Litigation and Alternative Dispute Resolution
Georgetown Law students can study litigation, the judicial process, and alternative dispute resolution (ADR) in traditional classroom settings, in clinics, and in practice-oriented seminars such at trial advocacy, negotiations, and appellate practice.
The Georgetown Law faculty features national experts in litigation and ADR whose scholarship explores subjects such as complex litigation, arbitration and mediation, law firm compensation, and litigation finance.
Georgetown Law’s location in Washington, DC also provides a fruitful training ground for developing court room skills. Many clinics provide hands-on litigation training. The Appellate Litigation Clinic, for example, provides intense training in the art of oral and written advocacy, teaching students how to litigate on appeal and the professional standards that will guide them throughout their legal careers.
Students in other clinics regularly appear in domestic violence court, immigration tribunals, juvenile criminal court, and other forums, giving them advocacy skills that serve them throughout their career.
As many legal disputes have moved from courts to private arbitration and mediation, familiarity with this area of law is essential to those practicing in areas as diverse as litigation, transactional areas, governmental settings, and management.
Georgetown Law’s rich curricular offerings provide a firm grounding in ADR theory and opportunities to use negotiation and problem-solving skills in a wide variety of substantive settings. Many of these courses combine theory with extensive simulations and then reflection on what makes for a successful dispute resolution. Students pursing an LL.M. degree can obtain a certificate in international arbitration and dispute resolution.
Students interested in pursuing a career in litigation or dispute resolution can participate in the largest and most diverse moot court program of any top law school. The student-organized Barristers Council organizes and trains students to compete in appellate advocacy, trial advocacy, and alternative dispute resolution.
Meet the
faculty
Experiential Opportunities
Appellate Courts Immersion Clinic
The Appellate Courts Immersion Clinic handles a wide range of public-interest appellate litigation – from civil rights to consumer law to workers’ rights to access-to-justice issues to immigration law to criminal justice.
Appellate Litigation Clinic
The Appellate Litigation Program has been one of the core clinical programs at the Law Center for over forty years an provides intense training in the art of oral and written advocacy.
Rising for Justice (Housing Advocacy and Litigation Clinic)
The Rising for Justice program is a unique consortium of 5 law schools whose students provide quality legal representation, assistance, and counseling to low-income clients in the District of Columbia.