Author: cdtalaw

The Importance Of Maintaining Routines During Quarantine

The Importance Of Maintaining Routines During Quarantine

Everyday living as we know it has been changed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Social distancing and staying at home have become the norm taking us away from that in which we thrive. In the context of law school, this means that law students must find ways to maintain their routines to avoid falling behind and jeopardizing their graduation as scheduled. Any daily work or school routine has been seriously altered and disrupted by the pandemic. Many people are struggling to adapt and work or study remotely for the first time because of this unprecedented and unforeseen event. Unfortunately, there is no...

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CDTA: Distance Learning During Troubled Times

CDTA: Distance Learning During Troubled Times

As the coronavirus pandemic sweeps across the country affecting every institution without exception, colleges and universities rush to adapt to address the hardships and inconveniences caused by the global shutdown and implement mechanisms for distance learning. While many law schools have been slow to incorporate distance learning into their curriculums, the CDTA has been on the cutting edge from its inception and implemented new, innovative ways of training students to be exceptional attorney-advocates. The pandemic has removed a substantial degree of regularity from the lives of everyone who works or attends school. The CDTA made an early commitment to distance learning...

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The Effect Of The COVID-19 Pandemic On Summer Internships

The Effect Of The COVID-19 Pandemic On Summer Internships

Presently, in the spring of 2020, many law students are experiencing unprecedented obstacles and challenges as they attempt to complete their legal educations. As the COVID-19 pandemic continues, law students nationwide are dealing with canceled bar exams, postponed internships, and changing extracurricular programs. While most law schools are increasing the amount of online support, the CDTA, through its Student Portal, already has in place a comprehensive supplement to its unique educational platform. This offers CDTA students the ability to already take full advantage of the benefits provided by distance learning. Employers across the United States have reduced their internship programs as the...

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National Movement Working Toward Licensure Through Diploma Privilege

National Movement Working Toward Licensure Through Diploma Privilege

As the coronavirus pandemic sweeps the nation and impacts public gatherings for both social and institutional purposes, one of the institutions affected is the summer bar exam in practically all fifty states. Currently, most courts are closed which has already created an eventual backlog of the American judicial system, both its civil and criminal components. As a response, a coalition of students, scholars, attorneys, and law professors has started a national movement advocating for licensure through diploma privilege rather than examination, since completion of the latter are presently tentative and uncertain at best. United for Diploma Privilege, a national movement of...

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Update On The Summer 2020 California Bar & Baby Bar Exams

Update On The Summer 2020 California Bar & Baby Bar Exams

According to the California State Bar, the current coronavirus pandemic has caused it to consider all possible options for administering the July bar exam. After discussions with the National Conference of Bar Examiners and other jurisdictions, the State bar finally made a formal announcement in the middle of April. It announced that it was presently considering two different scenarios for the Bar Examination and the First-Year Bar Examination. Health experts expect the COVID-19 pandemic to extend into the fall and winter, at least, until a vaccine is made commercially available to the general public. States such as New Jersey, New York,...

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Learning The Soft Skills – The Three Phases Of Negotiation

Learning The Soft Skills – The Three Phases Of Negotiation

The Oxford Dictionary provides a good, basic definition of “negotiation,” simply defining it as a “discussion aimed at reaching an agreement.” Another more, specific definition is that negotiation is a “dialogue between two or more people or parties intended to reach a beneficial outcome over one or more issues where a conflict exists concerning at least one of these issues.” Scholars describe the process in different ways. They divide the negotiation process into various stages, including anywhere from three to five phases. The California Desert Trial Academy treats the “art” of negotiation as a soft skill. Soft skills are those skills...

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Tools Of Trial Advocacy – Direct Examination

Tools Of Trial Advocacy – Direct Examination

The ability to effectively question witnesses and elicit information is a necessary and crucial skill for an attorney advocate to develop and master. Any attorney who plans on a legal career that involves litigation must address this valuable skill and tool of trial advocacy. According to one judge, direct examination of a witness is one of the rare times that an attorney has a substantial measure of control over how the story of a witness, including client, gets told to the jury in the most compelling manner, logically presented and uninterrupted. The direct examination of witnesses is the most important component...

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CDTA: Making The Difference

CDTA: Making The Difference

When John Patrick Dolan and Irene Garcia Dolan were inspired to start the California Desert Trial Academy (CDTA) they wanted to provide a path to the legal profession that featured a more practical and modern approach to the way that law students were educated. The Dolans were inspired to not only train, educate, and develop students to be exceptional attorneys, but to also train them to be exceptional trial advocates. Simply put, the Dolans wanted the CDTA to provide a law school experience different from that offered by traditional schools. CDTA accepted its first class of students in 2012, focusing on a more...

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Preparing for Your 1st Year Of Law School At The CDTA

Preparing for Your 1st Year Of Law School At The CDTA

Like traditional law schools, CDTA’s curriculum is designed to teach students the substantive law of core subject areas. Unlike traditional law schools, CDTA emphasizes training and developing students to be capable and competent advocates in any courtroom. The California Desert Trial Academy (CDTA) is a 21st Century law school that moves students toward a successful legal career on the first day of class. We believe that practical experience in tandem with legal knowledge is the best road to a successful, rewarding, and prosperous legal career. We (hopefully) experience many significant events in our lives. A few of these events fill us...

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Reconciling Priorities In The Attorney-Client Relationship

Reconciling Priorities In The Attorney-Client Relationship

The California Desert Trial Academy supplements traditional law school curriculum with both hard and soft skills, as well as the values and historical perspective that equip students to be lawyers on the day that they graduate from the CDTA. We help students develop the interpersonal skills necessary to serve clients. This includes the ability to effectively communicate with clients to fully understand their needs, goals, and expectations. When anyone hires an attorney, he or she has expectations about what the relationship will produce whether money damages, specific performance of a contract, criminal defense, or other remedy or service. Clients also have specific...

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