In 1981, this College was co-founded by Professor Stephen A. Saltzburg, then University of Virginia School of Law, and now the Wallace and Beverly Woodbury University Professor, George Washington University Law School, and the Honorable Herbert J. Stern, then United States District Court, Newark, New Jersey.

Virginia Continuing Legal Education and the University of Virginia School of Law partnered with these individuals to create an “Annual Institute of Trial Advocacy.” This Institute has evolved into what today is the National Trial Advocacy College, a partnership between Virginia Continuing Legal Education and the University of Virginia School of Law, with Stephen Saltzburg as its Director.

The College has attracted a prominent faculty in excess of 50 trial attorneys, judges, professionals, and experts, many of whom have a long and distinguished tenure with the College. With an enrollment limited to 150 lawyers per year, the College has refined the skills of thousands of lawyers from across the world, from Australia to South Africa to Japan.

The format of the program has remained its cornerstone: lectures and demonstrations by prominent faculty, followed by extensive training in groups of eight by a faculty member. In these groups, the lawyers practice and perform every advocacy skill in a simulated setting. Critique from the faculty and peers then ensues, all videotaped for the benefit of the attendee. After this hands-on trial skills training, the lawyer teams with a member of the group to prepare and try a case against another pair of attendees — before a live jury with an experienced trial judge.

In 1987 the College instituted the Brennan Award in honor of Justice William J. Brennan, Jr. The honorees, many of whom also lecture at the College, have in recent years included Justice Antonin Scalia, David Boies, James Brosnahan, Benjamin Civiletti, Peter Neufeld, Barbara J. Rothstein, Ted Wells, and Kenneth R. Feinberg.