A recent blog post by Paula Schaefer, Associate Professor, University of Tennessee College of Law on the Best Practices for Legal Education blog reviews an interesting idea - using law students to develop learning materials.
"As I planned to teach pre-trial litigation for the first time in 2009, I wanted my case to include electronic-discovery (e-discovery). My research quickly revealed that the pre-packaged pre-trial litigation cases involved car accidents and simple contract disputes. No ESI (electronically stored information) was included, so it would be impossible to conduct e-discovery in these cases. Undeterred, I mused that I could make my own course materials from the contents of my overflowing email inbox.
From that idea, I developed a plan for a two-semester simulation. I offered a group of law students course credit (as an independent study) to email one another, following a loose script, to create a business dispute among their assigned characters. Their dispute would become the lawsuit in my pre-trial litigation class the following semester. In that course, the independent study students would play the clients and the witnesses, and the pre-trial litigation students would be their lawyers.
The result was not just ESI, but also a realistic case that benefited both groups of students. The article about my experience is tentatively titled Legal Dispute Simulation Meets Pre-Trial Litigation Simulation: An Integrated Approach to Teaching E-Discovery Doctrine, Practice Skills, and Professionalism, available at http://ssrn.com/abstract=1676976."
Paula 'justifies' the students doing all the work as they will develop practical and professional skills whilst drafting the materials, and they also will learn about the substantive legal issues relating to e-discovery. Paula also addressed whether this approach can work for other topics:
"Though I developed my simulation with e-discovery in mind, it could work in many doctrinal and skills classes. The simulation creates a complex business dispute with numerous claims, making it the perfect go-to example in a business torts class. The evidentiary issues generated could be the subject of an evidence class. The simulation characters could also make an appearance in skills classes like negotiation, contract drafting, trial practice, and transactional lawyering (like the University of Tennessee’s capstone Representing Enterprises). I have plans to invite another professor’s mediation students to my pre-trial litigation class next semester to see if they can mediate a resolution to the case prior to trial.
My loose script for simulation characters (a link is provided in my article on SSRN) could be used by law students anywhere to create a new legal dispute. Or a professor could easily create a new script involving issues he or she is interested in exploring in a doctrinal or skills class. From my experience, I believe such simulations are worth the effort. These simulations can transform an ordinary class into something more realistic. And with that realism comes an opportunity for law students to make the transition to lawyers."
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