# Law — steal this assignment
_EL3vate 2026 · Day 8 · Part 03 of 15 · build 3dfcaff_

## Try it Tuesday (90 minutes)
90 minutes, no studio, no fabrication. Give every student the same one-paragraph fact pattern at the start of class. Minutes 0–20: students outline their strongest argument on paper, no AI. Minutes 20–70: each student runs the opposing-counsel prompt and argues the motion against it for at least eight exchanges on their own device, marking in the margin every point where they conceded and whether the concession was earned. Minutes 70–90: pairs swap transcripts and each finds the one place the other gave ground too early. The graded artifact is the annotated transcript — specifically the margin notes, which assess whether the student can recognize a weak concession under pressure.

## The assignment
**Make it (Hana recording studio).** Students record oral argument or client counseling in the studio, then annotate their own recording. Production quality matters here: a clean recording makes students confront delivery, pacing and filler in a way a classroom run-through never does.

**Build it (AI chat · no code).** An opposing counsel that never gets tired. Students argue a motion against an AI instructed to press the weakest point in their position and to interrupt. The unglamorous benefit is volume: every student gets ten rounds instead of one.

## 4-week plan
- **Wk 1.** Assign one fact pattern. Students brief it the traditional way. No AI yet.
- **Wk 2.** AI opposing counsel rounds, done as homework, minimum five exchanges. Students submit the transcript with their own margin notes marking where they conceded too fast.
- **Wk 3.** Studio recordings, scheduled in pairs. Ten minutes of argument, five of counseling.
- **Wk 4.** Students watch their own recording against the AI transcript and write a one-page delivery diagnosis. That reflection is the assessment.

## What this replaces
- **Replaces:** The single graded moot-court oral argument, where each student gets one live round in front of the class.
- **What is lost:** The pressure and authenticity of arguing before a human panel.
- **What is gained:** Volume — every student gets eight to ten adversarial rounds in one session instead of one, plus a written record of exactly where the argument broke, which a single live round never produces.

## Where AI is bad at this
In legal drafting the model fabricates case citations carrying correct-looking reporter formatting — a plausible volume number, a real-sounding court, a pincite — for cases that do not exist, and it defends the fabrication with equally fluent reasoning. The failure is dangerous precisely because the format is impeccable; the citation looks verified to anyone who does not pull the case.

## Rubric
| Criterion | Weight | What it assesses |
|---|---|---|
| Doctrinal accuracy | 25% | The argument correctly states the governing rule and applies it to the facts. |
| Response to the weakest-point attack | 30% | Grades whether the student defended the genuinely weak link under repeated pressure rather than restating the strong part of the argument. |
| Concession discipline | 25% | Margin notes correctly identify where a point was conceded and whether the concession was doctrinally earned or merely a retreat. |
| Citation verification | 20% | Any authority the student relied on — theirs or the AI's — is confirmed to exist and to say what it is cited for. |

## Starter prompt
> Act as opposing counsel in a moot court exercise for a law student. Here is the fact pattern and my position: [paste]. Your job is to find the weakest link in my argument and attack it repeatedly. Interrupt me when I am being evasive. Do not be collegial, do not concede a point unless I actually earn it, and do not offer to help me improve my argument. Ask one question at a time and wait for my answer.

## Budget & logistics
- **Instructor prep:** 1.5 hours
- **Class time:** 90 minutes
- **Per-student cost:** $0 for the Tuesday version; Hana studio time is free for UH faculty in the four-week version.
- **Fabrication file due:** No fabrication dependency; schedule paired studio sessions in week 3.
- **Calendar dependency:** The only scheduling constraint is booking Hana studio recording slots; there is no fabrication turnaround to plan around.

## Three sizes
- **One session:** The 90-minute annotated eight-round transcript above; no studio or fabrication.
- **4 weeks:** The seeded four-week plan: traditional brief, AI opposing-counsel rounds, studio recording, then a one-page delivery diagnosis.
- **One semester:** A full simulated matter — pleadings, motion practice against the AI, a recorded oral argument and client-counseling session, and a final reflection comparing AI opposition to a live human panel.

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_PACE · Shidler College of Business · University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa · pace.shidler.hawaii.edu/maker_
_All fifteen assignments, the demos and every handout: https://el3vate.vercel.app_