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Week 5: The Client Interview

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Getting Students to Think Like Baby Lawyers In lab this week, students conducted an interview of our client.  As I noted in my last posting , my good friend, Jessica, played the role of Fatma Alhamad, the co-owner of three gourmet chocolate shops in Qatar. She and her husband, Mohammed, want a competitor to quit using the same trade name, "The Chocolate Drops," and a similar trademark in his own chocolate shop business.  That's the basic outline of the simulation. To supplement these facts, I have provided students with memos either from me or the "senior associate" about the client, the alleged infringer, and the chocolate industry. With this background information, I required them to draft ten questions for the client.   The exercise helps students develop listening, note-taking, summarizing, strategic planning, and questioning skills.  The students in the male section met first with the client.  I was excited to see that most of the studen

Week 4: The Fun Begins

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Meeting with the "Partner" This week I began distributing to students legal memos on "firm" letterhead. The firm name is: Suliman, Alwahaibi & Young, LL.C.  The first memo, one of three to date, described my initial meeting with the "clients," Fatma and Mohammed Alhamad.  They own a specialty chocolate shop at three different locations in Doha.  A competitor is using the same trade name and a similar logo.  The trade name is "The Chocolate Drops." The second memo provided some background information on the competitor and the competing product line, store, trade name, and trademark.  The third memo asked the students, playing the role of "junior associates," to attend a meeting with me, playing the law firm "partner." You see, I need to give them their legal research and writing assignments.  Next week, the will get another memo from the "senior associate," Maryam, who will describe the

Week 3: Learning to Brief a Case

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The Week of Chester, the Parrot Students are still enrolling in the course. So, we continue to provide background information as everyone continues to settle in.  This week we covered some important topics, but mostly through lecture (my least favorite way to teach).   We cover: Primary versus secondary sources of law.  Binding versus persuasive precedent in the common law system. The Qatari legal system and the role of case law. The Qatar International Court and Dispute Resolution Center . Case briefing. The professional value of competence as a lawyer. What a partner or a judge expects from a lawyer's writing. Bracket use in quotations. Ellipses dot use in quotations. And, how to read and brief a case carefully. It's ambitious coverage, and I often wonder how much of it they really understand. Luckily, we cover it several times throughout this course and the required Legal Writing II course. We use Conti vs. ASPCA as the first case students w

Week 2: Settling into the Semester

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My Bright and Shiny Students This second week of the semester marks the first week in which we hold all classes, labs, and office hours.  Students are also finalizing schedules.   We are beginning to know how the semester will feel and be.  It will be a busy one for me again.   I have two admissions to make.  First, I needed another week of vacation.  Here in Doha, unlike the U.S., we only have about two weeks of vacation between semesters.  This job is more demanding than teaching law in the U.S., so I miss those extra couple of weeks to rest and catch up.  Of course, I created some of my suffering by traveling to Malaysia and Taiwan during the break and then having to nurse a respiratory infection when I got back.  So, as we move through the next two weeks, I plan to assume we are all feeling a little sluggish.   Here's my second admission.  I've got great students in both sections.  They are all bright and shiny, and I can't wait to see what they will

Week 1: Starting Again

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A New Semester Comes to Qatar University Today, I am teaching my first class in my fourth semester at QU.  In other posts, I have described my students and how much I love and respect them here .  Each semester, of course, brings new students with new challenges, fears, motivation, grit, and desires for success in the class. I always "hold space" for what will unfold over the next several months.  I never make assumptions, because the classroom is a dynamic place that depends on me, but also on the leaders and pacesetters in the class. It also depends on the students who struggle to grasp legal writing in English as a second language. Here's wishing us all a happy, demanding, and successful semester. * I have permission to use the photos included in this blog.  

Manifesting Change

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"Calling it In from  the Universe" As part of my goal setting process at the beginning of this year, I reviewed the materials I assembled during my three entrepreneurial coaching programs offered by Christine Kane .  One of her workbook tools asked me to answer this question: "What will you have created/manifested/attracted in the upcoming year? The tool asked me to list ten things. I must have filled out this "intention and clarity" tool during the February 2015 retreat in Asheville, North Carolina.  At that time, I had applied for the job at Qatar University, but I did not have a job offer. I had visited Dubai in December 2014, and I knew I wanted a job in the Arab Gulf region.   Here is what I put on the list: New circle of close colleagues. New circle of expat friends. Inroads into Qatari culture. Travel in Asia. New fitness level. New home furnishings. New car, New student relationships. New diet. More cultural life.  So let me