Client Interviewing - Costume, Setting and Posture

I wanted to share some more about the team-teaching that I am engaged in this semester with Harriet Power, a professor from Villanova’s Theater Department.

Today we spoke with our students about client interviewing.  Before today’s class, we have done a lot of teaching about interviewing.  During our clinic orientation, each student: (1) participated in 3 hours of classtime devoted to interviewing (both interviewing techniques and working with an interpreter); (2) conducted, with his or her partner, two 20-minute mock interviews with actors standing in as clients; (3) received written and approx. 30 minutes of oral feedback on their performance during the mock interviews; and (4) reviewed their new client’s case files. 

Within the next few days, each team of students will meet with their clients for the first time.  So, our goal’s for today’s 55-minute class were to get the students to: (1) think about the goals they and their clients would set for the first encounter; (2) identify any barriers or inhibitors that might impact achieving the goals; and (3) discuss the logistics of the interview, including what to wear, how to set up the room, and how to sit in the chair and take notes.

I have taught this class, or a class like it, about 30 times over the course of my teaching career.  Yet co-teaching today’s class with Harriet brought a new perspective to the attorney-client interaction.  She got us thinking about setting, costume and posture in a deeper way than I had in the past.  For example, from her acting and directing perspective, Harriet examined what students would wear -- their costume -- at a much deeper level.  I usually think about clothing, whether students should wear a suit, a tie, a skirt.  Harriet asked about the entire costume, from head to toe.  What would the students do with long hair? (she noted that having to pull one’s hair from the face is always a distraction, told the students to plan to secure it off their faces).  What kind of shoes would the women wear?  Would they wear jewelry?  Whether to wear a long or short sleeved shirt (she prefers long sleeved). 

We also talked for about 10 minutes about setting.  We asked a team of students to get out of their chairs and configure the seats in the room for a client interview.  Then we sat in the seats (I was the client; Harriet was the interpreter; the students were themselves).  We talked about how the arrangement felt and about we wanted to ensure that the client’s head would not need to jockey between looking from one student to the other.  Then we shuffled the chairs around a little so that the width of a table between the client and the students was a little shorter; it felt more comfortable.  The table did not feel as much as a barrier as it had when the longer part separated us.

We ended class with a short (7 minute) exercise about body language and posture.  We asked each student to sit in his or her chair as he or she would in an interview.  Then Harriet noted that by sitting toward the front of the chair with our arms resting on the table, our bodies appear more open, attentive and inviting.  She then demonstrated a few other seated positions that did not communicate the feeling of openness or attentiveness – such as sitting too far back in a chair, having one’s hands on the lap instead of the table, holding one’s head up.  We could also have students practice this in front of a mirror so that they begin to become attentive to what their bodies unconsciously say about their intentions.

Flipping the Law School Classroom

I flipped my class yesterday.  And I think it worked!

The class was on persuasive lawyering.  Over the summer I made a video about persuasive lawyering.  It talks about persuasion in relation to classic rhetoric, and the elements of logos, pathos and ethos.  The video is available on LegalED here.

Here is what I did during the 55-minute class segment that I allocate in my syllabus for introducing the topic:

I assigned the video for students to watch as homework.  It is less than 5 minutes long.  Then, when we got to class, instead of starting the discussion of persuasion with a short lecture on the topic, I started with an exercise.  The students were asked to work with a partner to persuade my co-teacher (I am very fortunate to be co-teaching with Harriet Power from our university’s theater department this semester) and I that we should serve wine and cheese during each class.  The student teams had two minutes to come up with their arguments.  Then, each student team had one minute to stand up and persuade us, with each partner contributing equally to the argument.  Most argued about the health benefits of wine, others about how drinking wine would make the students more relaxed and open, which would facilitate better in class discussions, and others pointed out how the professors could benefit from the wine as well, at the end of a long, busy day.  The theme of culture was raised as well; some arguments tied the wine and cheese to our abilities to learn about different cultures through their food and drink.

My co-teacher and I then facilitated a discussion of the arguments in relation to the theory of persuasion.  We used the students’ arguments as jumping off points – we broke them apart to identify what worked and why, relating everything back to the theory the students had learned from the video and the tactics of persuasion – logos, pathos and ethos.  For example, the argument drew on logos when it referred to the research on the health benefits of drinking red wine.  The part of the argument that was more personal about us as professors and how we could also enjoy the wine, was about pathos, appealing to the audience’s emotions. 

I have taught a class on persuasive lawyering about ten times before and this one seemed different; it was better.  Instead of my talking at the students about the foundations of persuasive argument, by flipping the classroom my students could learn the foundational information before coming to class.  That opened up the class for an activity in which the students could actually try it out. 

Another added benefit was that we could provide feedback on the students’ presentation skills as well.  We told them whether their tone was appropriate and authoritative.  By getting the students out of their chairs, we could provide feedback to the students on their posture and stance and how body language can enhance or detracted from the persuasiveness of an argument. 

I hope to make shorter videos on each of the three elements – ethos, pathos and logos – in which I flesh each out in more detail in the coming weeks.

If you have any questions, ask them in the comments section below.  I’d be happy to share more about the experience.  I also welcome comments on the video. 

Flipped Learning and Legal Education

Flipping learning refers to a growing educational practice (increasingly being adopted in higher education) of using videos to teach doctrinal subjects -- which students watch outside of the classroom -- and then using face-to-face classtime for active, problem-based learning that reinforces what students have learned through online video instruction.  

I think flipped learning could be applied in legal education too.  If students watch doctrinal videos as homework, then classtime can be devoted to activities that reinforce the learning and provide more feedback and assessment.

This website will assemble a growing collection of short videos (each 15 minutes or less) on law and law-related topics (substantive, procedural, practical skills and professional values) so that we can begin to “flip” the law school classroom and devote more face-to-face class time for active, problem-based learning.  A series of videos on contracts is already up and being used by students around the country.  The videos on substantive law could be assigned to students for viewing outside the classroom, thereby freeing up class time for activities that bring in more training on the other competencies proven necessary for successful lawyering, practical lawyering skills and professional values.  This is a blended model of teaching, where we leverage the web for passive learning (listening to lectures) and open up class time for more activities that call on students to use their knowledge in active ways that reinforce and support learning.

We realize that many professors are not trained to teach in this new way.  Our website is designed to support them as they make this transition.  The website also hosts a collection of tools directed at professors interested in bringing teaching innovations into their classrooms.  We are assembling a series of teaching materials (videos, assessment tools, problems and in-class exercises) created, contributed to and curated by world-class teachers in their fields.  The series on pedagogy will be directed at law professors.  These videos will explain how to incorporate more active learning and teaching of lawyering competencies into doctrinal courses with the hope of inspiring others.

Join our growing community!  If you have materials that you would like to share, please let us know.