Notes from the National College

Almost Like the Old Days
NCDA’s Successful Trial Strategies Course

By Jim Dedman, Director of Academics

Before the days of the National Advocacy Center in Columbia, SC, when NCDA was in Houston, the college offered courses across the country on trial advocacy topics. The faculty for these courses came from the ranks of the front line trial prosecutors who shared their knowledge and experience in the areas of trial practice or recurring situations confronting the trial prosecutor. With the advent of the National Advocacy Center, the National College redirected its approach to trial advocacy toward more workshops and hands-on training and reduced the number of trial advocacy presentations at national courses. At the NAC, the college currently produces 14 Trial Advocacy I and four Trial Advocacy II courses for NDAA each year. To provide as much hands-on application time as possible, the number of presentations by veteran faculty at these courses is held to a minimum.

The college recognized that there is still a benefit for prosecutors to hear tips and suggestions from those senior trial lawyers, particularly on the troublesome matters that confront prosecutors who may be past the eligibility requirements of the Trial Advocacy I and II courses at the NAC. The college now presents Successful Trial Strategies, which is aimed at specific advocacy situations rather than general treatments of the areas such as direct examination, closing argument, jury selection, etc. Using such topics as “Meeting the Botched Investigation Defense”; “Making the Crux Argument”; “When the Allies Are the Enemy” (prosecuting police officer defendants), Successful Trial Strategies provides trial advocacy assistance beyond the survey advocacy topics. The course also includes an ethics and professionalism component. The course often includes faculty who are authors of articles in the college’s new Successful Trial Strategies book.

Watch for the next offering of this course and join with veteran prosecutor faculty as they discuss effective and efficient trial practice.