October 30, 2011

Yikes. I’m sorry that my posts have been so sparse this semester! I guess I’ve just been a little busy…I know you are all dying to hear about my classes this semester, so I thought I would start with Pretrial Litigation: my first ever LFP.

My pretrial litigation class follows an employment sexual harassment claim from the very beginning, the initial client interview, all the way to a pretrial motion to exclude evidence.

The class is really unlike my other classes. We have some writing assignments, all practical in nature, and model the types of assignments we would get during our first few years at a law firm. So far, we have completed a research memo to our “senior partner” (aka the professor), a Complaint or Answer to Complaint (depending on whether we were representing the plaintiff or defendant), interrogatories and requests to produce, deposition outlines, and Motions to Exclude evidence. In addition to the writing assignments, we have also had practical assignments where the professor brought in practitioners to serve as the parties and the other witnesses. We had the chance to interview them one week, and take their depositions another. During deposition week, we also had two talented attorneys come in to serve as our “coaches” and a court reporter to transcribe the depositions. The course will culminate in a field trip to the federal courthouse to argue our motions in front of a federal judge.

As you can guess, even though many of these assignments are group projects, this LFP requires an awful lot of work. The class moves at a very fast pace, and we seem to always have a project to work on. It makes for a busy third year, but I think I’ll really value the experience after I go out in practice.