Stetson University College of Law hosts an annual Educating Advocates/Teaching Skills Conference in Gulfport, Florida . Since its inception, the conference has grown from a few participants and faculty members to maximum capacity. Participants include trial and appellate advocacy teachers from a variety of backgrounds: practitioners, judges, full-time and part-time law school faculty members from the United States, Colombia, and Mexico. The faculty includes distinguished advocacy teachers--practitioners, judges, professors, and non-lawyers--from the United States, Scotland and Australia.
The conference has grown quickly in scope and importance because it fulfills a real need. In the recent past, advocacy teachers have lacked a forum in which to meet, learn their craft, and generate ideas to improve the quality of their teaching--and, by extension, the quality of advocacy in their nations' courtrooms. Somewhat surprisingly in the age of the internet, trial advocacy teachers have not created listservs, blogs, or other on-line communities.
Interestingly, about the same time as the Stetson conference was discussing the need for an on-line advocacy teaching resource, many of our colleagues who teach for the National Institute for Trial Advocacy had the same discussion via e-mail.
The time is ripe for creating an on-line community for advocacy teachers.
We hope this blog will begin to fill the need we all have to connect with each other, learn from each other, and improve our teaching.
Please participate in our blog. We intend to post commentary, teaching tips, and other resource materials from guest bloggers.
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