Students help legal world sit up and take notice of Boyd school

Eric Leake

Friday, March 25, 2005 | 3:02 a.m.

WEEKEND EDITION

March 26 - 27, 2005

If competitors going into the National Client Counseling Competition were not familiar with the UNLV law school, they ought to be by now.

Two second-year law students -- Lisa McClane and Jay Odum -- represented UNLV's William S. Boyd School of Law to win the law student division of the American Bar Association competition March 12 in Anaheim, Calif.

"It's really awesome to go into a competition when a lot of people don't even know that Las Vegas has a law school," McClane said. "They underestimate us. We take them by surprise."

In the competition, McClane and Odum acted as attorneys conducting a joint interview of potential clients played by actors. Judges evaluated and scored the students' interview performance.

The duo from UNLV bested teams from 14 other schools and will represent the country in the Louis M. Brown International Client Counseling Competition April 7 in Hawaii.

The students were assisted by Jean Sternlight, Saltman Professor of Law and Director of the Saltman Center for Conflict Resolution.

McClane said judges commended the team for presenting their clients options, such as mediation, to resolve conflicts with or without litigation.

She said one of the most difficult aspects of the competition was the half-hour time limit for interviewing clients.

"It's hard to get all that information out of them, explain their options, and not feel like you're rushing them out the door," McClane said.

The team is now reviewing contract law for the Hawaii contest. The national competition focused on sports and entertainment law.

Jay Odum sounded confident that he and his partner will enter the competition as a well-conditioned team.

"I think that what's really worked for us is that we're at the point where we really work well together," Odum said. "We both stay on the same page most of the time."

He said at first he and McClane tripped over one another in practice interviews because their approaches were so similar, but that shared direction is now a strength.

Odum and McClane agreed that the coaching of local attorneys was valuable as were their experiences outside of the classroom before entering law school.

"Jay and I are both older students, so we both worked," McClane said. "Just having work experience and life experience helped as well."

McClane, 30, spent a decade working in local law firms. Odum, 36, is an Army veteran and former Nebraska police officer, which he said helped in asking clients the right questions.

UNLV is proud of the team and school's accomplishments, announcing the win on its Internet home page. Odum said the achievement is among many for the school.

"Success by the UNLV law school teams are becoming more the rule than the exception," he said.