Teaching of Psychology, 35: 210–213, 2008
C Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
Copyright ISSN: 0098-6283 print / 1532-8023 online
DOI: 10.1080/00986280802189189
An Advocacy Exercise for a Psychology
and Law Course
Edie Greene
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University of Colorado at Colorado Springs
This article describes an active learning component of an
advanced course in psychology and law. The assignment
is to present, in the context of a mock appellate court, the
best available psychological data in support of one party in a
legal case. Students choose one side of a hypothetical case,
locate and review the relevant scientific literature, prepare
written analyses and arguments, and present those analyses
to a panel of student-justices who question them about the
nature of their evidence and the validity of their conclusions.
Postcourse assessments showed that the exercise enhanced
students’ conceptual knowledge of psychology and law as
well as their ability to organize and synthesize empirical
data, form an argument on the basis of data, and present
that argument to the public.
This article describes an active learning exercise that
serves as the culmination of a semester-long advanced
course in psychology and law. The activity mimics appellate court procedures and requires students to function at different times both as psychology expert and
appellate court justice. More specifically, students become advocates for a particular party in a legal case and
must locate and present the best available empirical
psychological evidence that would help that party prevail. They then present oral arguments based on their
evidence in front of a three-justice panel (as in actual
appellate courts) constituted of the professor and two
students who have read the student-advocates’ written
analyses (in legal terminology, “briefs”) and who question them about the basis for their findings and the
validity of their conclusions. As in appellate courts,
the advocates have exactly 30 min to present their
arguments.
This assignment is novel to students because although psychologists routinely testify as experts in trial
courts, they do not typically make presentations before
panels of justices in appellate courts. Students become
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aware of this fact through readings and in previous
class discussion of the roles that psychologists play in
the legal system. But the exercise demonstrates the
broad concept of applying psychological research findings to the legal system, and the novelty of the exercise
works in its favor because students must think creatively about how to convince others of the legitimacy
of their arguments and supporting data; they cannot
rely on case precedents, media images, or reports prepared by others.
There are four prerequisites for the course: introductory psychology, psychological statistics, research
methods (a class in which students learn to carry out
literature reviews, analyze published research studies,
and design and conduct their own empirical research
projects), and a survey course in psychology and law
(a course that focuses on the role of psychological research and practice in informing legal issues). Thus,
students come to the advanced course with a moderate
level of knowledge about empirical research in psychology, generally, and in psychology and law, specifically.
There are typically 12 to 16 students in this course although the exercise could work effectively with as few
as 8 or as many as 20 students.
To set the stage for this activity, during the first
half of the semester I assign and discuss with students
an article written by psychologists on the role of amicus curiae or “friend of the court” briefs (Roesch,
Golding, Hans, & Reppucci, 1991). Amicus curiae
briefs are written reports offered to appellate court justices by parties (e.g., the American Psychological Association [APA]) who have some stake in, or information
relevant to, the outcome of a case. We then read and
discuss several amicus curiae briefs prepared by psychologists in cases that have come before the United
States Supreme Court (e.g., APA-authored briefs in
Maryland v. Craig [1990] on child witnesses, Sell v.
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U.S., 2003, on forced medication of mentally ill offenders and competence to stand trial, Lockhart v. McCree, 1986, on death-qualified juries in death penalty
cases, and Harris v. Forklift Systems, Inc., 1993, on sexual harassment). These briefs are available online at
http://www.apa.org/psyclaw/amicus.html.
After reading and discussing the briefs, students prepare their own amicus curiae briefs, adhering carefully
to the format and style of the briefs they read. Just
prior to midsemester, I present written details of 6 to
10 fictitious cases, depending on the number of students enrolled. (I offer half the number of cases as
students enrolled.) By lottery, students choose the case
they will argue and the side they will represent from
among the descriptions that I provide. Thus, only two
advocates present each case, and each student has a
unique assignment.
All the cases are hypothetical but based on controversial issues that have been litigated and for which
empirical psychological research data exist. I choose
issues about which students can make reasonable arguments, based on empirical research, for either side.
Over the years, the topics have concerned sexual predator statutes and predictions of sex offender recidivism, conflicting rights in adoption cases, the effects
of statutes that require parental notification prior to
abortion, relocation of children after a divorce, and
the consequences of drug testing for pregnant women,
among others. The case descriptions direct students
to focus on specific issues in the controversy. I provide details of one such case in Table 1. For this case,
one student would locate, synthesize, and write about
the empirical evidence in support of the validity of repressed memories (e.g., Williams, 1994), and another
student would argue for the existence of false memories
(e.g., Mazzoni & Memon, 2003).
Students have 3 to 6 weeks to survey the literature, construct their arguments, and prepare their written amicus curiae briefs. (The variable length of time
is related to the fact that oral arguments occur during the last few weeks of the semester—at a rate of
approximately two cases per 3-hr class session—and
students provide copies of their written briefs to me
and all classmates 1 week prior to their scheduled
oral arguments.) Written amicus curiae briefs are typically between 12 and 15 pages in length, excluding
references.
By the following week, the students and I have read
these briefs as well as background articles chosen by
the advocates. Then, just prior to oral arguments, I
randomly select two students from the class to join me
Vol. 35, No. 3, 2008
Table 1. Case Facts in Green v. Gold on the
Reliability of Repressed Memories
Charles Green, the plaintiff/appellant, alleged severe physical, sexual, and psychological abuse by a priest, Father
Bernard Gold, the defendant/respondent, at a parochial high
school during the 1960s and 1970s. Green claims that to
avoid the pain of the abuse, his memory of the events was repressed. The memories began to reappear in 1999. In 2002,
he sued the priest, the school, the archdiocese, and the archbishop. In a previous trial, the judge ruled in favor of the
defendant on the grounds that the statute of limitations on the
plaintiff’s claim had expired. (According to the applicable law,
the “date of wrong” is when the plaintiff knew or should have
known that harm had been done to him, and he had 3 years
beyond that point to file suit.) Charles Green now appeals
that decision. He argues that his memories were repressed,
rather than forgotten. Thus, the court should use the delayeddiscovery rule, which was developed for cases that involved
belated awareness of harm, to begin the statute of limitations
at the time the abuse memories were recovered.
The question for oral argument concerns the reliability of
so-called repressed memories. The plaintiff, Green, contends
that repression exists apart from the normal process of forgetting and that there is scientifically valid evidence documenting
the existence of repressed memories in situations of abuse.
The defendant, Gold, argues that the 3-year statute of limitations should apply because scientific evidence suggests
that repressed memories are indistinguishable from forgotten memories and because of documented instances of false
memories of child sexual abuse.
as appellate justices. Our task is to pose questions to the
advocates as in actual appellate courts. This assignment
requires that all class members become familiar with
the topic and the research data on which each advocate
relies, think critically about the arguments advanced
in the amicus curiae briefs, and prepare questions for
the advocates prior to class. With random selection
of judges, students do not know, prior to class time,
whether they will serve as judges that day so all must
come to class fully prepared.
I grade students on their performance as appellate
judges (in particular, on the number and insightfulness
of their questions) as well as on their own amicus curiae briefs and oral arguments. Early in the semester I
provide a rubric that outlines grading criteria for each
of these tasks.
Impact on Teaching and Learning
I have evaluated changes in students’ knowledge
of some core concepts in psychology and law as well
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Table 2.
Students’ Mean Self-Reported Assessments and Standard
Deviations, Precourse and Postcourse
Precourse
Item
Organize a large amount of research material
Form and support an opinion on the basis of research
Speak in public for 30 min while being interrupted
Postcourse
M
SD
M
SD
p
6.18
6.72
5.55
1.47
1.35
1.97
8.27
8.91
8.18
1.19
1.14
1.08
<.01
<.01
<.01
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Note. Response options ranged from 1 (no ability) to 10 (extensive ability).
as self-assessments of their ability to perform tasks inherent in this exercise by asking students to complete
identical pre- and postcourse questionnaires.1 I scored
all the data blind to whether the responses came from
the precourse or postcourse assessment.
The knowledge-based questions were eight short answer questions such as “Who typically writes an amicus curiae brief?,” “Who is a petitioner?,” and “In a
legal case, what is the ‘holding’?” The mean number
correct (of eight questions) on the precourse assessment was 2.09 (SD = 1.58); the mean number correct
on the postcourse assessment was 5.45 (SD = 1.69),
t(11) = 5.25, p < .01. The self-assessment questions
asked students to gauge their ability to (a) organize a
large amount of research-based data, (b) form and support an opinion on the basis of research-based data,
and (c) speak in public for 30 min while being interrupted with questions. Students answered these questions on a 10-point Likert-type scale with response
options ranging from 1 (no ability) to 10 (extensive ability). The data appear in Table 2. On all three items,
students rated their ability as significantly higher after the exercise than before the exercise: organize research material, t(11) = 3.63, p < .01; form and support opinion, t(11) = 3.74, p < .01; speak in public,
t(11) = 5.07, p < .01. Although it is difficult to determine to what extent the advocacy exercise, rather than
the course itself, contributed to these results, the data
generally show enhancements in both knowledge and
skills.
Creating and refining this activity has caused me
to think hard about engaging students in novel, active learning paradigms that contrast radically with the
typically passive way in which students learn in many
classroom environments. It has also required careful
1
The data I report came from 12 students who comprised
the most recent course.
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attention to the notion of scaffolding. Over the course
of the semester, I introduce students to successive aspects of this assignment and assign increasingly difficult
readings, oral presentations of research studies, and
more integrative writing tasks that culminate in the
preparation and presentation of the advocacy exercise.
This advocacy exercise requires students to locate,
synthesize, and condense a large amount of empirical data into a concise, organized, and forceful written
analysis and to present that analysis in an adversarial
context, thinking “on their feet” and modifying their
presentation as the situation demands. The assignment
forces students to refine skills they developed in their
research methods course and pushes some outside of
their comfort zones. (Note that the mean precourse
score on the item “Ability to speak in public for 30
min” was only 5.55.)
Students treat this assignment very seriously. They
meet with me outside of class to request help in structuring their arguments and preparing their briefs, they
seek help from other instructional personnel on campus to improve their writing and speaking skills, and
they present themselves in a very formal way when
they are “in court.” This high level of professionalism, as well as data pointing to enhanced conceptual learning and improvements in abilities to organize complex empirical material and present arguments
based on that material, suggests that the exercise is
effective.
References
Harris v. Forklift Systems, Inc., 510 U.S. 17 (1993).
Lockhart v. McCree, 476 U.S. 162 (1986).
Maryland v. Craig, 497 U.S. 836 (1990).
Mazzoni, G., & Memon, A. (2003). Imagination can create
false autobiographical memories. Psychological Science, 14,
186–188.
Teaching of Psychology
Note
Send correspondence to Edie Greene, Department of Psychology, University of Colorado at Colorado Springs,
P.O. Box 7150, Colorado Springs, CO 80933; e-mail:
egreene@uccs.edu. Both sample case descriptions and
grading rubric are available from the author.
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Roesch, R., Golding, S. L., Hans, V. P., & Reppucci, N.D.
(1991). Social science and the courts: The role of amicus
curiae briefs. Law and Human Behavior, 15, 1–11.
Sell v. U.S., 539 U.S. 166 (2003).
Williams, L. M. (1994). Recall of childhood trauma: A
prospective study of women’s memories of child sexual
abuse. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 62,
1167–1176.
Vol. 35, No. 3, 2008
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