Southwestern Law School

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Southwestern Law School
Motto: Landmark Legal Education
Established: 1911
Type: Private
Dean: Bryant G. Garth
Faculty: 95
Students: 698
Location: Los Angeles, California, USA
Campus: Urban
Website: http://www.swlaw.edu

Southwestern Law School (formerly known as Southwestern University School of Law) is a private ABA-accredited law school located in Los Angeles, California, with about 1,000 students on a campus that includes the Bullocks Wilshire building, an admired art deco landmark. Southwestern is an independent law school with no affiliation to any undergraduate university (it should not be confused with Southwestern University, a liberal arts institution in Georgetown, Texas).


Contents

[edit] History

Moot court
Moot court

Southwestern Law School was founded on November 25, 1911 as the Southwestern College of Law. John J. Schumacher, its founder, intended the nonprofit institution to be a law school that reached out to women and minorities. The school is one of the oldest law schools in the state of California and the second oldest law school in Los Angeles.

Southwestern received a university charter in 1915 after it expanded to include a number of other disciplines including a business school. Southwestern's first "home" was in the Union Oil Building in downtown Los Angeles, followed by a small campus on South Hill Street, where it existed for the ensuing decades.

The Great Depression and Second World War took a severe toll on the school's enrollment, and by the end of the 1930s the law school was the only school that remained. However, as veterans returned home the school experienced a surge of interest, and in 1974, the campus was moved to the school's current location on Westmoreland Avenue in the Wilshire Center area of Los Angeles.

In 1994, Southwestern acquired the adjacent Bullocks Wilshire building, an historic landmark which was subsequently renovated to house the school's law library, classrooms, faculty offices, and a high-tech state of the art court room and advocacy center.

[edit] Curriculum

[edit] Juris Doctor (J.D.)

  • Full-Time Day Program (3 years)

Traditional program is three academic years of full-time study that allows students to pursue a broad-based legal education with opportunities to focus on a particular area of the law, such as: entertainment, criminal, international, business, family, or tax law, among others. In 2007, Southwestern introduced its new innovative first year curriculum based on doctrinal legal theory foundation with focus on legal research, writing, interviewing and advocacy skills to bridge the gap from theory to practice. Southwestern's curricular reforms led the school to be chosen as one of ten distinguished schools by the Carnegie Foundation to participate in a groundbreaking study on the future of legal education.

  • Part-Time Evening (4 years)

Evening program is four academic years of part-time study of the traditional curriculum designed for working professionals.

  • Part-Time Day (also known as PLEAS) (4 years)

Part-time Legal Education At Southwestern is four academic years of part-time study of the traditional curriculum, with day classes uniquely designed for students with child-care responsibilities or other obligations warranting less intensive study.

  • S.C.A.L.E. Program (2 years)

Southwestern's Conceptual Approach to Legal Education is a unique twenty month accelerated J.D. program with emphasis on interdisciplinary study, critical thinking, holistic learning, and simulation training. SCALE's frequent deadlines, challenging curriculum, extensive writing assignments, intense schedule, and demanding workload prepare students for the rigors of practicing law. Low student-faculty ratio in the classroom promotes cooperative teaching and intellectual discussion among classmates. The program has a limited enrollment of select highly motivated and exceptional students, which requires applicants to interview with the Program Director as part of the application process. Graduates of the S.C.A.L.E. program have excellent placement in jobs such as McDonalds LLP.

[edit] Master of Laws (LL.M.)

  • Entertainment and Media Law
  • General Studies

[edit] Advocacy Training

Southwestern has been awarded a federal grant to train Mexican lawyers and law faculty in advocacy skills as part of a USAID (U.S. Agency for International Development) effort to assist Mexican legal reforms. [1]

[edit] Academic Programs & Publications

  • Moot Court Honors Program

Select students represent Southwestern in local, regional and national interscholastic competitions as oralists, brief writers or team coordinators. Southwestern's Moot Court Honors Program is recognized as one of the most active moot court programs in the country, sending teams to over a dozen major competitions annually and garnering many top awards in written and oral appellate advocacy.

  • Trial Advocacy Honors Program

Teams participate in national and regional mock trial competitions, consisting of both criminal and civil trials, throughout the academic year. Advocates compete in some of the nation's most prestigious invitation-only competitions, judged by distinguished members of the bench and bar. Faculty include Joseph P. Esposito, Head Deputy of the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office, Major Narcotics Division; Bill Seki, Former LA County Prosecutor and founding partner at the litigation firm Seki, Nishimura & Watase, LLP; and Karen R. Smith, Former Prosecutor for the California Attorney General's Office, Former Senior Deputy Federal Public Defender for California and then for the Federal Public Defender's Office, Current Full-Time Professor.

  • Donald E. Biederman Entertainment and Media Law Institute[2]

The Institute hosts guest speakers, conferences, and an annual symposium in the area of entertainment and media law, providing opportunities for students to interact with professionals in these fields. It boasts distinguished faculty of the country's most eminent entertainment scholars, publishes a semi-annual law journal, and offers the nation’s first LL.M Degree in Entertainment and Media Law.

  • Children's Rights Clinic

Provides representation to low-income children in the areas of school discipline, special education and other education-related issues. The clinic is staffed by law students who represent clients under the supervision of faculty. Students have the opportunity in a real-life context to hone their lawyering skills such as interviewing, negotiating, counseling, pre-trial litigation, and oral advocacy.

  • Immigration and Human Rights Clinic

Provides immigration relief to children and caretakers who have been abused, abandoned or neglected or who have been victims of crime. Students are taught to navigate complicated bureaucracies and to support indigent and otherwise underrepresented clients who are often confused and intimidated by the immigration process. The clinic offers valuable services to the Los Angeles community, while giving students hands-on experience.

  • Southwestern Law Review

Law Review is a student-edited quarterly journal that publishes scholarly articles and commentary on a variety of legal issues in California and federal law contributed by prominent jurists, practitioners, law professors, and student members of the Law Review staff. Annual Symposia and the Distinguished Lecture Series are sponsored by Law Review. These programs feature prominent members of the legal community lecturing on areas of legal expertise and participating in panel discussions on relevant emerging and contemporary legal issues.

  • Southwestern Journal of International Law

Formerly the Southwestern Journal of Law and Trade in the Americas, Law Journal focuses on issues of international law and trade, publishing scholarly articles and notes exploring areas such as international insolvency, environmental law, international trade issues, NAFTA, international arbitration, privatization in Central and South American countries, immigration, human rights, international crime, and a host of other comparative issues.

  • Journal of International Media & Entertainment Law (in Association with ABA Forum on Communications Law)

Explores the complex and unsettled legal issues surrounding the creation and distribution of media and entertainment products on a worldwide basis, which necessarily implicate the laws, customs, and practices of multiple jurisdictions. Additionally, it examines the impact of the Internet and other technologies, the often conflicting laws affecting those issues, and the legal ramifications of widely divergent cultural views of privacy, defamation, intellectual property, and government regulation.

[edit] Campus

The Bullocks Wilshire Building on the campus of the Southwestern Law School
The Bullocks Wilshire Building on the campus of the Southwestern Law School
The Promenade at the center of the Southwestern Law School campus
The Promenade at the center of the Southwestern Law School campus

The campus is located in the Mid-Wilshire district Los Angeles, also known as Koreatown. Currently the campus contains two buildings, the Westmoreland Building and the Bullocks Wilshire Building. Both buildings house classrooms, administrative offices, and faculty offices; the Bullocks Wilshire Building also houses the Taylor Law Library (named for a former Dean of the law school), the Dixon Courtroom and Advocacy Center, a fitness center (featuring treadmills, exercise bikes, and StepMaster-style machines as well as nautilus and free weights, and a studio for aerobics and Yoga), a dining area, and a number of student lounges.

The Westmoreland Building is a building typical of college and university campuses, while the Bullocks Wilshire Building is a fully-restored art deco landmark that pays tribute to its history in many ways. Every level of the building is has been renovated (back to its original 1929 state) down to the smallest details such as the clocks on the walls and the "showcases" in the area now occupied by the library.

The school's location is near downtown Los Angeles. Southwestern Law School has no on-campus housing, so the student body is composed entirely of commuters. The current layout of the campus reflects this, with about one-third of the campus devoted to a dual-level parking facility.

Transportation - Metro Rapid 720 bus (runs along Wilshire Boulevard), stops within a few blocks of the law school, while standard Metro Bus 18 and 20 stop in front of the school, and Metro Rail Red line entrance is one block west of the law school.

[edit] Notable Alumni

[edit] Politics & Government

[edit] Judiciary

[edit] Entertainment Industry

[edit] Sports Industry

[edit] Legal Practice

[edit] Religion

[edit] Notable Faculty

[edit] Current Professors

  • Christopher David Cameron -- Authority in Labor Law with focus on Unions Faculty Profile
  • Michael M. Epstein -- Specialist in Entertainment and Media Law Faculty Profile
  • Max Goodman -- Expert in Family Law Faculty Profile
  • Warren S. Grimes -- Expert in Antitrust Law Faculty Profile
  • Joerg Knipprath -- Expert in Constitutional Law, Blogger [3] Faculty Profile
  • Robert Lind -- Expert in Entertainment, Media and Intellectual Property Law Faculty Profile
  • Robert Lutz -- Public and Private International Law Faculty Profile
  • Jonathan Miller -- Specialist in Latin American Legal Institutions Faculty Profile
  • Austen L. Parrish -- Specialist in Civil Procedure Faculty Profile
  • Robert Pugsley -- Frequent TV and Radio Commentator on Criminal Law Faculty Profile
  • Myrna Raeder -- Expert in Evidence and Procedure Faculty Profile
  • Michael D. Scott -- Expert on Computer and Technology Law, Blogger [4] Faculty Profile
  • Butler D. Shaffer -- Expert in Informal Systems of Order with focus on Property Law, Blogger[5] Faculty Profile
  • Karen Smith -- Specialist in Criminal Procedure, Former Senior Deputy Federal Public Defender Faculty Profile
  • Lionel S. Sobel -- Expert in Entertainment Law, editor of the Entertainment Law ReporterFaculty Profile


[edit] Former Professors

[edit] Dean Bryant G. Garth

Southwestern's current dean is Bryant G. Garth. Prior to joining Southwestern, Dean Garth was the Director of the American Bar Foundation (ABF).

Dean Garth succeeds Dean Leigh H. Taylor.

Recent changes under Dean Garth include hiring additional staff, adding resources for counseling and readjusting the grading curve so that the average grade is now a B rather than a C+.

Along with Professor Catherine Carpenter's study on law school curricula for the American Bar Association, Dean Garth assisted in changing the first-year curriculum to better fit the needs of the students. The curriculum is now more focused on career development and lawyering skills, including interviewing, counseling, and negotiation. As part of the new program, the first week of school is dedicated completely to the new LAWS program (Legal Analysis, Writing, and Skills).

[edit] Academic Reputation

[edit] Southwestern in Pop Culture

Southwestern is located in the famous art-deco Bullocks Wilshire building, which is listed in the National Register of Historic Places. The Office of Administrative Services is responsible for all arrangements pertaining to commercial photography and filming on Southwestern's campus, and works with Unreel Locations[9] to coordinate the details.

  • A scene in The Aviator, a 2004 film starring Leonard DiCaprio, was filmed on campus near the entrance to the Bullocks Wilshire Building.
  • The final scene in the film Ghostbusters was filmed on top of the Bullocks Wilshire Building.
  • Featured setting in Topper, a 1937 film staring Cary Grant
  • Also featured in: "Dunston Checks In"; Aerosmith’s "Love in an Elevator"

[edit] External links

[edit] References

  1. ^ Southwestern Law School Provides Advocacy Training for Mexican Lawyers
  2. ^ Biederman Entertainment & Media Law Institute — Southwestern Law School
  3. ^ "Token Conservative" Joerg Knipprath's Blog
  4. ^ "Singularity Law" Michael Scott's Blog
  5. ^ "Wizards of Ozymadias" Butler Shaffer's Blog
  6. ^ In Memory of Lawrence Sullivan
  7. ^ In Memory of Paul E. Treusch
  8. ^ USNEWS 2009: Complete Guide to Law Schools
  9. ^ Unreel Locations