For nine years Mike Galligan drove the 140 miles from McMinnville once each week to teach Trial Practice. His experience as a trial lawyer, trying civil and criminal cases in state and federal courts, benefited the students in his class, but he felt a benefit as well. Galligan loved teaching the course. But after literally thousands of miles, he decided he had to give up the weekly trek across the state. Although “retiring” from his adjunct teaching position, he wanted to stay involved with the advocacy program at the College of Law.
This spring, Mike Galligan returned to campus to teach a session on closing arguments and to talk about “Doing Well While Doing Good– how to have fun and make a difference while practicing law in a small town.”
Galligan also served as a judge for the First Annual First-Year Advocacy Competition, an event funded by his generous gift to the Center for Advocacy and Dispute Resolution. The Competition was intended to introduce first-year students to the Advocacy Concentration and to allow third-year students, trained in trial advocacy skills, to mentor their first year counterparts.
Twenty-one first-year students were paired with twenty-one third year students in the inaugural competition which required the competitors to quickly prepare and deliver opening statements based upon a hypothetical case. After preliminary rounds, six finalists delivered their opening statements a second time before a panel of nine judges. The winners received plaques and cash awards.