Rutgers Law Trial Advocacy Program Director Co-authors One of the Field’s Most Read Texts; New Edition of Modern Trial Advocacy Includes Video

Chances are at some point in their career your attorney has come across Modern Trial Advocacy Analysis & Practice. If your case goes to trial, you should hope that she has not only read the best-selling book, but read it recently.

For over two decades, Modern Trial Advocacy: Analysis and Practice, published by the National Institute for Trial Advocacy, has been the go-to text to deliver positive results in the courtroom.  Now in its fifth edition, co-author J.C. Lore, director of Rutgers Law School’s Trial Advocacy Program, says the latest version includes a chapter on using electronic visuals and technology in the courtroom and is accompanied with video tutorials on core techniques.

“It offers in-depth coverage of the entire trial process through a theory-driven approach to advocacy,” says Lore, a clinical professor at Rutgers Law School. “It not only tells you how to perform certain trial techniques, but it also explains why those techniques are effective.”

Translated in multiple languages and distributed to nearly 100 law schools across the nation, Modern Trial Advocacy articulates how both opening statements and final arguments should be conveyed in a story format, then details why it’s the most effective way to communicate with the judge and jury.

Lore says he felt like a quasi-film director when he worked for four days with a film crew in Colorado creating the video library of demonstrations of core techniques discussed in the book. “We assembled a group of some of the country’s leading trial attorneys and teachers to produce the video component of the book,” notes Lore. “This new video component of the book reaches the style of learner, the visual learner, in a way that the book has never been able to do before.”

As technology has begun to alter the landscape of the trial process, Lore says this edition also includes a brand new chapter on using electronic visuals in the courtroom. The majority of its content however delivers on the tried-and-true techniques for practicing trial attorneys.  “While the core principals of trial advocacy largely remain the same, there is always better or clearer ways of teaching it, the video allows for that.”

With the wide distribution of the book – the National Institute for Trial Advocacy provides a copy to every participant at many of the trial skills programs, for example, and it’s used by practicing attorneys around the world – more global recognition of Rutgers’ innovative Trial Advocacy Program is expected, and the book’s co-author couldn’t be prouder.

“What makes our program so special is that students have the opportunity to work with dozens of the nation’s leading litigators from across the region and across the country. Our trial advocacy faculty represents almost every area of litigation. The students are exposed to diverse litigation perspectives and at the same time have the opportunity to network,” offers the Rutgers Law professor.

Beginning in the spring semester, Rutgers Law students will also be learning directly from this new book, co-written by the Trial Advocacy Program’s director, who leads the first hour of every session. “It is an understatement to say that this is an all-star faculty mostly made up of Rutgers alums and for two hours each week our students get to work with them in a setting that provides four-to-one faculty to student ratio.”

A co-founder of the Children’s Justice Clinic at the Rutgers Law School, Lore has trained thousands of attorneys and law students throughout the country.