Learn by running a matter
Legal Clinics
In a law school clinic, students take a real client's matter from the first meeting to the closing letter, under a supervisor. Here, each clinic is a route through one kind of matter. You meet the client, find the facts, advise, negotiate, prepare, speak, and close, using the practice rooms and short courses on this site in the order a real matter would need them.
One matter, many skills
Each stage is a different skill: listening, advising, negotiating, preparing a witness, arguing. Together they are the whole matter.
Practice, not slides
Most stages are practice rooms where the client, the other side or the judge answers back, so each choice has a consequence.
Start anywhere
Follow a clinic in order, or jump to the stage you need. Free stages are marked.
The Civil Litigation Clinic
A dispute that may go to court: meet the client, test the facts, prepare the evidence, try to settle, and be ready if it does not.
- 1. The first meetingSimulatorMeet a client for the first time: find the facts that hurt, talk about money, and be honest about what you can promise.
- 2. The client relationshipCourseTrust, fees, plain-language updates, advice and the hard conversations that run through every matter.
- 3. Map the disputeToolSee the stages of a civil dispute from the demand letter to the judgment, and where settlement can happen.
- 4. Prepare the witnessesSimulatorFreePractise testifying in civil, criminal and family settings against a courteous, aggressive or rapid-fire cross-examiner.
- 5. Take a depositionSimulatorExamine a witness with something to hide, a vague corporate representative and an opposing expert.
- 6. Settle if you canSimulatorRun a mediation as the neutral, with parties whose moods change how every move lands.
- 7. The hearingSimulatorArgue a pre-trial motion or an injunction before a judge who interrupts.
The Business and Contracts Clinic
A company that needs a deal done and written down: negotiate it, understand the paper and keep it under control.
- 1. The negotiationCourseInterests, walk-away numbers, offers, trades and pressure: the method behind every deal.
- 2. Negotiate and structure the dealSimulatorNegotiate a lease, a business sale and an IP licence against counterparts with different styles.
- 3. Read the paperToolSee the parts of a standard contract and what each clause is for.
- 4. Draft from templatesToolStart from a library of plain-language legal templates and adapt them.
- 5. Run the contract through code and AILabTurn a contract into clauses, data, faults and deadlines, with every AI field checked by code.
- 6. Find the deadlinesLabUnlimited practice in notice periods, renewals and dates.
The Family and Community Clinic
People in conflict who often need to keep living or working near each other: listen, calm, mediate and write a workable agreement.
- 1. The first meetingSimulatorMeet a parent in a custody dispute, a frightened client who needs an interpreter, and others.
- 2. Understand the conflictCourseHow disputes escalate, how to cool them, how to choose a process and how to mediate.
- 3. Mediate the neighboursSimulatorMediate a neighbour feud, a florist and her landlord, or two business partners.
- 4. Know the law in contextToolCompare child custody rules across countries, married and unmarried parents, with the international flags.
The Courtroom Clinic
The craft of standing up: structure the argument, speak it, answer the bench and write the brief.
- 1. Speak so people followCourseAudiences, structure, plain spoken language, voice, slides and questions under pressure.
- 2. Practise aloudSimulatorSpeak, record yourself and review your delivery.
- 3. Argue before a benchSimulatorAppellate cases with real faces, interruptions and a rebuttal round. The first cases are free.
- 4. Plan the briefToolSee how an appellate brief is built, section by section.
- 5. Administrative and arbitral hearingsSimulatorArgue before an agency, or in an international commercial arbitration (see also the Arbitration simulator).
More clinics are planned, for example an employment clinic, a housing clinic and a small-business start-up clinic. Each will be a route through one kind of matter, built from the same pieces.