Trial and Appellate Practice/Dispute Resolution

If you are interested in becoming a trial or appellate lawyer, Whittier Law offers many courses to prepare you for court. The Law School can also prepare you to become an attorney specializing in alternate dispute resolution and mediation. As a graduate, you will join hundreds of noted trial and appellate attorneys practicing throughout the United States, including dozens of prosecutors, defenders, and judges.

Clinics

Whittier Law School is committed to providing a wide variety of clinical education opportunities to its students. At present, law students have a choice of four client clinics, Children’s Rights, Family Violence, Health Care Access, and Special Education.

In addition to the Center for Children’s Rights Clinics listed priorly, students can participate in the Legal Policy Clinic. Unlike most clinical courses, which focus on a single legal area, the Legal Policy Clinic (LPC) affords students a forum for advocating legal positions in the students’ chosen substantive areas of interest. The LPC is also unique since it is a “clientless” clinic involved in advocacy outside, as well as inside, the courtroom. Students learn how to advocate issues of policy in legislative matters by drafting and filing with a bill’s sponsor or opponent a legal analysis of a bill pending in either Congress or a state legislature. Students learn judicial policy analysis by drafting and filing Petitions in Support or in Opposition to Review and Petitions in Support or in Opposition to Publication of Court of Appeal decisions regarding pending cases. Finally, students have the opportunity to practice community lawyering by selecting a problem in their community and drafting a plan and method of helping members of the community resolve that problem.

Externships

The Law School offers externships in a variety of practice settings, including public interest law firms, the courts, and public agencies. Students practice lawyering in real client environments, under the supervision of practicing attorneys or members of the bench and a faculty member, while serving the public. The Law School prides itself on the vast array of available placement sites in Southern California, and is also proud of its strong track record of placing students in prestigious judicial externships.

Students can earn up to six pass/fail units of academic credit through completion of externships. Concurrent with their first externship placement, students attend the Lawyering Skills course, a one-unit class dealing with issues of client representation and the socialization process of becoming a lawyer.

Honors Boards

The Moot Court Honors Board oversees the Law School’s participation in local and national appellate competitions that advance a student’s skills in brief-writing and oral advocacy before appellate courts. The Trial Advocacy Honors Board oversees the Law School’s participation in local and national mock courtroom competitions.

Trial and Appellate Practice/Dispute Resolution Courses

• Administrative Law
• Advanced Criminal Procedure
• Advanced Legal Bibliography
• Advanced Interviewing, Counseling, and Negotiation
• Advanced Torts
• Advanced Trial Advocacy
• Alternative Dispute Resolution
• Arbitration
• Civil Procedure
• Civil Trial Advocacy
• Criminal Procedure
• Criminal Procedure Seminar
• Criminal Trial Advocacy
• Evidence
• Forensic Evidence
• Interviewing, Counseling, and Negotiation
• Legal Skills
• Moot Court Honors Board
• Pretrial Litigation Skills
• Professional Responsibility and Practicum
• Trial Advocacy Honors Board
• White Collar Crime
• Writ and Appellate Practice