3/22/05—Boston College Law School’s Client Counseling Team was a semi-finalist in the National competition, held recently at Chapman Law School in California. Students Tiffany Morris and Daniel Navisky lost by a very narrow margin to the eventual winner of the competition.

“Tiffany and Dan performed as if they had worked with their clients and with each other for years,” said team coach Evangeline Sarda. “Their performances were so skillful and so consistently strong that I never had an anxious moment during the interviews. It reflects the depth of my faith in their competence and remarkable interviewing skill, which they have revealed time and again over the past month.”

In the semi-final round, the team met stiff competition from the team from the William Boyd School of Law in Nevada. The judges had a very difficult time choosing the winner, and reserved their highest praise for the BC Law Team.

“They were the only 1L team that made it to the semi-finals, perhaps the only 1L team at the competition, so their feat is doubly remarkable,” Sarda said. “The entire BC Law community should be very proud and appreciative of these two wonderful representatives of our school.”

The Client Counseling Competition provides an opportunity for law students to develop valuable skill in interacting with and proposing solutions for clients. The competition simulates an office environment "consultation" in which the attorneys meet their client for the first time. Each team of two attorneys attempts to obtain the legally relevant information from the background factual context and then supplies the client with a preliminary summary of the client's legal position and the client's possible actions.

The purpose of the competition is to promote greater knowledge and interest among law students in the preventative law and counseling functions of law practice and to encourage students to develop interviewing, planning and analytical skills in the lawyer-client relationship through an enjoyable and positive process. The competition simulates a law office consultation situation in which law students, acting as attorneys are presented with a typical client matter. They must conduct an interview with a person playing the role of client and then explain how they would proceed with the hypothetical situation. Each situation poses both legal and ethical dilemmas with which the attorneys must deal. All relevant background will be provided to the competitors.