PERSUASIVE WRITING WORKSHOP ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICE OF THE U.S. COURTS DEFENDER SERVICES OFFICE, TRAINING DIVISION Marriott Philadelphia Downtown Philadelphia, Pennsylvania August 21-23, 2017 AGENDA Monday, August 21, 2017 7:45-8:30 a.m. Registration & Continental Breakfast 8:30-8:45 a.m. Welcome and Introduction to Workshop Leigh Skipper, Chief Federal Defender, Community Defender for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Jeffrey Lindy, Panel Representative, Eastern District of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Craig Crawford, Attorney Advisor, Training Division, Defender Services Office, 8:45-9:30 a.m. PLENARY: Fact-Busting Joseph Ross, Assistant Federal Public Defender, Office of the Federal Public Defender, Raleigh, North Carolina This session will demonstrate techniques for mining the facts of a case in a manner that maximizes the potential of developing a persuasive story. 9:30-10:15 a.m. PLENARY: Issue Spotting and Identification 10:15-10:30 a.m. Break Paige Nichols, Assistant Federal Public Defender, Office of the Federal Public Defender, Topeka, Kansas Identifying all potential legal issues before beginning the drafting process is essential. This session will discuss a fact-based approach for brainstorming legal issues, and how to prioritize them, while considering the nature of the issue, standard of review and other factors.
10:30 a.m.- 12:15 p.m. WORKSHOP SESSION I: Fact-Busting Room locations for the small groups will be provided in a separate document available at the DSOTD registration desk. All small groups will meet in the same rooms throughout the workshop. Facilitators are listed on the last page of this agenda. Participants will meet with their small group facilitators to fact-bust their cases as a basis for developing persuasive stories. 12:15-1:30 p.m. Lunch On Your Own 1:30-2:30 p.m. WORKSHOP SESSION I: Fact-Busting (cont.) 2:30-2:40 p.m. Break 2:40-4:15 p.m. WORKSHOP SESSION II: Issue Spotting and Identification Participants will meet with their small group facilitators to brainstorm the legal issues in their cases. 4:15-4:30 p.m. Break 4:30-5:45 p.m. PLENARY: Discovering and Telling the Story MiAngel Cody, Executive Director of The Decarceration Collective Law Office and Consultancy, Chicago, Illinois Now that you have busted the facts and identified the legal issues, you must develop the story of your case. This session will discuss the elements of the story; demonstrate how to craft the story using these elements; and discuss how to tell your client s story in the most persuasive manner by developing characters, structuring and sequencing, and identifying the key emotions and themes. By the end of the session, you will understand the importance of summarizing the key factual, legal and emotional aspects of your case that convey your story, before you begin to write. 5:45 p.m. Adjourn for the Day 2 P age
Tuesday, August 22, 2017 8:00-8:30 a.m. Continental Breakfast 8:30-10:30 a.m. WORKSHOP SESSION III: Discovering and Telling the Story Participants will meet with their small group facilitators to apply storytelling techniques to the facts of their own cases. 10:30-10:40 a.m. Break 10:40 a.m.- WORKSHOP SESSION III: Discovering and Telling the Story (cont.) 12:00 p.m. 12:00-1:15 p.m. Lunch On Your Own 1:15-2:15 p.m. PLENARY: Writing with Style 2:15-2:30 p.m. Break Jay McEntire, Senior Litigator, Federal Defenders of Eastern Washington and Idaho, Spokane, Washington Colin Prince, Trial Attorney, Federal Defenders of Eastern Washington and Idaho, Spokane, Washington The goal for this talk: to give you several, easy-to-implement tips that will immediately improve your writing, which will lead to more persuasive communication, which will result in better lawyering. 2:30-5:00 p.m. WORKSHOP SESSION IV: Writing the Statement of Facts Participants will meet with their small group facilitators to draft and re-write the statement of facts in their cases using the principles learned in the preceding plenary sessions. 5:00 p.m. Adjourn for the Day 3 P age
Wednesday, August 23, 2017 8:00-8:30 a.m. Continental Breakfast 8:30-9:30 a.m. WORKSHOP SESSION IV: Writing the Statement of Facts (cont.) 9:30-9:45 a.m. Break 9:45-10:45 a.m. PLENARY: Making the Argument Section Awesome: Integrating the Facts and the Law 10:45-11:00 a.m. Break Jay McEntire, Senior Litigator, Federal Defenders of Eastern Washington and Idaho, Spokane, Washington Colin Prince, Trial Attorney, Federal Defenders of Eastern Washington and Idaho, Spokane, Washington This session will cover the principles of crafting a fact-driven legal argument, instead of an argument that reads like a law review article. We will discuss how to summarize and distill the crucial facts, how to blend the facts and the law so that they exist side-by-side, and how to find the right balance of facts and law for the particular document you are writing. 11:00 a.m. - WORKSHOP SESSION V: Writing the Argument 12:30 p.m. Participants will meet with their small group facilitators to draft and revise the first few paragraphs of the legal argument in their cases. 12:30-1:45 p.m. Lunch On Your Own 1:45-4:15 p.m. WORKSHOP SESSION V: Writing the Argument (cont.) 4:15-4:30 p.m. Closing Remarks 4:30 p.m. Adjournment CLE Accreditation Craig Crawford, Attorney Advisor, Training Division, Defender Services Office, 4 P age
Small Group Facilitators Ubong Akpan, Attorney Advisor, Training Division, Defender Services Office, Candace Cain, Assistant Federal Public Defender, Office of the Federal Public Defender, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Francisco Celedonio, Assistant Federal Public Defender, Office of the Federal Public Defender, San Juan, Puerto Rico MiAngel Cody, Executive Director of The Decarceration Collective Law Office and Consultancy, Chicago, Illinois Craig Crawford, Attorney Advisor, Training Division, Defender Services Office, Jennifer Gilg, Research & Writing Specialist, Office of the Federal Public Defender, Omaha, Nebraska Tieffa N. Harper, Senior Litigator, Office of the Federal Public Defender, Wilmington, Delaware Angela Kiper, Attorney Advisor, Legal & Policy Division, Defender Services Office, Susan Lin, Attorney, Kairys, Rudovsky, Messing & Feinberg, LLP, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Jay McEntire, Senior Litigator, Federal Defenders of Eastern Washington and Idaho, Spokane, Washington Judith Mizner, Appeals Chief, Office of the Federal Public Defender, Boston, Massachusetts Paige Nichols, Assistant Federal Public Defender, Office of the Federal Public Defender, Topeka, Kansas Colin Prince, Trial Attorney, Federal Defenders of Eastern Washington and Idaho, Spokane, Washington James Smith, Attorney, The Center for Professional Legal Services, P.A., Orlando, Florida 5 P age