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Taking Advantage Of Online Legal Resources During The Pandemic

Taking Advantage Of Online Resources During The Pandemic

There are a variety of online legal resources available to lawyers, law students, and legal scholars. As the pandemic, and the resulting quarantine, increase the opportunities for stay-at-home legal studies, now is an opportune time to take advantage of these mostly free resources. Many valuable free online legal resources are available on common, well-known legal websites. The American Bar Association along with state and local bar associations offer a vast amount of useful content. These resources include free educational webinars, ebooks, topical articles, and legal guides that are accessible at no cost to the user. Legal Research Tools While Lexis and Westlaw are...

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When A Lawyer Is Representing A Corporation, Who Exactly Is The Client?

When A Lawyer Is Representing A Corporation, Who Exactly Is The Client?

A recurring question for lawyers who represent corporations and other entities is who exactly is the attorney representing? What is the scope of the attorney’s clientele in this situation? Does the attorney also represent others? Does the attorney represent shareholders? Affiliate and subsidiary corporations? Officers? Directors? In California, Rule of Professional Conduct 1.13 “Organization as Client” answers this question. A lawyer employed or retained by an organization represents the organization through its duly authorized constituents. A lawyer must conform his or her representation to the concept that the client is the organization itself, acting through its duly authorized directors, officers, employees, members,...

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Memorization Techniques For Applied Knowledge

Memorization Techniques For Applied Knowledge

The California Desert Trial Academy is a progressive law school where students focus on those skills necessary to become not just a lawyer, but an attorney-advocate. Learning the skills to be an advocate gives students an expedient path to a successful and rewarding legal career. With certain memorization techniques in your toolbox, there are ways to use this knowledge to build connections between concepts and push your understanding of the material to a new level. Here are two memorization techniques for applied knowledge: *Explain what you’re trying to learn to someone else An excellent way to test your understanding of a concept in...

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Simple, Useful Memorization Techniques For Use In Law School

Simple, Useful Memorization Techniques For Use In Law School

Of course, answering an essay question on a law school midterm or a bar exam requires applied knowledge more than rote memorization. Law students must use critical thinking and connect or apply the information they have learned to a set of facts, recognize issues, and solve problems. But before tackling the rigors of a law exam essay question, students must genuinely know the information. Here are some tips for effectively memorizing information: Record notes for later listening When I was in law school, I sat next to a former legal secretary who knew shorthand. She would take all her class notes in shorthand,...

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The Typical Life Cycle Of A Client File

The Typical Life Cycle Of A Client File

While most of us live in a computerized, digital world, the legal industry revolves primarily around information, notes, and documentation. Attorneys obtain information, then classify and organize it. A client file is how attorneys organize the information related to a client. For every client that retains an attorney or law firm, there is a file. There may even be multiple files within files that contain documentation relevant to each matter concerning the client. The longer the client has been represented by the attorney or firm, the larger the file. Law firms must typically devote a large portion of their office space...

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There are Many Paths To A Meaningful Legal Career – Human Resources and Employment

There are Many Paths To A Meaningful Legal Career – Human Resources and Employment

Law students must always remember that the unique and vast knowledge that they have gained in law school provides them many options and paths for rewarding and meaningful careers practicing law, as well as working in other traditionally non-legal areas and disciplines. The consideration of pursuing a career outside the traditional practice of law is a notion that most law students and graduates undertake at some point. However, it is not always simple to ascertain clearly how they may use their law degree in areas other than law. Those who are willing to think “outside the box” and expend the necessary time...

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Ten Tips For Voir Dire

Ten Tips For Voir Dire

Generally. voir dire involves the preliminary examination of a juror by counsel. Frankly, voir dire is the mechanism through which attorneys select, or perhaps more appropriately reject, certain jurors to sit and hear a case. It is also a phrase used for a variety of procedures related to jury trials. Here are ten tips for effective voir dire. Adopt the proper orientation. Questioning during voir dire should be “conversational” rather than like an interview. Tell jurors why they are there. Explain the process to jurors requesting, if not cordially demanding, their honesty and candor, while helping them acknowledge their biases. Get jurors...

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There are Many Paths To A Meaningful Legal Career – Criminal Justice, Investigation, Law Enforcement

There are Many Paths To A Meaningful Legal Career – Criminal Justice, Investigation, Law Enforcement

Whether during school or after graduation, at some time, law students consider pursuing a career outside the traditional practice of law. The most formidable obstacle is determining precisely how to use a law degree in non-traditional legal settings. While the typical career paths are narrow and well-defined, alternative paths are extremely broad and have many branches, none of which are particularly obvious or categorical. Non-traditional law jobs are not usually found “prefabricated” but are custom-fit to an applicant’s interests, passions, and skills, which requires deliberate and exact self-assessment, as well as painstaking job market research. For those who have considered using their law...

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The Effect Of The COVID-19 Pandemic On Summer Internships

The Effect Of The COVID-19 Pandemic On Summer Internships

Presently, in the spring of 2020, many law students are experiencing unprecedented obstacles and challenges as they attempt to complete their legal educations. As the COVID-19 pandemic continues, law students nationwide are dealing with canceled bar exams, postponed internships, and changing extracurricular programs. While most law schools are increasing the amount of online support, the CDTA, through its Student Portal, already has in place a comprehensive supplement to its unique educational platform. This offers CDTA students the ability to already take full advantage of the benefits provided by distance learning. Employers across the United States have reduced their internship programs as the...

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Tools Of Trial Advocacy – Direct Examination

Tools Of Trial Advocacy – Direct Examination

The ability to effectively question witnesses and elicit information is a necessary and crucial skill for an attorney advocate to develop and master. Any attorney who plans on a legal career that involves litigation must address this valuable skill and tool of trial advocacy. According to one judge, direct examination of a witness is one of the rare times that an attorney has a substantial measure of control over how the story of a witness, including client, gets told to the jury in the most compelling manner, logically presented and uninterrupted. The direct examination of witnesses is the most important component...

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