New leadership for the Advocacy Institute
As UB Law looks to the start of a new academic year, its Advocacy Institute—the constellation of classroom and in-court experiences that build students’ skills in the vital art of oral advocacy—is welcoming new leaders with deep roots in the craft.
The institute will be led by Professor Christine Bartholomew, who most recently has served as vice dean for academic affairs and on the institute’s board of directors, and adjunct instructor Jennifer Scharf ’05, a longtime Trial Technique teacher and administrator of moot courts and trial teams. They succeed Professor Anthony O’Rourke, who in six years as director has greatly strengthened the law school’s advocacy curriculum, expanded community outreach and put the institute on a firm financial footing.
As faculty director of the Advocacy Institute, Bartholomew will have primary responsibility for the quality of academic offerings around advocacy, and as program director, Scharf will maintain her focus on moot courts and trial teams. Those elements build on one another, and they say the goal is to ensure a seamless set of opportunities for UB Law students to develop the tools of effective advocacy.
“This gives us a frame to make sure all the integrated components of advocacy are addressed, refined and evaluated,” Bartholomew says. “Every program at the law school is interrelated with some other component. Nobody comes to law school being a perfect advocate. First you have to know the law, then you have to understand the rules of evidence, know the procedure that limits how you frame your arguments, and put those pieces together and find your own voice as a lawyer.”