by Robert Hornstein and Karen Millard
Professors, Florida Coastal School of Law
Do you remember your first deposition? What about your first pretrial motion or jury trial? Every lawyer knows that once you have graduated from law school and successfully passed the bar examination, your education is not over. There is much that a new lawyer must learn to become an effective and competent practicing lawyer. Florida Coastal School of Law’s Shadow Program is designed to give Florida Coastal students a head start on learning the day to day lawyering skills necessary to practice law effectively. You might say that the program rests on the adage that a picture is worth a thousand words. The Shadow Program was launched in the late fall of 2008 in collaboration with Holland & Knight LLP. Holland & Knight’s Buddy Schulz and Larry Hamilton worked with Florida Coastal to develop the program from an idea that first took form over a summer lunch in 2008 to a fully operational program that has grown to involve more than 125 second and third year law students, state and federal judges, private firms, the Public Defender’s office and Jacksonville Area Legal Aid.
The Shadow Program provides second and third year law students the opportunity to bridge classroom doctrinal instruction and courtroom practice skills by shadowing lawyers in a wide array of civil and criminal proceedings. The program also includes shadowing opportunities with participating state and federal judges.
The program is of enormous educational value to FCSL students because it strengthens and supports the efforts of Florida Coastal to infuse doctrinal instruction with skills-based enrichment opportunities and exposes them to critical tenets of professionalism. It permits students to see the practical application of concepts they are learning about in the classroom, and it gives them the unique opportunity to learn how lawyers talk to judges, how lawyers talk to clients, how lawyers talk to one another, and how to conduct themselves in a number of varied practice settings. The program permits students to learn, through observation, the day to day mechanics of lawyering. It provides students with an opportunity to observe an attorney argue a motion, take a deposition, conduct a mediation, examine a witness, introduce an exhibit, qualify an expert, conduct voir dire, conduct a closing, or direct a settlement conference.
These opportunities add invaluably to the future development of students’ understanding of the day-to-day activities they will be carrying out as practicing lawyers. Another benefit of the program is the opportunity to inculcate the tenets of professionalism, from matters of dress and courtroom decorum to more substantive aspects of professionalism that include communicating with other lawyers, clients, and judges.
In this connection, the Shadow Program is not a mentoring program nor is it an internship program. Nor is it an opportunity for students to seek employment with participating firms. Instead, it offers Florida Coastal students the opportunity to observe how the law is practiced in the courtroom. Participating firms need not provide Shadow students with any materials, and Florida Coastal students have no contact with the either the particular attorney or judge either before the event or after it has concluded, unless the participating judge or lawyer wishes to meet with the student for a few minutes before or after the proceeding. The student’s attendance at any particular Shadow Event is the beginning and end of the participating firm or judge’s involvement with that student. Shadow students can sign up for one event a semester or multiple events. And firms and judges can post as many or as few events as they wish during the course of the year.
Participating firms and judges have access to a program online at FCSL’s Shadow website on which they can post events they want to allow students to attend. The posting process literally takes no more than a couple minutes. Participating firms and judges specify in each posting the number of students they want to attend, the location, the time of the event, the type of event, and its expected duration. The event might be a 10 minute motion, an evidentiary hearing, a deposition, mediation, jury trial, or a post-judgment proceeding. For instance, a firm posting a deposition can limit the number of students who can attend to one or two students. Lawyers who have posted motions that were argued in chambers have opened them to as many as six students and to as few as three students. Some lawyers arguing motions in open court have allowed as many as 20 students to attend. Firms posting mediations have allowed two students to attend. A posted event can include special instructions, such as directions to arrive at a certain time before the hearing or to meet at the firm’s offices before the hearing. Some lawyers have had the students meet them at their offices prior to the proceeding to discuss the motion beforehand while others have directed the students to meet them outside of the courtroom or chambers.
Once posted on the Shadow Web site, Florida Coastal students can register. Each time a student registers for an event, the firm or judge posting the event is automatically notified by email that a student has registered to attend the event. The notification also provides the student’s name. If an event cancels or settles, that information is posted on the website by the firm or participating judge. If a student cancels his registration to attend an event, the firm or judge is automatically notified by an electronically generated notification. Shadow students are required to monitor the website on a daily basis for any event they have registered to attend to see if the matter has been cancelled due to settlement or rescheduling.
Participating firms and judges are contributing to the development of the next generation of lawyers. It offers the opportunity to introduce soon-to-be lawyers into the culture and community of good lawyering and the importance of civility, ethics, and professionalism in every endeavor a lawyer undertakes. If you or your firm or organization are interested in participating in the program, or if you are a member of the judiciary and would like to participate in the program, please contact Robert Hornstein at [email protected] or Karen Millard at [email protected] for additional information.