CELA Projects on the Horizon

CELA University will offer a structured, practical curriculum that walks members through the real-world lawyering skills we all wish we’d learned earlier. Programming will be organized into focused colleges:

• Employment Law 101 – Foundational legal and procedural principles
• Discovery College – From strategic RFPs to depositions and discovery battles
• Motions College – Pleadings, MSJs, discovery motions, and oral argument prep
• Deposition College – Techniques to prepare, conduct, and protect
• Practice Management – Running a sustainable, ethical, and effective plaintiff-side practice
• Arbitration College – Opposing arbitration and surviving it when you must
• Mediation & Attorney's Fees – Prepping to settle and getting paid
• Post-Trial & Appeals – What happens after the verdict

If you feel that law school didn't prepare you for the business of running a law firm, you're in good company; nearly every CELA member would say the same. To address this gap, the Employment Law Practice Committee is launching an ongoing series to strengthen the business side of our work. Sessions will draw on the expertise of CELA members and outside business professionals, offering practical strategies to help you manage and grow your firm. Topics include finance and budgeting, marketing, and talking to clients about money.

This initiative will provide resources, training, and community for legal staff to exchange information and ask/answer questions about the logistics of providing support to CELA attorneys, from filing to discovery or law and motion templates to legal research. CELA attorneys have a community they can rely on and a listserv in which to post questions and answers; our legal professionals should have the same resources.

a two-day in-person immersive training program designed to equip CELA attorneys with the tactical skills, legal framework, and confidence to take and defend effective depositions. The curriculum spans the full range of depositions encountered in employment litigation—including decisionmakers, percipient witnesses, HR and PMK witnesses, expert witnesses, and plaintiff’s deposition defense—with dedicated attention to questioning techniques, best practices, objections, exhibit use, and building a record for trial and MSJs. The program is built around a learn-by-doing approach: advocates will work in small groups to practice taking depositions and receive direct feedback from volunteer attorneys, ensuring hands-on skill development throughout.

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The CELA Legal Writing Workshop will provide practical writing tips as well as hands-on review of participants’ writing to help CELA members improve their legal writing skills.  The workshop will consist of both a remote webinar taught by experienced practitioners and an in-person session for feedback on participants’ legal writing. For the second session, workshop participants will submit a writing sample in response to a prompt and receive advanced edits from a workshop trainer, followed by in-person discussion with other workshop participants.