Advanced Appellate Advocacy
This course combines skills training with a substantive focus on 1) federal regulation of the employment relationship, and 2) civil rights litigation. We will use cases pending before the U.S. Supreme Court in these substantive areas as the basis for exercises requiring students to play the roles of advocates and judges. Each student will be required to prepare one brief and present at least one oral argument, and each student will be required to write and present an opinion resolving one of the cases.
Advanced Legal Writing
This course is designed to build upon and reinforce the basic legal writing skills introduced in the first-year Legal Methods course and introduce students to some new skills and different forms of legal writing than those they encountered in their first year. There will be three major assignments in the course, a short predictive memorandum, an appellate brief, and a judicial opinion. Students will follow one case throughout the course and all of the writing assignments will be based on various aspects of the case. The judicial opinion writing assignment will expose students to a new form of legal writing and give students who hope to take advantage of a clerkship opportunity some experience in writing well-supported and clearly written judicial opinions.
Advanced Trial Advocacy
Students concentrate on trial advocacy skills from jury selection through summation. Mock case materials are provided by faculty. Emphasis is on jury dynamics including use of impeachment techniques, objections, exhibits, expert and technical evidence and methods to enhance communication skills.
Alternative Dispute Resolution
This course covers alternative dispute resolution mechanisms through class exercises and study of interdisciplinary literature. The course introduces students to the skills and techniques used in arbitration, mediation, and other methods of non-bargaining dispute settlement.
Interviewing & Client Counseling
This skills course develops the craft of the lawyer in client interviewing and counseling. This course provides a theoretical framework for and experience with simulated interviewing and counseling in the legal setting. Verbal and non-verbal skills are introduced and honed through lecture, demonstrations, discussion, role playing, simulations, practical exercises and critiques.
Legal Drafting
This course introduces students to forms of practical legal writing not covered in Legal Methods I and II. The fundamentals of legal drafting are addressed, with an emphasis on the principles of good writing and editing. Assignments reflect the types of legal writing an attorney encounters in daily office practice - documents for litigation, as well as those designed to avoid litigation. Typical projects include correspondence, simple contracts, pleadings, discovery documents, motion papers, jury instructions, orders, and settlement papers. Students may be asked to write from the perspective of a judge or legislator, as well as a practitioner.
Negotiation
This course explores both the theoretical and practical aspects of negotiation and focuses on the techniques, strategies, tactics, ethical restraints and responsibilities of the lawyer. The course is designed to give students experience by engaging in negotiation exercises, and in reviewing and critiquing simulations. Students will participate as negotiators, third parties, and observers. A short paper is required in addition to the exercises.
Real Estate Transactions
This course is designed to introduce students to the complexities of land development and redevelopment, the financing of these transactions, and the tax planning required. It will also more lightly note the environmental and land use issues in these areas. Various documents will be prepared by the students during the course. Several classes will focus on negotiation and mediation strategies as issues arise among the various parties to these transactions.
Seminar: Advanced Legal Research
A survey of legal and law-related research resources not covered in the first year Legal Methods classes, including federal legislative history, administrative law research, looseleaf services, treaties, and law-related databases on Nexis and Westnews. There will be an emphasis on patterns of legal publication, on research strategy and process, and on the integration on manual and computerized sources. Students will complete exercises in class in a workshop format; there will also be advanced training classes in computer-assisted legal research. Each student will write a research guide intended to lead a researcher through available primary and secondary sources of law sources for a chosen legal specialty.
Trial Advocacy
The trial advocacy course employs a learning-by-doing approach. Thus, most of the course will involve the practice of trial skills including direct and cross examination, opening statements, closing arguments, and jury selection, in a simulated courtroom environment. During the last two weeks of the course, each student will participate as co-counsel in a full-length simulated civil or criminal trial with a sitting Rhode Island judge or professor presiding.
