In this episode, Professor Elizabeth Boals, advocacy law expert at Stetson University College of Law, opens her case file on email evidence, expert witness testimony, and what really goes on in the courtroom. Plus: what do you do when your client is guilty?
Transcript:
Speaker 1 (00:02.542)
Many of my clients that were guilty of crimes would look me in the eye and say, fight for me. And I'm great, awesome, I'm in it. I'll go with it. But the ones that weren't guilty, it was fight for me and save my life. And that always made those cases that much more difficult.
This is Real Cases, a legal podcast presented by the Stetson University College of Law. We'll sit down with Stetson Law faculty and students to examine today's critical cases and debates in environmental, international, elder, and business law, plus the role of social justice in these fields. Join us as we open the case file.
I'm Dustin Britt, Master of Arts in Education from East Carolina University. My guest is Elizabeth Bowles, Director of the Center for Excellence in Advocacy and Assistant Professor of Law at Stetson University. After earning her JD from George Mason University, Professor Bowles began her career as a public defender in Alexandria, Virginia. She has published a variety of books on criminal procedure and expert testimony, and she taught at American University for 15 years before joining the Stetson faculty in 2020. A warning about content. In the second half of this episode, Professor Bowles references a case involving rape and another involving stalking. However, no details are given about either of these crimes.
Speaker 2 (01:32.374)
Welcome, Professor. I wanted to start by asking you, what is advocacy in legal practice and what are the skills that are required for practicing that?
Interesting thing is answering that question begins with what isn't it? It really does include just about anything you do in support of a particular position. It's what you do to persuade to encourage others to take the same position you're taking or to support something that you're in favor of. Advocacy, the most obvious would be representing someone right, taking a case and aside and trying that or negotiating that or arbitrating that whatever the forum is that you're in.
But advocacy can also take much more subtle forms. We advocate for reform of the law. We advocate for positions and we advocate for people. really advocacy, it's one of those, it's almost a little bit of a pet peeve of mine is that it's so broad that I think people sometimes don't even understand what it is that we do. So it's a very broad thing. So when you ask about skills, again, those become quite broad as well. I think central to advocacy is always the ability to communicate your position. If we're trying to persuade or encourage others to support a position, then the idea is that you have to be able to communicate where you're coming from and where you're going and what you want support for. So communication is essential. Surprisingly enough, I would say the second most important skill is the ability to be dexterous in the way that you think.
to be someone who can go from 30,000 feet and the theoretical and the rationales behind things to on the ground arguing the rules. It's the ability to sort of ratchet forward and back from those positions that makes a good advocate. Someone who's well-rounded and able to support their positions from whatever vantage point they're called on to do it from. For me, those are probably the two most important things to support an advocacy position.
Speaker 2 (03:40.558)
It sounds like lot of it's thinking on your toes and as you said, being dexterous. How do you teach that skill in a law school setting? It sounds like there's so many ways to approach it.
I mean, reasonable minds will differ, right? The best approaches to teaching advocacy skills. For me, I think it's giving students maybe four or five different avenues to seeing and doing the skills. So we can talk about it. We can talk about the theory behind a sound case theory or persuasive storytelling. We can demonstrate it. We can show you someone who's doing it successfully or someone who's not doing it successfully.
and lets you do some analysis and critique of others. We can put you on her feet. We can make you do it. Then we give you feedback. We tweak and change and alter and move you to a higher level of actually executing. And then finally, I think the one that most people miss is that self-critique, teaching you how once you leave us, once you're no longer able to be here with us, you can constantly be self-critiquing to be self-aware.
improving your arguments, your persuasive skills on your own. And that's a skill that's hard to teach and it requires students here to do self-reflection, to review their own videos, to make their own critiques, and then talk through them with their instructors to make sure that they're actually doing a good job of being self-aware and self-editing. So for me, it's all of those things. There isn't just one way to teach a skill.
What are some examples of case studies that you've used to teach these skills in the classroom?
Speaker 1 (05:23.918)
So our advocacy community, if you want to think of it as relatively young, right? When we look at areas of law, your constitutional law, your property, your contracts, law, these are things that have been around a real long time. The idea of teaching skills in law school is relatively new. Now, last 30 years, so when we think about case studies, we think about pedagogy or methodology or wherever you want to approach the
the structuring of teaching, you really have to kind of go back to the learning by doing models. These are from Carnegie studies, you know, that sort of 15, 20 years ago, where people were really looking at, it's essential for people to learn by doing, to be experiential, to stand up and actually execute in order to learn the skill, instead of just always thinking in your head, always being theoretical. So for us, that was really the beginning, I think, in academia for
getting support within our administrations to having support within just the legal academic community for trial at teaching for experiential learning. And now we've arrived. Now it's required by the ABA. Students have to take classes where they're learning skills. And that's a real sea change. And it's relatively new.
Reminds me a lot of when I did my student teaching very practical kind of skills. It sounds a lot like that. Yes. What kind of skills do you find that students come in with and frequently have very well established and what skills do you find students come in and are kind of surprised that they need or are typically lacking?
I'm always amazed in my big sections of evidence, right? So you're talking 60 to 80 students, and just sitting in this room, and it's a big four credit class, and it's a difficult class. And I'm always impressed by how articulate and smooth and thoughtful students are. And every year I always go, wow, those students are impressive. And then I might have those students later on in a small section class, a class where they have to stand up and execute in a courtroom.
Speaker 1 (07:33.996)
I always think to myself, I'm looking forward to hearing that student, right? I remember them from evidence. They're bright and they're going to be great. And then I realized they don't have that awareness, physical awareness of what it means to be persuasive. So when I ask you in class, can you tell me what that case is about? Or can you tell me why that court did what it did? You're giving me just a, repeating the analysis, right? You're talking to me about the rule.
And they come in ready for them. They're great. But when they actually stand up in a courtroom and they have to tell a story, they have to take human bits and pieces, right? You have to take parts of this story and pack them together and be persuasive. To me, that's something that they have to work on in law school. But they have to actually learn that skill. And it seems silly to say that they come in not ready to tell a story, but they're not. They're not ready to tell the story of their client. They're not ready to look at
case from a client center perspective. How do I tell the story of John Smith? Not how do I show he's not guilty of murder? It's how do I actually humanize this person? I find that my students really struggle with that. They're super smart. They're ready to go. They work hard. None of those things are a problem. The problem is the humanity, right? The making it connectable, making it approachable. That's the part that they work on.
I would assume then that some of the easier parts are preparing evidence and preparing questions and things that are more black and white and you can kind of predetermine how that would go. Is that correct in assuming those things can be a little easier?
I think so, except I think that, well, again, we still might still differ, right? Even my colleagues that I'm close to teach cross-examination, for example, in different ways. I think structuring those questions seems like an easy task, and a lot of students execute it. And then when they come to me and they show me their cross, and it's missing so much detail and richness.
Speaker 1 (09:43.982)
Big picture, you when I was talking about that 30,000 feet down to the trenches, it's missing that sort of back and slow back and forth. So I think there are parts that you can prepare in advance, but when you stand up, you can't read them. So sometimes the preparatory part is just literally preparing your brain to then do it on its own. And so I think there are things you can do in advance, much of at least trial work again, you know, I'm speaking very much more about the courtroom trial work.
A lot of it is on your feet. A lot of it is just being so prepared that you can roll in and out of any argument that needs to be made or question that needs to be asked.
What role does expert testimony play in the courtroom? Is it kind of omnipresent or does it only come out in certain situations?
it is everywhere and essential, you know, again, the law has evolved just the same way science has evolved. the more science we have and what my science, I use that in a very broad sense, right? So experts that range from things that are scientific in nature and doctors and, and veterinarians and, and metallurgists who tell us the strength of metal, know, those people all the way to the psychologists and psychiatrists and
evolution of those fields. They're in almost every case. I take, you know, even someone who's an expert in valuing a piece of art or a piece of jewelry, those people are experts as well. And so they are ever present. They provide that information that isn't about fact witnesses, isn't what people saw. It's about what experts know and the jury needs to know in order to decide a case, whether or not a doctor
Speaker 1 (11:31.938)
Committed malpractice, we need an expert for that. You whether or not this blood spatter is defensive or offensive, DNA, we need experts for all of that. Whether or not someone was criminally insane at the time when they committed an act, none of that can be done by faculty. is that all is supported by.
So when it comes to finding an expert, I would guess something like blood splatter. There are not a million people in the country who know how to do that, but there are a heck of a lot of oncologists and internists. Where do you start in finding? Do you have a bank? Do have a catalog of go-tos?
We do, and on the bookshelf behind me I have a book that is, you know, basically we have organizations, large national organizations of experts. And it's not just a bank of hired guns. These are people who want to understand, part of their business to understand what are the legal rules. There are so many rules that govern the admissibility of expert testimony. Everything from ethical rules to procedural filings, right? There's all kinds of
rules that experts need to understand in order to be good as an expert in court, it's more than just being smart in your heel. You can have an excellent doctor. I you probably had an appointment with an excellent doctor who has no personal skills, who can't have a conversation to save their lives. Super smart, non-communicative, right? You're just not going to be able to communicate. So for experts, I think we have this group of experts who
it's part of their job to not just know their field, but to also be the mathies for that field in the courts. And for some, that's the bulk of what they do. For others, they're just experts in their field, and they happen to also be good in court. And so I think you do have people who percolate to sort of the top of this group, and they're witnesses. And sometimes they testify too much, right? Sometimes.
Speaker 1 (13:37.826)
They do get that higher gun reputation and they take a beating for it in court sometimes. So again, it's how to find them. Usually you're going back to the same people. Usually you're talking to other practitioners in your area. If you're someone who practices a certain area of malpractice, chances are you're familiar with the 10 leading experts in that area. You're going back to those same people you've worked to work with again and again.
But remember, when you do that, if you're an expert and you've only testified for the defense in this one area, and you've testified 20 times always for the same side, someone's going to cross examine you on that. Someone's going to point out that you may be biased in a particular way. And that's not a good thing for an expert. So again, there's a lot of balance that goes on in this particular area.
You mentioned over testifying my father used to work for environmental health and he used to be an expert witness and give testimony and he said there's one thing I can tell you is don't answer a question you are not asked.
Absolutely, absolutely. They can't resist. they can't resist.
He said, it's the same thing when a police officer walks up to your window. Do know how fast you were going? Yes. The yes or no question. Don't don't over. Right. Don't over explain. So we've talked a bit about expert testimony and the role that that plays. When we think of evidence, I think we see on TV drama, we tend to think of.
Speaker 1 (15:01.198)
I am sorry.
Speaker 2 (15:16.576)
a literal a knife or a glove or some type of really dramatic physical or DNA? are some types of evidence that we may not be as familiar with because it's not as flashy and exciting in a movie?
emails, Instagram posts, Facebook posts, those sorts of things. That's the new DNA. That is the thing that is deciding cases. And the interesting thing about it is the federal rules of evidence haven't really changed all that much to meet the challenge of evidence that's produced electronically, saved electronically. We have rules. I mean, you find a knife on a scene, you bag it, you tag it, you send it to the
lab for testing and it stays in the evidence room. That's it. We know exactly where it goes. We know exactly how it originated. It's simple. It's easy to test. But something like a text message or a post, how do you trace that? How do you authenticate that? How do you preserve that? All those rules of evidence that we've been studying for 50 years, they don't apply as neatly.
to electronically store the evidence as they do to other things. And that's gonna be what the challenge is moving forward. It also creates, when think about it, 30 years ago when you had a box of evidence for a patient on the TV shows where they put that cardboard box on the table and they unpack the cold case and it's, oh, it's just a few little envelopes in a couple of folders. It doesn't exist anymore. Where is that evidence? That evidence is on a server or it's on...
you drives or it's been printed out in its boxes and boxes and what is that? That is absolutely the new cutting edge. Every case somebody has communicated with somebody else. And if you know much about evidence, your say is a problem. It's those out of court statements that people make. And then those people are often not brought to court, right? And their out of court statements are important. And if you're trying to introduce them to for the truth,
Speaker 1 (17:27.086)
of them, wow, that's going create so many complications for judges and lawyers. And it's definitely going to be where we're going. I don't know how well we're going to handle it.
It sounds like IP addresses are the new fingerprints.
Well, the interesting thing about it is an IP address is only is only tells you where it came from. Doesn't tell you who the author is. And that's that's the interesting part about it, right? So it gets as part of the way there, but it does not. It doesn't tell you who made it, who searched, who sent. We still have to rely on other things to answer.
It sounds like reasonable doubt can go through the roof.
Well, yes and no. So it used to be because we didn't have a record of all the conversations that happened outside of court, you could confess to a crime and no one would know. But now you take a photograph and a little Instagram post and next thing you know, you're captured right in the neighborhood where something happened. Didn't even intend it. It really is changing the way that we prosecute crimes and the way we defend them.
Speaker 2 (18:37.71)
Could you give me an example of a case where social media was used as important evidence?
Social media, yes and no, but do you remember the cases that came up? There was more than one, but in particular about bullying, people that commit suicide based on bullying online. Those are your perfect examples of cases where text message after text message after text message, media posts, Facebook posts, all those things, constant and relenting. And that is the evidence.
is 100 % the evidence that shows the intent of the defendant and the impact of the action. And those are the cases that show us the importance of, I mean, I have a teenage kid and I talk to him about this is not as simple as just communicating with your friends. This is a record of your life. It's a record of what you thought and what you did and everything from your political opinions to your personal opinions.
in your about individuals in your class. So those cases, I think, really highlight how critical it is to understand what that footprint is and what the evidence is that you're creating every day that you post them.
When you have things that are seemingly so black and white and so clear, here's a history of harassment, for example, a history of threats. When it comes to the defense, what are some strategies that a defense attorney can take to combat that?
Speaker 1 (20:15.982)
The interesting thing about that is I think every defense attorney, again, approaches it differently. I started my career as a defense attorney and I think I always started with my client. So what is it that my client wants from this representation? My client has found themselves charged. They're in the process already, right? By the time they come to me, they're usually already been charged. They know what's going on.
You know, can I defend against a case that has text message after text message after text message? You know, I can. I start with, it admissible? I start with, is it going to come in? If we go to trial, is this evidence going to be used against my client? And then really taking a look at what it means and what it proves. And as you pointed out earlier, beyond a reasonable doubt is a high standard, right? It's this idea that all reasonable doubt has to be, you know,
removed from the case in order for the person to be found guilty. And sometimes text messages, they seem clear, but remember, there's a framework of a charge that it has to be worked on. So sometimes, for example, prosecutor could charge first degree murder, right, this intentional premeditated and deliberate killing, as opposed to a second degree murder or a voluntary manslaughter, involuntary manslaughter, some other level of harm. So much of what you do as a defense attorney is to look at the case.
to meet with your client, to understand what your client's expectations and sort of desires are in this case, for the outcomes, their goals, and then figure out, was this charge proper? Is this the right level of crime? Is it a level of crime they can prove? Is there a lesser level of crime that is provable here? All of those questions, it's a very complex, it's not like I sit back and just say, here are text messages. You clearly threatened, we're done here.
There's a lot in this that goes into it. Maybe if your client has sentencing issues, maybe it's not so much a matter of guilt or not guilt. Sometimes it's what's the proper resolution in this case? And sometimes your clients know that as well. So there's many different things that you consider, even in cases that seem clear cut from the beginning.
Speaker 2 (22:31.854)
have a friend who's an attorney and she said to me, she's a defense attorney and she said, whether my client is guilty or innocent is not is none of my business. She said, that's not what I'm here to prove. I'm here to advocate for this person. Because I had asked her a question, which I'm sure people have been asked a lot is, what do do if you know that your client has committed the crime they're accused of?
Nope.
Speaker 1 (22:58.498)
that doesn't make any difference to me. I honestly, the easiest people to represent are the ones that are guilty. The ones that didn't commit the crime that that weighs on me in ways that, know, especially the young lawyer. I remember coming right out of law school and being, I mean, I would just take it home with me every single day is not only did I need to zealously represent my client, right, because that was my role to play in the system.
I also would have a different connection with them sometimes because I knew that they weren't guilty. And it was not that I was arguing harder, it was that I was internalizing a lot of weight and responsibility. Many of my clients that were guilty of crimes would look me in the eye and say, just fight for me and I'm great, awesome, I'm in it. I'll go with it. But the ones that weren't guilty, it was fight for me and save my life. And that always made...
made those cases that much more difficult for me. The clients that were guilty for me, I believe in the system. I believed in my role. I believed that if I zealously represented my clients and the prosecutor did their job and the police did their job and the judge did their job and the jurors did their job, then the system would work. I would hold them to upholding constitutional rights and making sure that the proof was beyond a reasonable doubt. And I would work hard to do that.
And I loved my job and everybody has to do their job and I was perfectly fine with my role. I agree with your friend. It's not my job to judge. That's somebody else's job.
Literally someone that's the name of their job. They're called the judge.
Speaker 1 (24:41.454)
Not my job.
Do you think that that empathy for the person you're advocating for is critical to being a good advocate? And when does that go into dysfunction?
Hmm. I know there are so many studies that talk about, you know,
criminal defense attorneys having a high threshold for alcoholism and other issues that come up from very stressful jobs. I do think there's a fine line. It is a lot of responsibility. You have someone else's life in your hands, their liberty, their ability to be free. And as prosecutors, and it's not just about defense attorneys, and you are prosecuting people who you believe committed crimes,
harmed people, who killed people, right? These are very serious jobs and very serious responsibilities. So I do think that you carry some around with you, but I don't, at least for me, I don't think you can sustain that job just out of a love for trying cases. I think after a while you will burn out. Just, you you may, I love the act of, I love evidence, it's my subject. I love to do the arguments, to do the intellectual challenge of
Speaker 1 (26:03.79)
dissecting a case and putting it back together in its most highly functioning form and being persuasive. love all of that. But I think if I didn't have a bit of empathy and the ability to connect with people, that job would get old. It would become tedious. The people are what changes each case, right? It's the facts and the humans. It's the witnesses. I love to examine witnesses. I like that interaction.
So I do think it makes the job more appealing. Is it essential? I don't know. I think for longevity, probably yes. For being truly persuasive and being good at what you do, probably yes, because you need those connections in order to gain people's trust and establish rapport and convince a jury of something. I think you need some of those characteristics.
As an attorney and particularly as an attorney who has a lot of experience and years of practice, how often do you come across, maybe not even necessarily you personally, but in general, how does a veteran attorney, how often do you come across something you've never seen before or had to deal with before?
I would say often in little ways, right? So maybe not the huge piece, the amazing DNA connection, you know, that kind of thing. You know, we had a few cases in the news lately about cold cases, right? These unbelievable discoveries through genealogy, familiar genealogy being traced back through these family trees. you know, there was a 35 year
old murder a couple of years back that they traced through a cigarette butt in some online genetic testing or genealogy testing. And that sort of thing, that's new. mean, that's, wow, that's really powerful stuff. That doesn't happen very often. But little things. Finding the technology, like I said, we're learning new things about posts and technology and
Speaker 1 (28:17.876)
and clouds and all of those things, but those are new. Those cases that being tried now, people are just figuring all of that out. The science, the ability to go back to experts and ask for more scientific proof of something. The more studies we have, the more ability we have to have richer cases more comfortable, right? The ability to bring forth new arguments. Those things are new.
And then remember every defendant is different. Every plaintiff is different. So their story is going to, by its very nature, be different from the one you had before. Everything about them is different. some of the benefit of being a criminal defense attorney is that those cases, although they may be drug case after drug case after drug case, I was always representing someone new who brought something different to the table. So you never get tired of that.
Do you currently practice in a courtroom now or are exclusively?
teaching. No, I love practice. Well, probably full time with practice 15 years ago. I still do some consulting, but it's all pro bono work, you know, just helping out other attorneys, but I don't I don't actually do it for a living.
So what are some of the cases that you thought that were particularly formative for your development as a good lawyer?
Speaker 1 (29:44.11)
So there are a couple that stick in my head. again, it was more about, for me at least, growing as a person, right? So not so much about the case. But I would say probably for me, I represented someone who was charged with rape. And that was a difficult case for me because the defendant, as far as I'm concerned, did not do it.
very serious offense, family man. And we were at the time up in a jurisdiction, I had a number of jurisdictions that came together in one place when the alleged victim had gone to a hospital outside of the jurisdiction. And the results when she went to the hospital were very beneficial to the defense. And no one would give them to me. And I had the results, eventually I received them, but I couldn't get
the professionals, the doctors, the nurses, to come over state lines to testify. I couldn't compel them by subpoena because it was a different jurisdiction. And it was amazing to me, to me again, you asked formative for me as a person, it was amazing to me that someone could have evidence that would exonerate someone. Someone charged with a very serious offense, know, end of life kind of offense and not want to help.
because they didn't want the stigma of helping a criminal defendant. And that, you ask about formative cases, that to me was, I think as a person, I just never thought that that would be something I would ever see, right? I always thought, hey, someone was not guilty of an offense, people would do what needed to be done to get that taken care of. And that was not the case. And so that case was very powerful for me coming up, just sort of realizing that people are motivated by all kinds of things that don't motivate me.
And I needed to realize that I had a job to do and I had to sometimes go outside my comfort zone to get those things done. That defendant was found not guilty, thank goodness, by the jury. It went all the way to jury verdict, which was, for a young lawyer, very scary, very serious offense, again, with the defendant that was not guilty. that was very informative to me. That particular case scared me.
Speaker 1 (32:11.79)
More so than I think some other cases, I was so worried that I wouldn't do right by him. And, you know, I remember a sense of relief, but also a sense of just like I had matured after that case. I really fought hard and was successful, but at the end of it felt like maybe I had a little bit of my innocence taken away by that particular case.
Do you find that TV, movies, books, theater? How much do they get wrong? How much do they get right?
know, it's really interesting. I think a part that they get right, enough, is the humanity of it. You know, and they do actually show some of the trauma of, you know, being a criminal defendant or being a witness or being a victim and being forced to come to court and testify. They do. It's a drama. I many of these shows, that's the point. And I think they do get some of that right. Some of the dramatic nature of these types of cases.
What they get wrong is the complexity and the time that goes into the preparation and the execution. The preparation is not representative at all because it's super boring. Nobody's going to want to see somebody sit there and pour over documents. I nobody's going to want that. There are no aha moments. Those are rare, right? Nobody shouts, you can't handle the truth and admits to it. Nobody does that.
So, you they do get that wrong. But, you know, they get better. Periodically, I use a lot of video clips in my classes. And I, you know, I'll show the students a video clip from a movie or a TV show where I say, you know, they're getting better. You know, the arguments in chambers actually make sense. They actually argue the rules of evidence better.
Speaker 2 (34:08.974)
What have you used as an example?
I use things from everything from the wire to CSI and NCIS. I I use a lot of those things. I use movie clips. I use real clips. So from Rittenhouse and other trials that we've just had, I'll pull a clip or two, just to say, hey, this is all relevant. This is stuff we're dealing with in class. And look, just the other day we saw it on TV. So there's a lot to be said for...
going to those clips, even the ones on TV that are not real pieces, sometimes just to show what not to do. Do not do this. You do this in real life, I'll find you. I'll come get you. You cannot do this. So they're helpful, but they're not
So for someone who's interested in pursuing law as a career, or maybe it's just been an inkling, how do they know if it's time to take the step to do that? How do they know if they really want to do that or if they just like the drama of the courtroom?
I strongly suggest that if anyone who's thinking about being a litigator, again, that's more my area of expertise, but you think you want to be in courtroom and you watch a TV show and you think that looks awesome, right? To be able to analyze that, to stand up and do an opening or a closing, go call somebody at the law school. I invite students all the time here to come. They can sit in the back of my class, right? Watch a
Speaker 1 (35:43.608)
Figure out whether this is what you want to do. Trials are few and far between unless you want to be a criminal defense attorney or a prosecutor. You're not going to be in a courtroom very often. Civil cases are rarely go to trial. Much of what you do is pretrial discovery. It's paperwork. It's motions. It's really, it's not about standing in a courtroom and making that opening or closing. So, you know, I suggest you talk to trial lawyers in the field that you're interested in.
Find out what the day in the life looks like, right? What do they do from day to day? Or come up to law school and sit in a class, watch a mock trial if you haven't already had that experience. Go to the courthouse, sit in the back of the room, see what it looks like. I think that a lot of times, I mean, I always like trial work, but trial work, it's one part trial work and 10 parts prep, even for criminal lawyers, right? Even for your prosecutors in your...
public defenders, you're still doing massive amounts of work outside of the courtroom. And you have to love that. You have to love the intellectual challenge of it, or it's just not, it's not going to be a good job choice.
As far as what Stetson offers, I know there's a JD program and I heard about the LLM in advocacy. What does that involve and how is that different from the JD?
Sure, so RLM and advocacy is actually an online program. We attract students from outside of just our local jurisdiction. It really is an advanced class. So imagine you go to a JD program, whether it's here at Stetson or someplace else, and you take advantage of some advocacy classes, right? You take a handful, but you're still responsible for taking all your other classes. So you can only take some of them. So what we offer is basically a complement of different advanced classes.
Speaker 1 (37:36.142)
an advanced evidence class, advanced pretrial class, effective discovery class that pushes them. We also do different classes in specialty sort of niche areas if you want to think about it that way, like damages in civil cases. We also have an expert testimony class. Things that a lot of people don't have the opportunity to take in their JD program, didn't have the time.
And also if you've been in practice a couple years, sometimes you can see where you're lacking, right? Where you don't have the information. And the program's appropriate for those people, right? To come back in to figure out, I want a much higher level function. It's also for people who ultimately want to teach in our field. If you want to come and take some advanced classes, work on some independent studies, and publish your work, things like that, we're here to support that process.
have two wrap up questions for you. One is what's your favorite case? And it doesn't have to be case that you worked on.
That's a really hard question because what makes a favorite case for me, you know, may not. So for me, I don't particularly like real cases, cases that aren't mine, if that makes sense, because it's very hard for me to see what happened behind the curtain. All you get to see in someone else's case is what the television lets you see. And so for me, not a big...
Strangely enough, I think my favorite case that I tried, this sounds strange, but it was a stalking case. And it was a case that was tried under a new statute, the jurisdiction I practiced under. And it was one that this new statute, was cutting edge. Everybody was trying to be tough on crime and go after stalkers. But the statute itself was so poorly drafted that it actually, I mean, it was a case that it was
Speaker 1 (39:39.596)
My client was absolutely not guilty of stalking under the new statute whatsoever, but it became this very interesting. Everybody in the courtroom was new to this. If that makes sense. Everybody, the prosecutor was trying it for the first time. I was defending it for the first time. The judge was ruling for the first time. And so we were all figuring it out together. And it was like watching like a debate as opposed to a litigation.
And so I loved it because it was intellectually challenging. We were all fighting about the constitutionality of this particular statute. Did it give proper notice to defendants? Did it actually, you know, what was it sufficiently? And I know this isn't a very sexy case, but man, I loved it. was everything from understanding who my client was and representing his interests to telling a good story, right? With the jury, because it's a stalking case, right? So I had to tell a good story about somebody who had some things that the jury wasn't going to like.
And then the whole thing had overarching a constitutional challenge throughout the whole process. So for me, that was one of the most fun cases that I tried because I felt like everything that we were doing, we were fighting. I was fighting everything. Every single thing, there was nothing that we agreed on. And it was a really neat case, a neat case to try, a neat case to sort of work to until it's end.
So finally, what makes a good lawyer?
I don't know that I figured that out yet. I think that good litigators, I think that's easier for me to answer. They have to be a mix of things for me. Again, good, I'm saying what I think is good. I think they need to be ethical. I think you have to have a strong backbone. You have to be able to be professional even when professionalism easy, when it's not an easy choice.
Speaker 1 (41:40.238)
I think you have to be able to keep a secret. You have to be able to be your own best, best confidant. I see good litigators as people who have a real sense of internal drive, internal integrity. get my integrity from myself. They need to be clever. Those good litigators are ones that can keep balls in the air.
and don't need to keep them all in a line. They can be at different heights and levels and in pockets and, you know, bouncing on your shoe all at the same time. And that to me, those are good litigators that have all of those skills. If you're missing something, then there's a lack of balance. You can be great in a courtroom, but not be ethical. You can be ethical and professional, but not really be able to keep all the balls in there. To me, all those things are present in your best litigators.
Professor Bowles, thank you so much for your time. I enjoyed talking with you a lot.
Kicker.
This has been Real Cases. Thank you for listening. Check back for more episodes about an array of legal topics presented by the Stetson University College of Law. Learn more at stetson.edu.
Topics: Real Cases Podcast
