Food, Service, Industry

• Author: Jenny B. Davis
• Pages: 10-11

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attor ney Trilogy for for PlayStation

4, Xbox One and other gaming consoles. Users play a

newbie lawyer investigating cr imes by surveying scenes,

interview ing witnesses and gathering evidence. They ge t

into courtroom ac tion, using case fi les to exa mine wit-

nesses, call out contra dictions in statements and advise

clients on the stand. The $29.99 game is rated T for Teen

by the Entertain ment Software Ratings Board.

Preyar’s teen-targe ted board game and Phoenix Wright

are among the latest o er ings that gamify law for a new

generation, but there are others on the market hoping to

educate and captivate.

The State Bar of Texas’ Law-Related Education depar t-

ment has a suite of online games , including the evi-

dence law game Objection! Your Honor. And retired U.S.

Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’C onnor founded

iCivics in 2009 to b oost civic education via online

games at no cost to schools. More tha n 6 million ele-

mentary to high school st udents have used the game,

says Louise Dubé, execut ive director of the Cambridge,

Massachusett s-based nonprofi t . Titles include Do I Have

a Right? in which students play at runn ing their own law

fi r m .

“[O’Connor’s] v ision was to go in when they’re younger,”

Dubé says. “It’s really to build a sense that you belong

to a country and that it ’s very important t o know how it

works. What the rules a re. What is the rule of law? What

does it mean?”

Chris Smithmyer, vice pre sident of international a airs

at Brāv Online Confl ict Management and an adjunct

professor at Penn State University Alt oona College and

the Univerity of South Florida St. Petersbur g’s Kate

Tiedemann College of Business , notes that gaming is a

good way to teach lega l concepts to millennials.

“Gamifi cat ion is a very important element in modern

academic thought, spec ifi cally related to the legal i ndus-

try,” Smithmyer says.

Tina Nelson’s Lawsuit! board game ha s a younger gen-

erational target . She created the game as a Father’s Day

gift to te ach her children about what she and her hus-

band—they are both in private pra ctice in New York

City—do at work. Players collect money when they win

lawsuits and reach set tlements, lose turns when par-

ties fail to come to ter ms, and pay money when they fail

to fi le appeals on t ime. Friends encouraged Nelson to

mass-produce the game. It’s sold for about $35 at the

Supreme Court Historica l Society Gift Shop, the National

Constitution Center and the Madison Museum of

Contemporary Ar t, as well as online.

“Basically, I tried to ma ke it fun and mimic what it’s

like to be a lawyer a s much as I could without losing the

fun aspect of t he game,” Nelson says. “Young kids don’t

care necessar ily that they’re learning. They just want to

have fun.”

Food, Service, Industry

This Hudson Valley lawyer serves up a deliciously dif erent practice model

WHEN JASON M. FOSCOLO decided

to go solo, he had something very

specifi c in mi nd. He wanted to work

exclusively with farmers a nd food

entrepreneurs. He wanted to work

with his clients li ke a general coun-

sel would—with depth and consis-

tency—rather than just being the

guy who got called in a cr isis. He

also wanted to live a nd work where

he and his family could be clos er to

the land. While Foscolo could envi-

sion the goal, he wasn’t exactly su re

he’d get there with his background as

a judge advocate in the U.S. Mar ine

Corps. But achieve it he did. Today,

he’s the founder of the Food Law

Firm , a four-law yer shop that serves

its clients through an in novative sub-

scription billing serv ice that allows

Foscolo to keep both his hours and

his income steady. He also lives and

works in Red Hook, a charmi ng town

in New York’s Hudson Valley known

for its family farm s, scenic nature

trails and sophist icated restaurants.

Tell me about the name the Food

Law Firm. I mean, it ’s great mar-

keting—there’s no question about

what type of law you pra ctice!

Technically, the name of my fi rm

is Jason Foscolo PLLC, but calling

it the Food Law Firm gives me the

sandbox to integrate a ll the regula-

tions that a ec t the food business.

My theory from the very beg inning

was that I had to be c omprehensive,

to o er soup-to-nuts ser vice for the

food business.

You started your car eer as a JAG

lawyer pract icing mostly crimi-

nal law. How did you get the idea

to combine law and food? Did you

have food industr y experience?

No. I had no food industry exp e-

rience whatsoever. It was the big-

gest decision I ever made on limite d

information! I had no experience i n

food law, but I always had an interest

in food. I was stationed in Japan for

two-and-a-half ye ars, and being there

really put me on the food path. This

was my successfu l attempt to merge a

personal passion wit h my profession.

How did you learn about food

industry law?

My wife and I were on a road

trip, and we just happened to pass

through Arkan sas, and I just hap-

pened to notice that the University

10 || ABA JOURNAL JULY-AUGUST 2019

PHOTO COURTESY OF CAPCOM USA

Opening Statements

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