Welcome to Evidence. You may be taking this course for either of two reasons
A) You have heard that Evidence will be on the bar exam,
B) You are interested in litigation.
If you are taking Evidence as a bar preparation course, you should be warned that I do not teach it as a survey course. You may be better off taking Evidence from Prof. Orenstein. She teaches a more traditional 4-hour Evidence course that covers most of the topics that tend to show up on the bar exam. She also uses a more conventional approach in which students are asked to analyze the rules of evidence, apply them to factual situations, and determine whether evidence is admissible or inadmissible. I teach a more chaotic post-modern course that starts from the premise that there is no point in asking whether evidence is admissible or inadmissible, because the decision will be made by a marginally incompetent politically appointed judge who got a C in Evidence in law school. [Note that this is NOT true in Bloomington where we have excellent judges, many of whom took evidence from me, and it is not true for any of your own parents or relatives who are judges]. I teach Evidence as lawyers use it in courtrooms, as a weapon in the adversarial arsenal, in which the question is always what arguments can be made and how to make them in ways that appeal to the trial judge, not the bar examiners.
I also hear that Prof. Orenstein is funnier than I am.
If you are taking Evidence as a bar course, and you take it from me despite my warning, then I recommend that you take the electronic version of the course rather than the classroom version. People who attend class are going to be spending a lot of time on their feet making objections, responding to objections, and arguing over admissibility, as we recreate the atmosphere of a trial courtroom as best we can in a large room with 50 or more students. Why subject yourself to public humiliation as you stammer through trying to make objections if you never plan to set foot in a courtroom in your life? Reduce stress. Take the electronic version of the course, in which you can work the evidence problems in the peaceful anonymity of your own room. I will discuss more about the electronic option later.
If you are taking Evidence because you think you might end up in a courtroom one day and you want to have some vague idea of what to do, then you've come to the right place. I am a litigator, and I approach Evidence from the perspective of the trial lawyer. You should definitely take the classroom version of this course, in which we will practice making and meeting objections almost every day. However, Evidence is not adequate by itself to prepare you to try a case. You should also take Trial Advocacy.
Trial advocacy is offered both semesters. It's a skills and techniques course in which you get up and do trial practice in front of a jury. Trial advocacy is taught by experienced trial judges and lawyers.
Evidence is a prerequisite.
If you are really serious about litigation, you will want to take Trial Advocacy next semester, so you can take advanced trial practice in your third year.
Advanced trial practice opens the door to participation on the IU Trial Competition Team and compete against students from other law schools.
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This Evidence course may be different in some respects from other courses you have taken in law school. First, you have the option of taking the course live in the classroom or in electronic form over the Internet. Second, we do a lot of practical drills in class, such as making and responding to objections. We don't spend a lot of time on theory or appellate cases. Third, I assign homework.. Fourth, we watch a lot of movies. Is this starting to sound like 6th grade or what? For those taking the class electronically, the best I can do with my limited techno-skills is give you the movie transcripts. You can always borrow the real movie from me or the library.
The syllabus, along with other materials, notices, and information on this course, is accessible from the law school home page by searching for this course and then clicking on a "site" link for last year's course. It actually gets to the class home page for this year. Or, you can cut out the middleman and access my materials directly. Write this down somewhere:
1. All my classes are linked to my general home page: http://law.indiana.edu/webinit/tanford/
2. The Evidence class home page is http://law.indiana.edu/instruction/tanford/B723/home.html
3. The actual syllabus is http://law.indiana.edu/instruction/tanford/B723/syllabus.html
Be sure to read the information posted on the evidence class home page, and check it every day. Class announcements will be posted there.
A word of warning. In case you haven't figured it out by now, a computer and basic Internet skills are required in my classes. I distribute all materials, post notices, and conduct other aspects of my classes from the web site. If you are not comfortable with accessing , downloading, printing etc from the web, you should take Prof. Orenstein's section of Evidence. Neither I nor my secretary will make hard copy available to you if you have trouble downloading electronic files and information. This is not just for the electronic version of this course, but applies to those taking the classroom version as well.
Speaking of secretaries -- My secretary is Stacy Harris on the 3rd floor. Bear in mind that she works for me, not for you. If you have a question, need to turn something in, wonder where I am, or want to schedule an appointment, talk to me (or send me an email), not her.
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You have two options for how you can take this course:
Option 1 is a traditional live classroom course where you come to class every day and participate. If you take this option, you are expected to come to class. Attendance is required and policed through whether you turn in homework assignments. Electronic classes will be available as make-ups for any class you miss. I maintain an active litigation practice and occasionally have to go off to some conference and be professorial, so there may be several days this fall when I will not be able to teach class. When that happens, you will either be assigned an electronic makeup class or given the option of taking the makeup class electronically or at some horribly inconvenient time when this classroom is available like 7:30 am or 5:45 pm.
Option 2 is an electronic course in which you never come to class until the last day. You take each class on your computer over the Internet, in the privacy of your own home or carrel. The contents of the two versions will be as close to identical as I can make them. The link to the electronic classes will be posted on the syllabus immediately after the live class has been conducted, so that it can include any issues that arose in class. Note that this means it is not possible to work ahead in the electronic course.
At the end of this class, you will have to select the live or the electronic option, and may not thereafter switch without permission from me. If you don't select an option, you will not be on my roster, regardless of what the Recorder says, and you will not be allowed to take the exam. That's the rule, and you expect to be lawyers one day, who must find, read, and follow procedural rules. Here are the principles of selecting an option.
1. If you are planning on taking Trial Advocacy, you should probably select the classroom option.
2. If you are an LL.M. or S.J.D. student, you should probably select the electronic option, because it enables you to work at whatever speed you are comfortable with, given your level of English language comprehension. If you want to take the classroom course, you should first discuss it with me.
3. If you are taking Evidence primarily as a bar course and have no intention of taking any other trial practice courses, I recommend that you select the electronic option.
4. If you are a procrastinator, always putting things off until the last minute, I recommend that you take the classroom option. If you take the electronic option, you may put the whole thing off until the end of the semester, and you can't do the course in a week in late November. People who attempt this inevitably end up at the bottom of the grading curve.
5. If you are a shy and timid creature who does not like to be forced into class participation, take the electronic course. The classroom version will involve a lot of individual performances.
6. If you know that you will be gone for 3 weeks in the middle of the semester job hunting or helping Cousin Cletis bring in the pumpkin harvest, take the electronic option or come talk to me about beginning with the classroom version and then switching to the electronic version.
7. For exam purposes, it doesn't matter which option you select. Everyone will take the same exam in person in December. No one may take it early. For more information on the exam, see the class home page . I have tracked grades for several years, and have seen no difference between exam performance by the web class students who actually did the work and those who took the course live.
8. Both the classroom and electronic versions use the same materials, listed on the home page, and review the same problems.
9. If you are only taking the live class because you have a neurotic fear that something important will happen during the live class that you will miss if you are in the on-line class, take a Xanax and the e-class. I do not activate the link to the e-class until after the live one, so I can add to it anything relevant that arises in class discussion.
1) I expect you to teach yourself the law of evidence. That's what lawyers do. They look up rules and cases and figure out what the law is. I will not waste much class time summarizing or reviewing the Rules of Evidence. Classes -- both live and electronic -- are for the purposes of finding out whether you have learned the rules and can apply them in some sensible fashion. Before you come to class or start an electronic class, you should carefully read the assigned materials, closely read the relevant rules of evidence, do the assigned problems and write out answers. You haven't fully prepared for class if you have not written out actual objections and responses. We'll go over the problems on class, and you can ask questions if your answers are different than mine.
2) On the syllabus, the readings and problems are listed in the order that I want you to follow -- usually, read the Federal Rule first, then read the section of the textbook, then read any additional materials, and finally work the problems in the order in which they are listed on the syllabus. I have selected the order carefully and expect you to follow it.
3) For those taking the live class option, on any day when class is scheduled to meet, you must look at the Evidence home page in the morning and check for announcements related to that day's class. I will post them by 8:45.
4) We will often go through additional hypothetical problems in class, and those additional problems will also be posed in the electronic classes. I make up some of these problems, some are based on whatever big trial issues are in the paper, but most come from movies because I like movies -- e.g., the cross-examination of Captain Queeg in "The Caine Mutiny," the trial of Lt. Manion in "Anatomy of a Murder," and the expert testimony of Mona Lisa Vito in "My Cousin Vinny."
5) From time to time, in both the classroom and electronic versions of the course, I may ask you to write out an objection or a response to an objection and turn it in. These little pop-quizzes are designed to see if you are learning anything.
6) HOMEWORK: The syllabus has homework assignments. Students in the live class must turn in these assignments in person at the start of class. Students in the electronic class should attach them to an email and send them to me clearly labeled in the subject line with your last name, the word "homework"and the syllabus number, e.g., Tanford Homework 5. This rule is important and you will not get credit for homework if you do not follow this procedure.
1) Evidence moves at a rapid pace, much faster than your first-year courses did. We've got 45 evidence rules with 25 major variations, 50 exceptions, 60 common applications, and 30 foundations containing a total of 90 elements, to learn in about 40 class sessions. That's about 5 important principles of evidence each class session. You've got to keep up. If you take the e-class, you cannot afford to fall behind. The e-classes can take 45-60 minutes each.
2) Because the law school has redesigned its web pages, I do not know whether all the links in the online evidence course will work properly. I attempt to test them all, but you may still encounter occasional message that say "Error 404. Page not found." If you encounter such a message, please email me at once, day or night. I can fix links either from home or office, but depend on you to let me know if one is not working.
3) The exam is closed book. You have to know the evidence rules by heart if you expect to be able to make objections in the middle of a trial.
I am usually in my office Mon-Wed from 8:00 am to 3:00 pm. However, I maintain an active caseload, so my schedule can be erratic. You can make an appointment by email to tanford@indiana.edu.
Feel free to drop by Mon-Wed, but not Thursday when I teach all day. Friday is iffy. However, I warn you that I can be very busy. I have court appearances, I do CLE presentations, I have 2 teenagers
who expect me to drive them to music lessons and athletic events. I coach middle school cross-country and track. So 3 tips for coming to see me --
1) If I'm here and available, my door is open.
2) Don't stick your head in my door and ask timidly if I'm busy. Of course I'm busy and I'm likely to answer you literally. If you want to introduce yourself, ask me a question, talk about careers in litigation, or show me photos of your kids, say so. I will make time for you even if I'm busy.
3) Friday after Evidence class is always a good time. Walk back to my office with me.
Any questions? tanford@indiana.edu
E-students are excused. The first link to the first substantive class will be activated tomorrow after the live class has met. Live students take a break and then return to the classroom and pick a seat. I will do a seating chart and explain briefly how the live class will work.