My school recently held it's Client Counseling Competition and I have to say that it was fun competing in it. As the competition neared, my partner and I seriously wanted to withdraw as we had our last memo due. But we stayed in and had a great experience.
The thing about partner counseling is that it's harder than you would think it to be. You have to make sure that each of you is sharing the floor AND making the client as comfortable as possible. It's also difficult asking questions because you don't know what questions your partner wants to ask and you also don't want to interrupt your client. We didn't advance to the next round and were happy about that. It was a really good experience and I would encourage all law students to at least give it a try. Our judges and clients were local attorneys and judges so if anything you may have at least some time to network.
Labels: Lawyering
2 Comments:
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- gudnuff said...
December 4, 2008 at 9:11 AMDoes it matter that you didn't advance? Does it affect your grades/status/opportunities (since the "clients" and "judges" were actual judges and local attorneys)? I can't figure out how to weigh the risk versus the learning advantage/opportunity, since I'm just observing from the outside. Does it bode well for you that you even chose to participate? Maybe these kinds of things fall into the category of 90%-of-success-is-just-showing-up...seems somebody blogged about that recently, as a matter of fact. The quote was attributed to Woody Allen, I believe. Anyway...I'm sure the networking opps are worth it, and I'm sure you gained a lot of value from having experienced it. I surmise that it's those kinds of experiences that give one a lawyerly air of confidence when it's all over and done with.- gudnuff said...
December 5, 2008 at 6:18 AMThanks for posting about this. I bet the experience was helpful. Did you get any helpful feedback from the local attorneys and judges who acted as judges?
