Integrated Evidence and Trial Advocacy

Integrated Evidence and Trial Advocacy

• Course Number: LAW-121
• Course Type: Foundational and Experiential
• Credits: 4
• Enrollment Limit: Determined by the Registrar

• Description: This course will combine evidence and trial advocacy. Students will start with a case file at the beginning of the semester. Working through the semester the students will build a theory of the case, various witness examinations, demonstrative exhibits, an opening statement, and a closing argument. In parallel, students will be learning the Federal Rules of Evidence. Each week the evidence lessons will align with the trial advocacy lecture and students will integrate the rules and skills learned for a weekly simulation. Those simulations will be in small groups with practicing lawyers providing feedback. The work will culminate in students preparing for and presenting the case file in a simulated trial before a judge (or practicing lawyer acting as a judge) at the end of the semester. Students will also have to brief and argue evidentiary and jury instruction issues at a pre- trial hearing presided over by judge.

Students completing this course will have an understanding of the rules of evidence and how they are applied in a trial. They will also be competent in the general skills of trial practice: developing a theory of the case, examining witnesses (direct and cross examination), qualifying and cross-examining experts, admitting physical evidence, objecting to testimonial and physical evidence (and responding to such objections), giving an opening statement, and giving a closing argument.

• Restrictions: Students enrolled in this course can’t earn credit for LAW 122: Evidence or LAW 430: Trial Advocacy.
• Prerequisite: none
• Evaluation Method: class simulation and exam
• Capstone: no
• WIE: no