A Practical Approach to Client Interviewing, Counseling, and Decision-Making: For Clinical Programs and Practical Skills Courses

This book provides a practical approach to client interviewing, counseling, and decision-making. These are practical skills, not theoretical ones. Thus, the overall pedagogical approach taken by the text is to explain to students what to do and how to do it when engaging in interviewing, counseling, and decision-making with a client. This accords with the growing trend in law schools to de-emphasize heuristic theory in teaching practical skills and, instead, to teach those skills in simulated "real-life" contexts. Based on the guidance and techniques provided in the text, students will best learn the skills of interviewing and counseling by applying them in various role plays contained in the Teacher's Manual or through other role plays developed by their professor. Three other features of this book are worthy of mention:

The book is deliberately designed to be short―to "get to the point," without unnecessary palaver.

The book provides an extensive discussion of the most pertinent provisions of the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct relating to client interviewing, counseling, and decision-making.

The book discusses interviewing witnesses and counseling in certain special contexts, including counseling about settlement, counseling through the writing of opinion letters, counseling the client as a deponent, and counseling the criminal defendant.

G. Nicholas (Nick) Herman has taught law for over twenty-five years, variously at NCCU Law School, Campbell Law School, Duke Law School, and UNC-CH Law School. He is also a principal in The Brough Law Firm, PLLC in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, concentrating in complex civil litigation and appeals in local government law.

Before retiring, Jean Cary was Associate Professor of Law at Campbell University Norman Adrian Wiggins School of Law.