Course Section | Columbia Law School

Section Description Provided by Instructor

Most commercial lawsuits never get tried, either because they are settled beforehand or because one side wins a pretrial motion that decides the case. Thus, litigators must master the techniques of pretrial advocacy. This course builds those skills, so as to provide students with a good grounding before they enter practice, particularly at large firms. The class will be split into a plaintiff's team and a defendant's team, and the teams will litigate a commercial case from the filing of a complaint through summary judgment. Students will draft pleadings, discovery requests and motions, seek and oppose injunctive relief, make oral arguments and take and defend depositions. The simulation will be supplemented by short readings. The case will involve a recurring, real-world situation: the raiding by one firm of the key employees of a competitor. Students will learn aspects of substantive employment and commercial tort law as well as comparative federal and New York procedural law. The course will be graded based on completion of several short drafting assignments as well as class participation.