3/2/17 (written by Ashley Ahrens-Víquez) Now in its third year, Justice in Mexico’s OASIS (Oral Adversarial Skill-Building Immersion Seminar) program just completed its first of three workshops providing oral advocacy training to law faculty and students at Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) Law School in Mexico City this past week.
Organized as a 40-hour intensive workshop, participants had the opportunity to further develop skills and techniques specifically adapted for Mexico’s New Criminal Justice System (Nuevo Sistema de Justicia Penal, NSJP). The main goal of the workshops are to provide oral adversarial skills training to UNAM Law School faculty and students and support Mexico’s transition and implementation of its oral, adversarial and accusatory criminal justice system.
Workshop Structure
During the two-week workshop, various instructors gave lectures on different aspects of oral litigation, including 1) Structure of Opening Statements; 2) Sufficiency of the Evidence; 3) Closing Arguments and Sentencing; Theory of the Case; Presenting Evidence at Trial; Interrogation and Cross-examination; Objections; Use of prior statements; and Legal theory. The workshops are comprised of about 20 hours of theory and about 20 hours of practical exercises, and are taught by United States, judges, prosecutors, and/or defense attorneys, with teaching experience in the United States. Some Mexican and Chilean prosecutors and/or defense attorneys are also incorporated to provide comparative perspective. On the final day of the seminar, participants apply what they have learned in a mock trial, after which they receive feedback on their performance and suggestions for improvement.
Since 2015, the OASIS program has helped to further develop oral advocacy trial skills to over 359 UNAM law students and law professors. As the February workshop draws to a close, Justice in Mexico looks forward to the successful implementation of the next two OASIS oral advocacy skill building workshops taking place March 13-25 and April 3-7, 2017 at UNAM Law School.
