By: Professor Adam Eckart

Many students often have anxiety, insecurity, or other apprehension about participating in oral arguments. Students consistently report that oral arguments make them nervous, especially since oral arguments are often new to students, marking the first time students participate in such an assignment. Despite these challenges and apprehensions, oral arguments remain a key assignment in the Legal Practice Skills (“LPS”) program, as oral advocacy is a key skill for lawyers—whether they practice in the courtroom or the boardroom.

To alleviate the feelings of apprehension and ensure that students are prepared for oral arguments, Suffolk Law School and the LPS Department make a variety of tools available for students to observe and practice oral advocacy before their oral arguments. These tools include, among other things, watching real-life oral arguments of the Massachusetts Appeals Court at Suffolk Law School, watching a mock oral argument argued and judged by LPS Professors, and participating in mock oral arguments hosted by Teaching Assistants and student groups.

This year, to add another tool to the oral advocacy toolbox, the LPS Department worked with David Colarusso, Co-Director of Suffolk Law’s Legal Innovation & Technology (“LIT”) Lab, to provide a custom ChatGPT tool to 1Ls that acts as a judge in a moot court. Students can upload the court documents for a specific assignment and the ChatGPT tool, acting as a “judge,” then interacts with students to test their arguments, ask them questions, and hone their advocacy skills. The tool is text-based and doesn’t replace other types of practice for oral arguments, but students have indicated that it was a helpful tool in helping them pressure-test arguments and responded positively to using it to help them prepare for oral arguments.

How does it work? First, students follow this link and sign-in to ChatGPT (a log-in is required, but free accounts are sufficient).

Next, because the tool is already “prompted” to act as a judge, students only need to upload a copy of the court documents provided with their assignment (with no chat or prompting text). For most students, these documents will include the complaint, motions, affidavits, and other exhibits.

Third, after submitting the court document, ChatGPT will ask students whether they represent the Plaintiff or Defendant. Students will respond, and ChatGPT will begin its facilitation of the argument, acting as the judge. See this trial run as an example for how the chat works. Students using the free version of ChatGPT will hit a daily limit of around 10 exchanges, but can log-in and work with the tool on a subsequent day for a new daily limit.

Thank you to David Colarusso and Suffolk Law’s LIT Lab for developing this tool and helping make it available to all 1L students at Suffolk Law. Suffolk Law’s LIT Lab is a part of Suffolk Law’s LIT Center, which is directed by Professor of Legal Writing Dyane O’Leary.

 

 

 

Adam Eckart is an Associate Professor of Legal Writing at Suffolk University Law School. Before joining Suffolk, Professor Eckart practiced at Ropes & Gray LLP as an associate in the antitrust mergers and acquisitions practice and taught in the Lawyering Program at Boston University Law School.