Objective 3: Be able to provide the discovery (exchange of evidence) information to the defendant’s lawyer.
Activities/Resources
· Review old cases in which the evidence was summarized
· Create a relationship with our paralegal in order for her to mentor me with this process
· Have her create a mock case for me to summarize or summarize a real case with her present
Evidence
· Include mock practice samples of discovery answers with my mentor’s correction
· Include the finalized versions of mock discovery answers
· Include notes I take in regards to old cases or conversations with my mentor
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Above, I am fulling the vital duty of studying a case in order for me to comprehend how to answer the discovery questions.
The below three links provide the notes I took when learning about how to answer the discovery process, the practice samples I answered in bullet form, and the finalized versions of the questions I answered in paragraph style. The notes I took outline what each answer should contain, examples of the types of answers that could be included, and where I could find the information in the case file. Therefore, it was my cheat sheet when answering the questions. During the mock practice samples, I did those in an outline form just to prove to my supervisor I could find the information correctly and then met with her so she could tell me what I was doing wrong until I was able to complete a mock practice sample without problem. Once I was no longer having problems with one kind of case she would hand me another case that was a slightly more difficult matter to handle. The level of difficulty ranged by how much evidence was in the case. For instance, a marijuana case usually contains little testimonial evidence and is based largely on the scientific evidence of the drug results and the police narrative. Where as a robbery can have many witness statements, the police report, seized evidence, and pictures to sort through. Since these are both the simplest and hardest cases I dealt with I included one of each in my mock discovery with corrections section. The last task the office paralegal taught me was how to properly phrase the answers, because the paralegals do not just bullet out the information for the lawyers to use. Instead each answer is written in a formal paragraph with specific legal phrases. In the formal discovery section I included a lengthy answer to the hardest case I outlined, since the hardest case showcases all the knowledge I have acquired. Prior to this exercise my Introduction to the Legal System class portrayed the discovery process as vital to the lawyers since they use the exchange of evidence to prepare and strategize for a case.Therefore, even though a paralegal is not the person arguing the case in front of a judge they play an important role in the process as they provide part of the information for said arguments.
In order to complete this objective I created a relationship with our office paralegal. Whenever there was down time I would ask her questions about her job until I felt like I created a tutor-mentor relationship. With that foundation between us I asked her if I could meet with her two times for a few hours during my non-regular internship hours to go over information she specifically did during her job. She was all for it and decided that the discovery process would be the best to teach me. Before this meeting I had no idea how a person went about answering the discovery questions nor did I know exactly what evidence was exchanged during the process. After the meetings I had with my mentor I understood what went into a case file much better, as such I was then able to find all of the information needed to answer the questions. During our first meeting we went through how to find the information, then she made me answer discovery for four different cases that she viewed to be on the easier side. During our second meeting I wanted to learn how exactly to phrase my answers that would be presented to a lawyer, which she showed me, since I was just bulleting the information out during the first meeting. I went about this by taking a discovery that the paralegal had already answered and studied how she wrote it. Once I saw that each discovery followed the same template I redacted the discovery answers I was studying. This way the paralegal let me keep the form for myself so I could have my own template nearby to guide me when it came time to formally answer a case. Before I did that step though the paralegal had me answer discover for one more challenging cases as a way to brush up on my discovery skills and to put all my knowledge to the test. Since I had no trouble answering the questions I took my outline of the more challenging case and applied my new knowledge as to how I properly answer a discovery in full sentence form to use. For the last hour of my meeting with my mentor I typed up the discovery with the template near by. Then my mentor reviewed my formal discovery to make sure I did everything correctly and learned from what mistakes I made. After these meetings I feel more comfortable with the process. Anytime my supervisor has me read over a case during my regular internship hours I am now able take note of the information pertinent to discovery on my own.
Overall my notes, corrections, and formal discovery evidence shows how I can comprehend and execute legal paperwork on my own with the correct formation and legal terminology. Furthermore, this process expanded on the lesson I learned in the introductory legal class I took. For when the office paralegal was showing me all of the information that needed to be obtained I realized just how attentive to detail a paralegal needed to be. As she stressed one missed component could affect a vital part of the other lawyer’s preparation and cause problems in court further down the road. This piece of information now makes me more focused on doing a job correctly rather than just doing a job for the sake of being done as can be seen in the progression from discovery with correction to my formal discovery exhibit. Also, because some cases are more difficult to answer I realized I had to be more attentive when answering those discovery questions. The difference of which can be seen in my mock discovery cases.
As the saying goes, practice makes perfect. These are some of my mock discovery samples. |  |
Mock Discovery With Corrections
*In each of the discovery sections names, addresses, and dates have been left out or changed to protect confidential information.
Go back to or jump to: Summary of Experience, Learning Contract, Annotation One & Evidence, Annotation Two & Evidence
