Trial practice is a law school course that teaches students how to conduct a trial. Students are given a fact model and must act out each stage of the trial, including opening and closing statements, direct and cross-examination. The course focuses on applying the rules of evidence and ethical issues. It concludes with a mock trial where students are assessed on strategy, performance, and ethical handling.
Trial practice is a legal education course, usually offered in law schools, designed to teach students the anatomy of a trial. Usually the course will present each student with a fact model that they will use throughout the course. Each student will then have to act out each stage of a process by representing the fictitious client to which they have been assigned. There is little substantive law that is taught in the classroom, but it is usually a prerequisite that all enrollees have taken evidence – a course in which law students learn the rules of admissibility of various types of evidence in a trial – or the its equivalent.
At the beginning of a trial practice course, the instructor usually hands out a fact model to each student detailing the situation that was presented by a dummy client. The trial practice professor will likely go over the various stages of trial that the course will challenge. These typically include the opening statement, direct examination, cross-examination, and closing statement. Each student typically has to create a strategy for their approach to each stage based on their assigned fact model. Over the course of multiple lessons, each stage will be performed by each student and subjected to constructive criticism.
While typically no substantive law is taught in trial practice classes, students will need to apply the rules of evidence when planning and executing during each stage of the trial. For example, a student may need to discern from a list of witnesses which ones are qualified to testify. You will also likely have to follow the proper procedures to admit a document as evidence if the assigned fact pattern requires it.
Also, the trial lesson can introduce and challenge students on ethical issues. For example, a student may be presented with a fact model where the client insists on testifying but is planning to lie on the bench. The student should then determine whether or not he is obligated to put the client on the interrogation table and, if so, how to proceed when the client begins to give false testimony.
Trial lessons usually conclude with a mock test where students conduct all phases of a test in a single session. Generally, the course will be looking for volunteers to act as witnesses and the professor will act as judge. Students will typically be assessed on strategy, performance, and handling any ethical issues that may have arisen.
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