2009 College: July 9 -31, 2009
(2009 dates are tentative and subjct to change)

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TLC methods at Work

Read what a former student has to say about the college.

Gerry Spence extends to you his personal invitation to join him at his ranch in Wyoming. There you will live on the ranch with some of America's greatest trial lawyers and judges and learn from their personal guidance the winning dynamics and techniques of the jury trial.

Can you invest the time to become a winning trial lawyer for people?

We think we can teach you more in the concentrated program under the guidance of the great trial lawyers of this country than you can probably learn in a lifetime of hit-and-miss experience in the courtroom. You will be asked to work 23 consecutive days and will be taught by the best in the business.

Do you really know why you lost your last case?

Why can't you learn from your experience in the courtroom? Indeed, you can. But most of us can't understand the real reasons we lost our last case. Most of us can't see ourselves as the jurors and the judge saw us-and our best friends and associates won't tell us. We may think we have the techniques of cross-examination and final argument down pat, but something went wrong. What was it? You can't win until you learn why you are losing. You will find out at the Trial Lawyers College.

Our philosophy

We are dedicated to training a new generation of people's trial lawyers. We believe that every lawyer has the potential of becoming an effective and winning advocate for justice. We are committed to helping people's lawyers become the best they can be - to become a winning trial lawyer who will ethically and nobly champion the cause of the injured, the forgotten and the damned. Such, we believe, is the ultimate calling of every true trial lawyer.

How we teach

This is not a lecture-oriented college. You had enough of that in law school and learned pitifully little about the skills of trial lawyering. At the Trial Lawyers College you will learn by doing. We work in small groups guided by experienced trial lawyers who have attended the college, are experienced in and have had extensive training in our method. To win we must discover our own magic. You will learn how to discover the story of your case, through psychodramatic methods searching for the truth. You will crawl into the hide of the judge, the juror, the witness, the opponent. You will cross examine the expert and make the final argument. You will formulate the theme of the cases and plot the strategies of the trial, and from honest feed-back from your colleagues and our staff themselves you will, in the safety of the trial laboratory, discover your own magic.

Who will teach?

Teaching is introducing the student to an important learning experience. Teaching is bringing to consciousness what we already know. Teaching is not force-feeding sterile intellectualisms down the throat of the student. We teach each other at the Trial Lawyers College. We learn and grow from being colleagues in the great adventure by doing-participants and trial masters alike. You, yourself, will both teach and learn. Gerry Spence's methods of the winning trial afford the foundation for the school and Spence will be in attendance. The lawyers on our faculty are trial lawyers who have attended the college, are experienced in and have had extensive training in our method.

How this college is different

We believe that every trial starts and ends with the trial lawyer. You may have learned all the courtroom tricks and trial lawyering techniques and be the most clever of strategists, and still you lose. Why? As we say in Wyoming, you can put a thousand-dollar saddle on a hundred-dollar horse, but all you have is the same old plug underneath. To win we must change the horse. To craft the winning trial lawyer we must develop the person, find each individual's magic-discover whom each of us is to ourselves and to others. In short, we must know ourselves. The winning trial lawyer blooms from such discovery.

This is a non-profit organization

Why are we doing this? Our trial lawyer faculty work without pay. Gerry Spence will be there without pay. Your tuition goes to pay the costs of the institute. If we know how, do we have an obligation to share that knowledge with those who yearn for it? We believe a free nation can exist only so long as its justice system delivers justice to the people. In the end, we share what we know because we need to share.

Who is eligible for the Trial Lawyers College?

You are eligible if you are a member of a bar and are not a corporate attorney, a prosecutor or an attorney who exclusively represents civil defendants, corporations or government. The goal of this college is to train lawyers to represent people.

Extracuricular activity

Bring your hiking boots. You are in the mountains. Bring your camera. You will have some great photo opportunities. Bring an open, caring heart, and a yearning to learn more about yourself. There will be an occasional opportunity to venture into the big city of Dubois, population less than one thousand. And we bet you will discover ways to entertain yourselves.

How will the applicants be selected?

Fill out the application and send us a letter. Tell us what you do, what you have done and why you have done it. Tell us your dreams. For the purposes of this letter, we are not interested in your grade average. We don't care where you went to law school. We don't care what clubs you belong to or what your golf handicap may be. We are not interested in your financial or social successes. We don't care about how many cases you've won or the honors you've received. We want to know something of your experience as a person, as a lawyer and something of your life goals and how you think we can help you achieve them. We are going to select only fifty-five out of the entire bar of the United States.

Will we offer a degree?

No. A degree suggests that you have attended one of those institutions from which you have learned a good deal that you must unlearn if you are to become a successful trial lawyer for people. You can tell your friends and clients you attended the Trial Lawyers College and, if you want, we will certify you as one of the very few who have attended our college. But people will be able to tell that something is very different about you when you come home. Juries will listen to you in ways they never listed to lawyers before. You won't need a degree to prove that something important has happened to you. Your clients will know. The judges will know. But most important, you will know.

Accomodations

The school is held on Gerry Spence's ranch about twenty miles east of Dubois, Wyoming on the East Fork of the Wind River. Spence remodeled the main barn on the ranch and several small cabins to house, in dormitory style, about fifty-five students - no more. Rooms are small and Spartan.

Meals are served by the ranch cooks in the ranch-dining hall. Classrooms are in the loft of the barn and in other buildings on the ranch; Courtrooms will be set up in the ranch's sale barn. If you expect luxury and high-style living, don't come. If you expect to be pampered, stay home. We are learning and growing together, not luxuriating. You will be asked to help - maybe with the evening dishes. Maybe to clean a classroom. Maybe to drive to town for supplies or to fetch a visiting trial lawyer. You will do your own laundry and clean you own room. We're in this to work and learn together.

The cost

The cost will be $3,750 for 22 full days at the college. The tuition includes everything except your transportation to and from Jackson, Wyoming. We’d like a $500 deposit with your application. There are partial tuition scholarships available for those who need them.

Why should you apply now?

We believe, and know from our experience, that the response to this extraordinary opportunity will be very large, if not overwhelming. We want those to join us who want this opportunity most. And we think that those who want it will be the first to respond. Since there are only fifty-five openings for each program, we think you'd do well to write today. Tomorrow at the latest. Send your application to us by March 15, 2009 for the July 2009 Session (July 9-31) along with your deposit check to:

Trial Lawyers College
P.O. Box 548
Jackson, Wyoming 83001
(760) 322-3783
(800) 688-1611

This program has been approved by the Wyoming State Bar for 131 total CLE Hours including 3 for Ethics.

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Proceeds from the sale of books, DVD's and other merchandise on this web site benefit the Trial Lawyers College. All of the lawyer faculty volunteer their time to teach at our programs and pay their own expenses.