Course previously numbered 403.
This six unit class is open to a maximum of twelve students. The class meets twice a week and has a placement component at a community-based legal service organization. The course is graded. Students who have taken Law 403A will not be allowed to take this course due to overlap in course content.
The course explores basic interviewing, counseling, and negotiation concepts in the litigation context. In the classroom, students explore these concepts through role-plays and through analysis of readings that attempt to offer models of what lawyers do or should do. Students will also learn about interviewing, counseling, and negotiation by in-depth class critique of videotaped demonstrations of lawyers performing various legal skills and tasks. And, finally, students will also do several lengthy simulated exercises out of class. These simulations will be critiqued by the instructor.
The field experience consists of working 8 hours each week at a legal service organization. Students can work at any legal services offices in the Los Angeles area that does direct client service work and whose lawyers are willing to provide an appropriate level of supervision. During the field work component, students will interview and counsel clients about a variety of legal problems, including landlord tenant disputes, debt collection matters, general consumer problems, some criminal law issues, and family law matters, depending on the focus of the legal service office. There will be an application for this clinic.