Pretrial Litigation Skills: Civil Rights

This course is a simulation of the pretrial litigation of a federal civil rights/civil liberties casefile, although the skills taught in this course are mostly relevant to federal civil litigation generally. The course takes you from the first meeting with the clients, developing a narrative and theory of the case based on client goals and preliminary research, drafting the complaint and answer, motions strategy, crafting a discovery plan and drafting discovery, and culminating in a summary judgment brief and argument. Classroom time includes some lectures combined with discussion and workshopping the casefile, interspersed with simulations of client interviews, discovery conferences, depositions, and motions hearings. Drafting assignments (both graded and ungraded) are interspersed throughout to provide hands-on experience and feedback. The course uses a closed casefile, including the civil rights cases that are necessary to developing a theory of the case and drafting claims, and a limited amount of class time in the beginning of the course will help students synthesize that information. The emphasis in this course is on building civil litigation skills, however, and not on teaching a broad understanding of civil rights law, so students should find it both accessible and reasonably challenging regardless of their level of prior knowledge about civil rights law.