Hone Your Trial Skills by Watching The Masters

AYLA President's Column

AYLA Trial Institute to Be Held on June 30

The best way to learn is of course by doing. Nothing teaches about heat quite like the center of a frying pan. However, jumping into a frying pan without first having seen how others handle the heat is a good way to end up learning your lessons the hard way. Scheduled for June 30, the AYLA Trial Institute will offer a rare opportunity for lawyers to spend a day live and in person watching some of Texas’s best trial lawyers put on opening statements, direct, cross, and closings, all from the famous Ethel and Julius Rosenberg espionage trial.

Zoom notwithstanding, modern attorneys have had far fewer opportunities to learn by watching other attorneys try cases. It is not uncommon for a young attorney to show up to a courtroom and give an opening statement having never even seen an opening statement delivered in a real trial.

Ever-rising overhead and the inflation of civil discovery has incentivized partners toward pushing for associates to bill in the office rather than shadow in the courtroom. Often clients won’t pay for a second counsel. Government agencies so often fail to grow their legal departments as quickly as the populations they handle. Many stories of yesteryear—whether it be billing in quarter-hour increments or being told to spend a full week watching a fellow attorney from the pews—sound almost mythical to most young attorneys in the present day.

AYLA cannot fix those systemic realities, but this year’s inaugural AYLA Trial Institute does provide an opportunity to similarly learn by watching talented trial lawyers do what they do at trial—while providing a full day of CLE credit to boot.

Scheduled for June 30, the AYLA Trial Institute will offer a rare opportunity for lawyers to spend a day live and in person watching some of Texas’s best trial lawyers put on opening statements, direct, cross, and closings.

To be clear, this is no remedial class. AYLA has teamed up with the American College of Trial Lawyers (ACTL), state & federal judges, and the Austin Bar’s Civil Litigation section to put on this year’s Trial Institute program. Each demonstration will be delivered by an ACTL member, which means each speaker will be eminently talented and widely respected for their courtroom craft. Each demonstration will be followed by a panel of equally talented attorneys and judges discussing the demonstration and respective trial skill at issue.

The trial demonstrations will all be based on the famous prosecution of the Rosenbergs, an American couple who handed over nuclear secrets to the Soviet Union. The end result will be a cohesive day of trial demonstrations and learning, allowing the attendees to rapturously follow along and even observe how the different trial skills play off one another.

The AYLA Trial Institute will be open to attorneys of all ages. The one and only requirement will be that all attendees must be AYLA members—which, through the Sustaining Membership category, is something that is likewise open to attorneys of all ages and experience levels. Join AYLA today, mark your calendars for June 30, and join us for a day of watching the masters at work. AL