Keenan Trial Institute Undergraduate Courses

Welcome to Keenan Trial Institute! We are excited for you to begin this journey with us to increase your skills as a trial attorney and get the wins you and your clients deserve.

Attendance at the Welcome to the Keenan Edge Online Seminar is a prerequisite for the undergraduate courses. After you complete the WTKE online seminar, you can register for Course #1: The Rules & Case Selection course. Course #1 opens the door to the many of our other courses. We encourage you to check the pre-requisites for each course before you register.

We look forward to seeing you succeed in all you do as a Keenan Trial Institute member!

Cancellation/Refund policy: You can transfer your course payment to a new course date one time. You must notify us of this request two weeks before the course date. If you cannot attend the new course date selected, you forfeit the registration payment.

The Keenan Trial Institute was created to better prepare trial lawyers. The EDGE teaches how to streamline discovery, apply Black Letter Law, simplify and try a case to a jury efficiently. Neither the College or the EDGE was designed for CLE credits; we do offer CLE credits when we can, but that is not the goal of our program or system. Therefore, if you practice in a state that requires CLE credits, you must apply on your own to obtain your state’s credits. We do not register with individual states as a CLE provider.

Your Payment is Due at the Time of Your Course Registration.

Register for the Welcome to the Keenan Edge Online Seminar SIGN UP FOR UPDATES Class Calendar

Course #1: Rules & Case Selection

Rules & Case Selection is the sole entrance to the Keenan Trial Institute.  Completing Rules give students the right to attend other KTI courses.  Imagine leaving the Rules class with the introduction to an opening statement focused on winning your case in the first four and a half minutes.

Trial Lawyers first learn the dirt simple truth that case selection criteria are the most important focus of their case.  Students work in small groups to develop Rules for their own case.  Instructors introduce Don Keenan’s 7 Rules for Writing Safety Rules.   The KTI’s system for improving trial lawyer’s skill forces students to get on their feet and present their Rules to their classmates.  Using the “trifecta” tool, students and instructors collaborate to develop and refine their Rules.  Armed with safety rules, students give the introduction of the opening to the class.  Investing your time to critique fellow students makes you uber efficient in the right way and wrong way to develop safety rules.

The simple truth is the Rules College is the important foundation to the system trial lawyers deserve to win and protect their community’s safety by holding wrongdoers accountable.

SCHOLARSHIPS: We offer one scholarship for each course. To apply to receive a scholarship, please click here.

Pre-Requisites:  Welcome to the Keenan Edge

Tuition $1600.00. 

Your application is not complete until payment is received. Do not book any travel until payment has been completed and confirmed with KTI staff.

Register Now

Course #2: Openings & Order of Proof

The updated Openings is a cutting-edge course that builds, expands and gives us brand new elements to the opening statement. This course will teach you how Papa Don has been constructing his opening statements, that have now been tried and tested in hundreds of focus groups and trials. This course will give you the tools to build a bullet proof opening statement, that will take 12-minutes or less, and put you on your way to a successful verdict.

The cases with the most success in the updated Opening Course will be those far enough from trial to allow for time to work on the new techniques, tips and to further focus group your case.

Pre-Requisites: Welcome to the Keenan Edge, Course #1 Rules
TUITION $1300

Course #3: Focus Groups

In #3 Focus Group discover firsthand justice by the people.  Learn how to present and Facilitate Focus Groups inexpensively and efficiently.  You will join other trial lawyers in small groups and you will conduct Focus Groups to live group participants.

You will present your own case to the Group.  You will identify biases and prejudices and see how they affect your case.

Choose the Keenan trial institute way of researching your case from Bubba’s POV.  You will find that focus Groups are the best too in your litigation skills toolbox to hold the defendant accountable and to find the core of your case.

SCHOLARSHIPS: We offer one scholarship for each course. To apply to receive a scholarship, please click here.

Pre-Requisites: Welcome to the Keenan Edge, Course #1 Rules

Tuition $1500.00. 

Your application is not complete until payment is received. Do not book any travel until payment has been completed and confirmed with KTI staff.

Register Now

Course #4: Voir Dire

The art of voir dire is perhaps one of the most essential trial skills you need to acquire as an attorney. Choosing the decision-makers who will determine the fate of your case gives you an opportunity to get an upper hand before the trial even begins.

Are you fully equipped with all the tools needed to select the most sympathetic jury for your client?

This focused course allows you to gain the benefit of our instructors’ combined experience so you can better understand juror behavior, fine-tune your jury selection tactics, avoid missed opportunities when questioning prospective jurors and maximize your clients’ chances for a successful court ruling.

The Keenan Trial Institute’s course on voir dire will teach you The Keenan System of Jury Selection©. The organized template can be used immediately to put your jury selection on steroids.

Imagine having a focus-group tested, Keenan-created and approved jury selection system that includes each piece of The Edge© symphony.

We will review your opening, jury instructions, and rules to prepare a jury selection that will lay out your case the right way. You leave with ability to arm the jurors and kill the rats, so that your client can expect justice.  You and your clients deserve The Keenan Edge System of Jury Selection©. Once you take this course, you will have the right to use it.

You will also be added to the exclusive jury selection list-serv available only to those who have completed this class.

SCHOLARSHIPS: We offer one scholarship for each course. To apply to receive a scholarship, please click here.

Pre-Requisites:  Welcome to the Keenan Edge, Course #1 Rules and Course #3 Focus Groups

Tuition $1500.00. 

Your application is not complete until payment is received.

Register Now

Course #5: Depositions

In Keenan Trial Institute’s “Depositions” small-group course, our Faculty will work one-on-one with you and your current case to maximize your depositions. We’ll coach you through creating your hit list, deciding on and carrying out your question format, and using the deposition process and results to assemble and fine tune your direct and cross outlines for trial. You’ll learn many key deposition techniques — and role play with actual deponents as you’re individually coached with such important matters as guiding your witness in the skills needed to field intimidating questions.

SCHOLARSHIPS: We offer one scholarship for each course. To apply to receive a scholarship, please click here.

Pre-Requisites: Welcome to the Keenan Edge, Course #1 Rules

Tuition: $1,300

Your application is not complete until payment is received. Do not book any travel until payment has been completed and confirmed with KTI staff.

Register Now

Course #6: Witness Prep

In the Keenan Trial Institute’s small-group “Witness Prep” course, you’ll learn Keenan’s art and science of effective witness prep. You’ll learn that when it comes to testifying, there’s no such thing as a bad client. On the contrary, you’ll be coached through turning your client into your best witness. This game-changer is one of the most fundamentally important things you’ll ever learn as a trial lawyer. You’ll get one-on-one guidance in giving your witnesses the confidence and practice they need to face even the deftest of cross-examiners in both deposition and trial. You’ll learn to size up your witnesses, establish the right kind of rapport with them, appraise their testimony, anticipate and handle problems, and maximize strengths. You’ll get one-on-one coaching in practicing the steps of the Keenan Method of Witness Prep either with actual clients or paid actors.

Another pre-requisite to this Course is that you must have watched the Keenan’s Witness Prep DVDs. It is imperative that you watch the DVDs in order to be fully prepared for this course. We advise that you have this pre-requisite completed before attending the course. You can register for the course before completing this pre-requisite.

SCHOLARSHIPS: We offer one scholarship for each course. To apply to receive a scholarship, please click here.

Pre-Requisites: Welcome to the Keenan Edge, Course #1 Rules

Tuition $1300.00.

Your application is not complete until payment is received. Do not book any travel until payment has been completed and confirmed with KTI staff.

Register Now

Course #7: Mediation & Settlements

In Mediation, through a case that you bring, you will learn the psychology of settlements – what works and what doesn’t. By role playing the defense lawyer and mediator, this course will teach you to forcefully show the powerful issues in your case, present the visual case, and the principal of moving money.

Additionally, you will come to understand the preconditions to mediation that lead to effective and successful presentation of your case.

You will understand the dynamic of how to “move the money”. When you complete this course, you will understand the 3-legged stool: Control, Certainty and Closure.

You will learn how the other side determines the case value and the mechanics of the Buffet Paradigm.

SCHOLARSHIPS: We offer one scholarship for each course. To apply to receive a scholarship, please click here.

Pre-Requisites: Welcome to the Keenan Edge, Course #1 Rules

Tuition $1300.00.

Your application is not complete until payment is received. Do not book any travel until payment has been completed and confirmed with KTI staff.

Register Now

Course #8: Trial

The Keenan Trial Institute’s course on trial is where all the pieces of the Keenan Trial System come together. You will learn how all the key points from the other KTI Courses fit together that will take away the fear of going to trial.

You will learn how each phase of the case work up affects the ultimate outcome at trial and how an ounce of prevention in the beginning saves a pound of cure at the end. Learning how the different pieces fit together will help you build the case the right way and focus on the relevant key points for your jury.

In the KTI Trial Course we start at the beginning with the case selection criteria and move through each part of the case including rules, depositions, focus groups, witnesses, demonstrative evidence, and ending with the trial strategies and techniques that will ensure your jury understands the importance of your case.

This systematic approach will result in a trial-ready case well before any trial date, empower you with confidence as a trial lawyer, and show you how to be the victor at trial.

Pre-Requisites: Welcome to the Keenan Edge, Course #1 Rules

Tuition $1300.00. 

Your application is not complete until payment is received. Do not book any travel until payment has been completed and confirmed with KTI staff.

Register Now

Course #9: Damages

One of the most critical Courses taught at the Keenan Trial Institute is Damages.

This small-group college will provide you with the tools to take your case from a set of facts and turn it into a powerful weapon ready to be presented to a jury for an explosive verdict.

Everything taught at the Damages course will be tried and true methods of non-verbal persuasion, segments of closing for you to work on for your case, and how to tie it all together for different kinds of cases. Damages will explain why jurors give the way that they do and teach you how to motivate them to give what the full value of the case is. As with all KTI Courses, you’ll get hands-on guidance developing and optimizing Damages tactics for your cases.

SCHOLARSHIPS: We offer one scholarship for each course. To apply to receive a scholarship, please click here.

Pre-Requisites:  Welcome to the Keenan Edge, Course #1 Rules and Course #3 Focus Groups

Tuition $1300.00. 

Your application is not complete until payment is received. Do not book any travel until payment has been completed and confirmed with KTI staff.

Register Now

ELECTIVE Course – Employment

In this Employment elective course, Keenan Trial Institute faculty will work with you individually within small groups.

This college focuses on three of the most difficult but rewarding applications of the latest Keenan techniques to employment cases.  You’ll learn to develop and present the bad employer system that takes your employment case from an event case to a systems case.

You’ll learn to develop and present the mechanism of injury.  You’ll learn to spread the tentacles of danger.  You’ll learn how to embed these concepts in your case from case intake through the end of trial.

SCHOLARSHIPS: We offer one scholarship for each course. To apply to receive a scholarship, please click here.
Pre-Requisites:

Welcome to the Keenan Edge, Course #1 Rules

Tuition $1300.00. 

Your application is not complete until payment is received. Do not book any travel until payment has been completed and confirmed with KTI staff.

Register Now

ELECTIVE Course – Admitted Liability and Car Crash Litigation

The Admitted Liability and Car Crash Litigation course is one of our specialized courses and is an elective course.

TOPICS INCLUDE:
Low Speed Collision Cases
Intake & Pre-Existing Conditions
The Plaintiff’s Case
Using the Edge on Witnesses
Overcoming Insurance Hardball Methods
And many more.

As with all KTI courses, you’ll get hands-on guidance developing and optimizing Damages tactics for your cases.

SCHOLARSHIPS: We offer one scholarship for each course. To apply to receive a scholarship, please click here.

Pre-Requisites:

Welcome to the Keenan Edge, Course #1 Rules

Tuition: $1,300

Your application is not complete until payment is received. Do not book any travel until payment has been completed and confirmed with KTI staff.

Register Now

Elective: Women’s Summit

This is an elective course reserved for female attorneys only.

We look forward to this 2 day session providing improvements for women in the field.

We will cover the following topics:
The roadmap to the “model” female trial lawyer.​
Things you knew all along but never had permission to use.​
How to use our strengths to their advantage.
Women’s Secret Weapon: What you already have in
​your wheelhouse and how to tap into it
And many more​​

Only 16 seats are available.

As with all courses, you’ll get hands-on guidance developing and optimizing tactics for your cases.

SCHOLARSHIPS: We offer one scholarship for each course. To apply to receive a scholarship, please click here.
Pre-Requisites:

Welcome to the Keenan Edge, Course #1 Rules

TUITION: $600

Your application is not complete until payment is received. Do not book any travel until payment has been completed and confirmed with KTI staff.

Register Now

Undergraduate Courses 1

Don Keenan

Founder

Undergraduate Courses 2

David Hoey

Dean