CLCT places great emphasis on service to the Law School and the National Center for State Courts. Law School Support includes teaching courses, support of the Legal Skills Program, financial support of students, and general assistance to the staff and faculty of both the Law School and College.
Our staff teaches an increasing number of law school courses. At present they consist of: Privacy in a Technological Age, the Legal Technology Seminar, Technology Augmented Trial Advocacy, Digital Discovery and Evidence, and Technology Augmented Law Office Management: Fall, 2006, may see our first courses in Effective Terrorism Prosecutions. The classes supported by the Courtroom 21 Project for law school students are numerous and varied. They include:
Digital Discovery and Evidence:
Is an advanced course for second- and third-year students interested in the legal and practical issues surrounding the discovery, production, and use at trial of computer-created and stored information, including the procedure to produce, cost allocation, inadvertent privilege waiver, document repositories, computer forensics, preservation of date, e-mail discovery, forensic experts, technology witnesses, evidentiary challenges, and spoliation. The course addresses one of the most rapidly evolving procedural and evidentiary areas in contemporary litigation.
Privacy in a Technological Age:
Reviews the laws and policies that have emerged in response to the ways modern information is gathered, used, shared, and disseminated. Particular emphasis is given to the historical roots of privacy law in the United States and elsewhere; the balance between the individual’s right to protect and control personal information and the corresponding duty placed on public and private entities possessing such information; and the shifting balance of these rights and duties in rapidly changing technological contexts .
Technology Augmented Trial Advocacy:
Is an advanced litigation designed to develop the student’s skills as a technology-enhanced trial lawyer for both civil and criminal cases. Students receive instruction in both traditional methods of trial practice as well as cutting edge technology-enhanced trial work. At the conclusion of the course, students demonstrate skills through a mock high-technology trial customarily presided over by a sitting trial judge.
The Legal Technology Seminar:
Is an exploration of the possible implications of legal technology to the legal system addressing the impact of legal technology on lawyers, law firms, courts, and government agencies.
Technology-Augmented Law Office Management
Is an examination of the practical aspects of organizing and overseeing the activities of a law firm in a technological age. The topics include hiring and supervision of legal and support staff, physical arrangements, office equipment and software, docketing and record keeping systems, fee-setting and collection, financial management of the firm, compliance with trust accounting rules, and client development and marketing.
CLCT also provides broad based support to the Legal Skills Program, supplying both faculty and technology assistance. All first-year law students use electronic filing in their second semester to file complaints and answers as part of Legal Skills simulated representation. E-filing is currently done via our relationship with the United States District Court for the District of Maryland in Baltimore, a Courtroom 21 Court Affiliate. All second-year students are taught the use of basic evidence presentation technology in the McGlothlin Courtroom by our staff, and all students must use that technology at Trial. All students who appeal from their Legal Skills trials do so from a court record prepared by or supervised by Diane M. Gray, CLCT Court Record Manager, using the multiple technological court record means possessed by our Center. CLCT staff also assist the Law School’s Trial Advocacy courses with evidence presentation technology assistance.
Our staff is also available to assist with non-courtroom instructional technology and maintain and operate the McGlothlin Courtroom’s systems for academic use. The Courtroom is available for general William & Mary use. The Business School has, for example, scheduled remote lectures for the Courtroom, and in the past Applied Sciences and Sociology have used the Courtroom’s videoconferencing capabilities.
Thanks to the generosity of Richard Herrmann, CLCT supplies to the Law School the foyer plasma screen that displays the school calendar and Mr. Herrmann’s digital art. The screen does so using a program written by a member of our student staff.
We also strive to support the National Center for State Courts. We do so traditionally in large part through its well-received instruction at the biannual Court Technology Conferences (where the Center deploys a large portable courtroom, complete with technology). In 2005, our Information Technology staff created a website on an emergency basis to assist the National Center and the Courtroom 21 Project to coordinate donation of equipment and services to assist recovery of the courts in the Hurricane Katrina disaster area.