Carlson and Imwinkelried's Dynamics of Trial Practice; problems and materials

This text discusses the forensic techniques of witness examination and jury speech. However, this text attempts to teach the student far more than forensic technique. Throughout this text, the authors have emphasized the need for strategic evaluation of the case - rational, systematic planning. That planning demands the type of precise fact analysis and predictive judgement which Karl Llewellyn describes as the reason d'etre of the law school curriculum. For an instructions conference in law reform litigation, the trial attorney must draft a jury instruction on his or her legal theory. To do so, the attorney must be able to identify the facts triggering the social policies which will motivate the trial and appellate courts to reform the law - an analytic skill learned in the most Socratic law school courses. In making such decisions such as the choice of a theory of the cases and the exercise of strikes during jury selection during jury selection, the litigator makes difficult predictive judgements. Llewellyn himself wrote that one of the most important lessons for law students to learn is that the so-called rules of law are essentially predictions of legal behavior.