Criminal Defense Skills Training for Lawyers from the United States and China

Author: Guan Meiyi
Publisher: Legal Audiovisual Publishing House
Publish Date: 2006-01-01
Features: Criminal Defense Lawyer Skills Peer Training (Peer Training) DVD Teaching Disc (7 hours of English original sound with Chinese subtitles) is edited from the 18-hour live recording of the "China-US Criminal Defense Lawyer Skills Training Program," jointly organized by the Criminal Practice Committee of the All-China Lawyers Association, China Legal and Development Consulting Company (Hong Kong), and the George Washington University Law School in Beijing in December 2003. The trainers were Professor Jennifer Lyman from the George Washington University Law School in the United States and Professor Marcia Levy from the University of Denver Law School. Over 30 experienced Chinese criminal defense lawyers participated in the training as trainees, including Tian Wenchang, Gu Yongzhong, and Li Guifang. The trainers provided instructions using a hypothetical case, explained the training objectives, demonstrated defense skills, supervised practice activities, provided feedback and comments on the trainees' demonstrations, and facilitated communication and discussion. The trainers introduced the fundamental principles and procedures of the adversarial criminal justice system in the United States, such as meeting with clients, bail hearings, investigation and evidence gathering, plea bargaining, trial defense, and more. They also explained and demonstrated open-ended questions, leading questions, tag questions, and transitional statements involved in cross-examination and direct examination in U.S. trial defense. The trainees learned and practiced various defense skills. During the practice, they took on different roles, such as the client, defense lawyer, and prosecutor in the hypothetical case. The trainees practiced persuasion skills, establishing connections with clients and witnesses, investigation, interviews, evidence gathering, analyzing favorable and unfavorable facts in case materials, constructing a defense case, trial questioning methods, group discussions, practice, and reporting to the larger group. They also provided comments on peer demonstrations, and more. The accompanying training manual for the DVD explains the background knowledge of the issues involved in the training process. Examples include: the peer training method for lawyers; the guiding ideology, principles, nature, litigation process, and practice of the U.S. criminal justice system, as well as the criminal defense lawyer training skills taught during the training. It also includes over a dozen papers related to the training, written by government officials, law professors, practicing lawyers, and experts in the field, such as training manuals, textbooks, and professional journals.