Students have a lot – some might say too much – to learn in their two semesters in the Litigation and Technology Clinic. As if mastering practical evidence, direct and cross-examination, jury selection, and the decryption of New Orleans Police Department reports isn’t enough, they are also called on to learn functions, expressions, if/else statements, and all other sorts of tech concepts that are foreign to your average lawyer. Some students will do better than others. Some have taken to coding and continue to do it after graduation. Some never open a text editor again. Realizing this, I only have one drop-dead tech requirement for each of our students: If you learn nothing else, you are going to at least learn WordPress. If you know WordPress, you can put up a website for your practice and start engaging potential clients online. Not exactly the Mother of All Demos, but it’s a start.
Last semester, attorney Townsend Myers spoke to our class about his site and how he uses it to drive his practice. With that for inspiration, my students downloaded WordPress and got started on their own “practice sites.” We collectively drafted a disclaimer for the site (“I am not licensed to practice law. I am third-year law student currently practicing law under Louisiana Supreme Court Rule XX, which allows me to practice only under the supervision of a licensed attorney. This website is for educational purposes only…”) and set some ground rules for content. The general idea was that the more engaging, personalized content your site has, the more attractive it will be to potential clients.
Here are some of the best sites the students generated:
Emily Mueller (“EAM and Associates”)
Michael Hunter (“Defense Industries”)
