Equal Justice University 2025

The paralegal profession plays a pivotal role in the legal industry, offering essential support to attorneys and ensuring the smooth operation of legal processes. To enhance the skills and knowledge of paralegals, we propose a series of sessions focused on critical aspects of their work. These sessions aim to provide practical insights, ethical guidelines, and specialized training to empower paralegals in their professional roles.

Learning Objectives:

1. Assisting Attorneys with Drafting Documents and Trial Support 
2. Working with Domestic Violence Victims
3. Providing Victim Advocacy

One of the most powerful tools a mediator has is the ability to ask the right questions. The right question can bring clarity, shift perspective, promote empathy, and help people step back to examine their situation from a new angle. Asking questions is both an art and a skill. Legal professionals and mediators alike benefit from having a strong set of questions ready to use when the moment calls for it.

This presentation will explore how to interview and coach clients in conflict by using thoughtful, well-timed questions. We’ll cover what makes a question powerful, how to ask questions that move the conversation forward, and the different types of questions that can transform conflict and expand perspective.

Learning Objectives:

1. Understand how to use questions as a tool for conflict coaching and for gathering meaningful information from clients.    
2. Learn how to set the right tone when asking questions, and how tone can impact trust, clarity, and engagement.    
3. Explore different types of questions and build a go-to collection of questions to use in various conflict situations.

You’ve heard there’s two sides to a story and somewhere in the middle of the truth. But really how do you get closer to the truth when everybody lies? Do you want to know the truth? Are you putting away your personal biases? Are you afraid to ask uncomfortable questions? Are you uncomfortable asking hard and personal questions? How do you identify when somebody is being deceptive? How do you elicit information from a person who has information they want to conceal? This course will teach you how to identify deceptive behavior, how to elicit versus interrogate and how to improve the interview.

Learning Objectives:

1. Elicitation vs Interrogation 
2. Listening, Restarting, and Perception vs Perspective
3.     Indicators of Deception 

Project management is a vital skill in legal services work, showing up in everything from implementing strategic plans to engaging donors, planning events, organizing clinics, and meeting grant deliverables. This session is intended for beginner and mid-level leaders of projects to help provide tools and best practices to ensure the development and implementation of successful projects and programs to serve clients.

Learning Objectives:

1. Attendees will learn the 5 phases of project management and how they can be applied to their everyday management. 
2. Attendees will be familiar with some of the best practices for effective project management based on professional studies and experience in legal services settings. 
3. Attendees will understand how project management tools can support successful projects by identifying key features to look for—such as task tracking, timelines, collaboration, and visibility—regardless of the specific platform used. 

Many abusers misuse the court system to maintain power and control over their form or current partners. Tennessee is one of the few states that has a law specifically aimed at stopping a former romantic partner from filing vexatious litigation against an ex. Despite this law, misuse of the legal system by perpetrators remains relatively common and the stress incurred from this experience can drain victims' finances, cause them to miss work, pull them away from their families, and force them to navigate the complex legal system, often on their own. This training will explore how these systems can be leveraged against victims and what professionals can do to mitigate the harm.

Learning Objectives:

1. Discuss the definition of litigation abuse and common tactics seen in these cases.
2. Review/study TCA 29-41-101.
3. Present best practices to mitigate the harm.

This session will explore how First Amendment rights—particularly freedom of speech, petition, and association—intersect with a wide range of legal practice areas. We have, for example, seen First Amendment issues arise in the immigration enforcement context and selective targeting of individuals based on their underlying speech rights. Some instances of criminal law also raise concerns about free expression. In the professional sphere, rights of association and expression can be implicated when attorneys undertake controversial representation or speak out on matters of public concern. This session will offer attendees the opportunity to learn about First Amendment rights that may apply to their practice areas and share their experiences—highlighting real-world examples and offering practical tools for client advocacy. The panel will be interactive, including real-world hypotheticals, discussion, and resource sharing.

Learning Objective:
First Amendment framework/tools that can be used across practice areas.

This session will provide attorneys and paralegals with essential guidance on the ethical and practical considerations in supervising non-attorneys in legal practice. Participants will explore Tennessee's Rules of Professional Conduct, ethical obligations, and best practices to ensure compliance and effective delegation while maintaining professional responsibility.

Learning Objectives:

1. Identify best practices for maintaining ethical integrity while delegating legal tasks. 
2. Discuss potential risks and liabilities associated with improper supervision. 
3. Explore real-world case studies illustrating both successful and problematic supervision scenarios.

The course covers restraining orders, temporary injunctions, and permanent injunctions in Tennessee courts of record, including caselaw, statutory and rule requirements; defenses; appeals; and pitfalls.

Learning Objectives:

1. Better understanding of the three types of injunctions.
2. Better understanding of how to seek and defend against injunctive relief. 
3. Better understanding of appellate review of the granting and denial of injunctive relief.

The course covers civil and criminal contempt of court in Tennessee’s courts of record, including caselaw, statutory and rule requirements; defenses; appeals; and pitfalls.

Learning Objectives:

1. Better understanding of criminal and civil contempt and their differences. 
2. Better understanding of how to seek and defend against contempt sanctions. 
3. Better understanding of appellate review of the granting and denial of contempt sanctions.