Four Public Service Attorneys Attend NITA Training Thanks to Generosity of Denver Law Firm Wheeler Trigg O'Donnell LLP

BOULDER, CO: On Saturday April 14th, 52 lawyers were in Boulder attending The National Institute for Trial Advocacy's (NITA) Building Trial Skills program. The lawyers going through the training were from all across the country and firms of all sizes. Thanks to a generous donation by Denver law firm Wheeler Trigg O'Donnell LLP to the NITA Foundation, four of those in attendance were public service attorneys. This donation covered full tuition and also offered need-based travel assistance for these lawyers, who represent those in communities of people who traditionally are unable to afford legal services.

"Thanks to this very generous gift, public service lawyers have the opportunity to train side-by-side with attorneys from private law firms," said NITA Program Director Mark Caldwell. NITA programs put lawyers in a real life courtroom setting and use a learning-by-doing method maximizing individual performance time and feedback from faculty. "One of the great things about teaching these public service attorneys," Caldwell explained, "is that they have such busy work loads and are consistently in trial so they will leave the program on Saturday the 21st and use the skills they just worked on that next Monday."

Wheeler Trigg O'Donnell's $10,000 donation stretches farther than just the program in April. It also covers costs for four spots in NITA's National Session in July and two spots in the Rocky Mountain Deposition Skills program in December. The firm has a history with NITA as eleven partners have served as NITA faculty at these types of programs, including John M. Vaught, who is teaching at the Building Trial Skills Program.

Wheeler Trigg O'Donnell is a Denver based, nationally recognized law firm that handles trials, appeals, arbitrations, and other areas related to complex civil litigation, including early case assessments, pre-trial negotiations, internal investigations, class actions and multidistrict litigation, on a local, regional, and national scale.

NITA is the world's leader in advocacy skills training and publications. A 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization based in Boulder, Colorado, NITA's mission is to train and mentor lawyers to be competent and ethical advocates in the pursuit of justice.

Founded in 2003, the NITA Foundation has awarded more than $2.4 million in funds for the NITA scholarship program and in support for public service programming. For more information please visit, www.nitafoundation.org.

For more information contact Daniel McHugh, NITA's Director of Marketing at 303.953.6828 or dmchugh@nita.org.