In this course, students litigate a civil case—interviewing the client, investigating the facts, researching the law, drafting the pleadings, engaging in discovery, preparing the trial brief, and negotiating a settlement. I will divide the class into two law firms, so that half of you will represent the Plaintiff and half of you will represent the Defendant. Each of you will be assigned an adversary from the opposing law firm.

There is one required text: THOMAS A. MAUET & DAVID MARCUS, PRETRIAL (9th ed. 2015) (paperback) (Wolters Kluwer) (ISBN 9781454856337). It is a superb treatise on how to handle the pretrial litigation of a civil suit. As we move through the semester, the pages I assign will guide you at every stage of our lawsuit.

What lawsuit will we be litigating? It's a case called Sullivan v. Royal Life Insurance Company, a lawsuit concocted by the PRETRIAL authors, who have created very realistic documents for it—including medical records, a police report, letters, and interoffice memoranda. As in real life, the lawsuit begins with the Plaintiff and the Defendant NOT being in possession of all the same documents. So the authors created two different case files—one for the Plaintiff and one for the Defendant. Once we have determined which party you will represent, I will supply you with the appropriate case file. This will happen at the very start of the semester.

Sullivan is a contract dispute between an insurance company (Defendant) and the insured's widow (Plaintiff). The Plaintiff claims that her husband's death was accidental, entitling her to recover under the double indemnity provisions of the insurance agreement. Defendant claims that the husband's death was a suicide, brought on by the husband's increasing financial and health problems, and argues that the suicide clause in the insurance agreement bars the Plaintiff from recovering any money at all. There are eight witnesses in the case; I will portray all eight of them. Each of you will be given the job of interviewing, deposing, and/or defending the deposition of at least one witness. (These witness interviews and depositions are normally conducted outside of our normal class periods.)

After the first week of the semester is behind us, I will meet with you only once a week. On Tuesdays, only the Plaintiff's lawyers should come to class; on Thursdays, only the Defendant's lawyers should come to class. In these class sessions, I will play the head of your firm's litigation department. We'll talk strategically about what needs to be done next in representing the client. I'll review with you any written assignments you've recently turned in, and we'll talk about how to handle the upcoming assignment. Those assignments are set forth, on a weekly basis, in the syllabus that I have prepared for your law firm. I've created two separate syllabi—one for the Plaintiff's lawyers and one for the Defendant's lawyers.

For our first class session—on Tuesday, January 8, commencing at 2:45 in Room 201—please read PRETRIAL, Part A, Section I (pages 3-18).