Pre-Trial Litigation

This primarily experiential seminar examines the legal, ethical and strategic issues an attorney faces during different stages of a lawsuit from client engagement, initial pleadings, discovery, to pretrial motion practice and pretrial conferences. The seminar will focus on developing legal strategy, fact gathering through strategic use of discovery devices such as interrogatories, depositions, requests for admissions, and requests for document production. Students will represent either the plaintiff or the defendant in a simulated breach of contract case. As part of their class assignments, students will draft initial pleadings and discovery requests representing either party in the simulated case. Students will also be required to take a deposition of a party witness in the simulated case. Students completing the course earn three experiential learning credits and one skills credit.