focusing on international law)

Students who participate in each of these competitions receive instruction in both brief writing and oral advocacy, write an appellate brief, and participate in practice and final rounds of oral argument. The top finishers in each competition will have the opportunity to compete in an external competition the following year.

External Moot Court Competition

College of Law moot court teams have experienced a great deal of success in external moot court competitions over the past several years. Students compete against teams from law schools around the country. The external competitions in which students compete include:

National Moot Court Competition
National Environmental Law Moot Court Competition
Frederick Douglass Moot Court Competition
Chicago Bar Association Moot Court Competition
Philip C. Jessup Moot Court Competition
Hispanic National Bar Association Moot Court Competition
Illinois Appellate Lawyers Association Moot Court Competition
Judge Conrad B. Duberstein Moot Court Competition

Practice-Oriented Courses

Advanced Trial Advocacy

Judge James F. Holderman
Adjunct Professor and Federal District Chief Judge

Paula H. Holderman
Adjunct Professor

Advanced Trial Advocacy, Intellectual Property is an intensive course dealing with trial advocacy issues arising in intellectual property cases. It is offered each academic year during Spring Break. The course includes faculty lectures and daily student presentations involving copyright, trademark, patent, and trade secret cases. In addition to the daily student presentations, students conduct a mock preliminary injunction hearing regarding misappropriation of trade secrets and a mock patent infringement jury trial.

The course is taught by the Honorable James F. Holderman, United States District Chief Judge for the Northern District of Illinois and also a College of Law alumnus, and Attorney Paula Hudson Holderman of Winston & Strawn in Chicago.

Advocacy Training

Attorneys are advocates for their clients, and thus, advocacy training is at the very core of legal education. The Introduction to Advocacy Training course is a required first-year course in which the instruction focuses on persuasive writing and oral advocacy. Students write and argue briefs at the trial and appellate level. Research topics include advanced computer-assisted legal research as well as researching legislative history. Additionally, students begin learning about conducting negotiations.

Dispute Resolution

Michael H. Leroy
Professor

Jennifer Robbennolt
Professor

The Dispute Resolution course introduces students to a wide range of mechanisms by which disputes are handled by attorneys — including discussion of how disputes are resolved through the client interviewing and counseling process, via bilateral and multilateral negotiation, in mediation, and through arbitration. Variants on these basic conflict resolution processes — such as summary jury trials and mini-trials, ombuds, negotiated rulemaking, online dispute resolution, and innovative processes for handling mass litigation — are also considered as are the processes by which systems for resolving disputes are designed and evaluated. The course integrates a traditional approach to the law that impacts these methods of dispute resolution, an examination of interdisciplinary perspectives on dispute resolution, and a variety of experiential exercises that are designed to equip attorneys with a broad range of problem-solving techniques and skills.

Family Law Practice

Judge Arnold Blockman
Adjunct Professor
6th Judicial Circuit, Urbana, Illinois

The course is an overview of family law, including dissolution, legal separation, paternity, child support enforcement, orders of protection and abuse and neglect cases, with the students participating in the simulated trial of a family law case in a courtroom setting before a family law judge. The course will also deal with specific evidentiary, ethics and other issues unique to family law cases. The course also features guest lectures by experienced local family law lawyers. Finally, the course will address alternative dispute resolution issues and the various pre-trial and discovery aspects of a family law case. Prerequisites: Family Law and Evidence, preferred but not required.

Pre-Trial Skills

Judge Esteban F. Sanchez
Adjunct Professor
7th Judicial Circuit, Springfield, Illinois

Judge David Bernthal
Adjunct Professor
United States Magistrate Judge

Pretrial Litigation is a "hands-on, learn-as-you-work" class, acquainting students with the steps, thought processes, and methodologies a trial lawyer should consider before and during litigation. The small class is divided in two sections or "law firms," with one firm representing the plaintiff and the other representing the defendant. Students litigate a civil case up to the point of trial. They conduct client interviews and other factual investigation, research applicable law, plan case strategy, draft pleadings, engage in discovery, prepare and argue motions and engage in settlement negotiations.

Class consists of lecture, planning strategy and upcoming assignments, exercises and discussing any problems that have or will arise as the litigation proceeds. Students also cooperate with the members of their law firm in other litigation activities, such as discussing and planning strategy, tactics and problems, meeting with and interviewing the client and witnesses, investigating the facts, and doing necessary legal research.

In addition, a student plaintiff will be matched against a student defendant. Each student will be responsible for drafting pleadings, motions, conducting discovery, filing with the court, serving notices/subpoenas for depositions, and serving as opposing counsel on behalf of the student's client.