Resources > Heartaches: Interviewing and Counseling
Heartaches: Interviewing and Counseling
Marjorie Corman Aaron
This simulation draws from a documentary describing the tragic consequences of substandard care – surgeons inexperienced and unskilled in Arterial Switch Surgery, inadequate equipment, and shoddy procedures for the care of infants with heart defects – in a hospital in northern England, operated by its National Health Service. There is a mediation phase to this scenario but each phase can be used independently. The interviewing and counseling phase, raises important (and discussion-worthy) questions around attorney-client privilege and disclosure obligations and conflict issues, as well as an attorney’s obligation to question a witness/client representative’s version of the facts – for the benefit of the corporate client and public health and safety.
The main purpose of the exercise is effective interviewing (trust, rapport, eliciting essential facts, considering the interviewees’ credibility, determining where skepticism or further investigation would be essential) as well as recognizing and handling lawyer’s ethics issues. The counseling challenges are largely focused on communicating regarding conflicts and ethical issues, though for the deceased parents, the lawyer must also communicate regarding current choices and strategic trade-offs (as described more fully in the Teaching Note).
Heartaches Interview: Confidential Information for General Counsel, Farmington Hospital (PDF)
Heartaches Interview: Confidential Information for Randy Keene, Esq. Keene & Fritz, LLC (PDF)