Trial Law is a law school course that teaches students how to conduct a trial, including trial preparation, selecting a jury, presenting evidence, questioning witnesses, and closing arguments. Students learn the importance of organization, jury selection, opening statements, evidence presentation, objections, and closing arguments. Mock trials are used to help students learn, and real lawyers and judges offer critiques.
Trial Law or Trial Practice is a course in law school. Teach students the fundamentals of conducting a test. Course work usually includes trial preparation, selecting a jury, developing an opening statement, presenting evidence, raising objections, questioning witnesses, and closing arguments. Trial defense usually culminates in mock trials during which each student serves as an advocate in a trial. Real lawyers and judges usually watch the mock trial and offer critiques to help students learn.
Law professors who teach trial defense help students learn the basics of trial preparation, such as developing and organizing a evidence book. Students must carefully design a test notebook to include all materials needed for the test. Students learn that organization is key, enabling an attorney to quickly find the necessary documents during an actual trial. Professors require students that jurors observe every action of a lawyer. A lawyer trying to find a document seems incompetent and unprofessional, which will cause jury members to have a negative perception of the lawyer.
Students who take a trial advocacy class learn the importance of selecting a jury. The first step is to decide whether to request a jury trial. Whether a jury is appropriate for the case, students learn voir dire, which is the process of questioning a jury pool to try to learn about a potential juror’s background and potential bias. Students must learn to ask questions, interact with potential jurors, and control their behavior. With the information gathered during the voir dire, students must decide whether a potential juror is likely to identify with their client or influence other people on the jury, and whether a challenge should be exercised to remove a person from jury service .
Developing an opening statement is another important aspect of trial advocacy. Students learn that an opening statement should establish a theme for the case, explain what the attorney will prove, and avoid legal jargon. The opening statement must personalize the score to the judging panel. Students learn to present themselves with confidence and authority during the opening statement.
A trial advocacy program teaches students how to present evidence through their witnesses via documents, exhibits, and other types of physical evidence. Students must learn the art of questioning witnesses by asking leading questions during cross-examination and open-ended questions during direct examination. Students practice raising objections — such as hearsay, compound, argument, prompting, or speculative requests — when an opposing party is questioning witnesses. Students also learn strategies and tactics such as deciding not to raise an objection to avoid drawing attention to a key point. Law students will quickly realize in trial defense that perception is as vital as evidence to winning a trial.
The closing argument is the final part of a process. Students in the advocacy process learn the importance of effective closure. They learn to discuss evidence and the law. They try to paint a picture of why the jury should render a verdict in favor of their client. The trial defense teaches students to use analogies, anecdotes, humor, and rhetorical questions in a closing argument.
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