We have now reached the half-way point of the Summer Associate Program! The first half of the program was full of new learning experiences and exciting work. Each week I’ve completed different projects and workshops that exposed me to new areas of law. Looking back on the past five weeks, it is crazy to think about how much I have experienced and learned.

This past week was just as exciting! The main assignment I worked on was a timeline. The timeline I built is based on an underlying criminal case in a product liability case. This assignment entailed going through a lot of videos, depositions, trial transcripts, floor plans, and other documents. I used all those documents to build an accurate timeline of what happened on the night of the crime. It was critical to find any flaws or discrepancies anywhere I could. Next week, I might go to the location where the timeline is based, which is pretty cool!

The seminar for week five was about motion practice. Partner Dan Gerber presented the motion seminar. The seminar gave us an encompassing overview of both federal court and state court motion hearings. It is important you are aware of the different procedures that each court and each judge use for hearings. If you are not aware of the court’s and judge’s procedures, you could end up embarrassing yourself in front of the judge, which is never a good thing.

On Thursday, we participated in the motion workshop. The workshop was very similar to a real court hearing with respect to time restraints. We were given a 15-minute window for each of our two hearings. During the first hearing, I felt as if I was only halfway through my argument before Dan Gerber told me I had only a minute to finish up my argument. I quickly wrapped up my argument and made sure to correct this issue in my second hearing. One thing I found difficult for this workshop was having to flip sides directly after arguing the opposite one. Switching your mindset to the opposing side after giving the exact opposite argument threw me off a bit.

Overall, week five was very rewarding. The timeline assignment was unlike anything I have completed this summer. The timeline took a lot of thought and piecing together of information from different places. I can’t wait to see what other assignments I get with this case, and I look forward to working with the timeline more.