Joshua S. Houston

One of the most important skills I learned because of the course came from an exercise that seemed utterly ridiculous at the time. We held a mock interest group meeting to discuss a piece of proposed legislation. Like a high school drama class, Professor Brady cast each of us in roles as elected officials, as directors of state agencies, as representatives of a interested organization or as concerned citizens who were directly affected by the legislation. We then argued from the position of that person. It became quite humorous to watch my non-actor classmates portray the characters such as my friend who is a veteran of running democratic political campaigns play a far right political appointee of a republican governor to a state agency. Even though the bad acting got over the top, I learned a lot about my own negotiation skills and how to further develop them. I hope to spend a good bit of my career around the Legislature, where negotiation is an essential skill that I would not have otherwise been taught in law school but for this course.