Tanenbaum Keale LLP partner Christopher S. Marks will once again serve as a faculty member at the National Trial Academy from March 14-18, which offers a select group of 36 students, approximately 18 each from the plaintiff and defense bars, the opportunity to participate in a 4 ½-day program affectionately called the country’s top “Boot Camp for Lawyers.”
Students will be offered a unique, interactive, diverse program combining today’s latest technology with the country’s top trial lawyers as personal mentors, as students try a case to verdict.
The Academy, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary and is jointly sponsored by the Tort Trial & Insurance Practice Section (TIPS) of the American Bar Association and the American Board of Trial Advocates (ABOTA), is built around two trials: one presented by the faculty mentors and one presented by the academy students. Interspersed are a variety of trial-related lectures on ethics, civility, and presentation skills, which are all designed to help the students take their game to the next level.
The NJC’s location on the University of Nevada campus provides another distinctive advantage: witnesses for the trials. The academy draws upon the university’s student body fill the various fact and expert roles, including current engineering students from the university’s engineering department to fill the roles of the engineering experts. The NJC is where practicing judges from around the world come to be educated in all aspects of trial practice. It provides the perfect setting for the Academy. The NJC has a state-of-the art model courtroom that is similar to many of modern Federal courtrooms throughout the county. And the students get to use that technology to facilitate their trial presentations.