Skills Labs: The Students' View

Ella Trujillo

Following the completion of Gonzaga's first Skills Lab, four first-year students shared their insights. Here are selected excerpts from a conversation with Ella Trujillo, Corey Digiacinto, and Thomas Limon. Brett Nelson participated via email.

Reflections on the process

"It wasn’t until I got here, and maybe a few weeks in, before I saw how the other courses would synthesize into the litigation skills lab."

"I think when you have your doctrinal classes, they’re like these wooden concepts. They’re concepts that exist outside reality a little bit. The Litigation Skills Lab is like where Pinocchio becomes a little boy. These wooden concepts come to life and are expressed in ways that are relevant."

Thomas Limon

Thomas Limon

"Traditionally, the focus is on reading and class prep; whereas for us, it was much more taking what we read and synthesizing it into an exercise: “Okay, we’re going to do a deposition today, or we’re going to work it into whatever the class assignment was.” So that made it very different. Lots of smaller assignments versus the big picture of just reading, reading, reading, and that’s it."

"When I listen to my husband talking about what he does as an attorney, he is doing all of these these things; he’s sitting in on depositions, he’s interviewing clients, he’s arguing summary judgment motions. So all these things that we’ve talked about and practiced in the lab, I realize that it’s been preparing me for the real work an attorney does."

Corey Digiacinto

Corey Digiacinto

Ella Trujillo

"The doctrinal classes passed on large quantities of information, but often left us confused on how to apply the principles being taught. The Skills Lab almost took the opposite approach. Fewer principles of law were taught, but the focus was on the application of the information, which allowed us to see how things applied to the 'real' world of law. The most enjoyable aspect of this method was that students had the opportunity to walk in the shoes of a lawyer and participate in simulated oral arguments, client counseling sessions, and settlement negotiations."

"There was a moment during the first semester that I recognized why certain professors taught in a certain way, or what was expected of me as a law student. I definitely found myself being more analytical as the semester wore on and started thinking more critically. The skills lab certainly helped me look at things from a lawyer's perspective and to apply information to different situations within the framework of litigation."

Brett Nelson

About working in firms

In the Skills Lab, students are divided into groups of four, called “firms.”

"Law students are generally fairly OCD, Type A, independent, intelligent and self-reliant. So giving over - surrendering - some responsibility to someone else on something that’s going to reflect on you; that was challenging for me. But I was really happy with the performance of my firm and happy to work with other individuals. I thought that was really an excellent experience."

Thomas Limon

"Typically I am not the type of person that wants to work extensively in groups. Group assignments usually lack focus because everyone is trying to take the project in his or her own direction. However, I felt like the firm concept worked with the Skills Lab because some of the simulations were made possible because of the firms.

"I can honestly say I enjoyed my firm and formed a close bond with each member."

Brett Nelson

"I enjoyed the class because I enjoyed working with my group. I had a great group. I learned not just the skills we were being taught, but also how to work with others in solving problems we had never come in contact with before. We had to learn how to do things that we had no idea how to do. And though we had a little bit of direction, we had to depend on one another to figure it out, to solve the problem.

"We all brought different backgrounds to the group, we all brought different skills, so we just had to work these things out together and come out with a product we could be happy with and present to the class. We knew we had done it on our own. We had figured it out. We could be proud of it and we could put it out there in the world and say, 'OK, this is us.'"

Ella Trujillo

"I’ve not had tremendous experiences with group projects in the past. It’s never easy. So when we were broken up into firms, I thought, 'Oh, here we go.' But I was really pleasantly surprised."

Corey Digiacinto

Oral arguments

"The most valuable part of the Skills Lab was participating in simulated attorney exercises. Oral arguments, client counseling, depositions, settlement negotiations, etc., were key to the success of the skills lab. In addition, the assignment to visit a courtroom and witness a live hearing was both helpful and fun."

Brett Nelson

"The oral argument was a pivot point for me. I went into the class with almost an insecurity. I had this nervousness. We had a little series of informal presentations in front of the class and I would work myself into an anxiety attack before each of them.

"But I prepared hard for my oral argument and knew what I was doing, and I felt that I did really well. At that point it was a shift for me - with the Skills Lab and all my other classes - where I realized, “Okay, if I say something really stupid, it’s not the end of the world. I will survive.”

"In a way, I feel like I’ve gotten the scary things out of the way. Like the oral argument. We did a small oral argument and that’s done. And I see a lot of the 2 and 3Ls talking about their oral argument and I feel like 'Oh, that’s something I’ve already done.'"

Corey Digiacinto

"I came into law school not wanting to practice law ... because the things lawyers have to do just never really appealed to me. The Skills Lab forced me to do those things that prior to that I had not had any desire to do - and I had fun doing them."

"Prior to my oral argument, I was very nervous. I got up there and did my little oral argument and I thought it was horrible and awful but the professor did something with the oral argument that a good teacher always does - he evaluated the oral argument. And it wasn’t just him doing the evaluating but your peers too. So four other people, who were from a different firm, evaluated it. When when I got the sheets back, it was all this “wow!”, “great!” - all this really nice stuff. At first I thought they were just being nice, just wanting to support each other, but then the professor gave me his evaluation and the two combined showed me that my oral argument wasn’t as bad as I thought it had been."

"(The Skills Lab) definitely forced us to do things we weren’t ready for yet - or that we thought we weren’t ready for. I can say that with every new experience I get better and better."

Ella Trujillo

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