Author: cdtalaw

Thanksgiving Break: To Study Or Not To Study?

Thanksgiving Break. To Study or Not to Study?

Thanksgiving provides a well-needed break just before the December holidays swing into high gear. It’s also a time when school is winding down for the semester, which means that final exams are impending. For students, it can be a meaningful time to rest and regroup. After all, it’s probably been a tiring, grueling, and demanding semester. However, it can also be a time to take advantage of two free days to prepare and study for final exams. To study or not to study, that is the question. While the break provides some much-needed extra time to study, it may also be a...

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About CDTA’s First-Year Classes

About CDTA’s First-Year Classes

CDTA’s four-year plan allows students to focus on three important core subjects for their entire first year of law school. CDTA students are introduced to torts, contracts, and criminal law. CDTA’s unique class schedule facilitates the easy organization of information for studying and outlining material. Most traditional schools overwhelm students with seven core subjects in the first year of law school. Typically, students must learn real property, torts, contracts, civil procedure, criminal law, constitutional law, and legal research and writing in two semesters. CDTA focuses on three subjects, which are uniquely interrelated to each other. Tort law deals with civil wrongs while...

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Maintaining Good Health During Law School

Maintaining Good Health During Law School

To excel in law school, students must be at the top of their game, which, to a great extent, means being in the best health possible. Not only can any kind of illness have far-reaching effects on law school performance, but even having little energy or being lethargic as the result of poor diet, sleeping habits, or not enough exercise can cause problems and have a domino effect on the entire semester. Develop a routine  Law school requires reading a vast amount of material. It may seem overwhelming at first, but developing a study routine and sticking to it is well-documented as...

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Developing Legal Research Skills

Developing Legal Research Skills

Developing legal research skills means more than knowing how to get around on the internet. Law has its own unique combination of primary and secondary sources of information that all lawyers must understand and use. Most of these sources are available both online and in law school libraries. CDTA teaches and emphasizes the development of soft skills, such as legal research skills. Soft skills complement the hard skills that law students learn as the substantive law. Legal research skills are extremely important to any lawyer. You don’t have to be a lawyer with decades of experience to possess excellent legal research...

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Unhappy With Your Midterms? Tips To Regroup For Finals

Unhappy with your Midterms? Tips To Regroup For Finals

It is not uncommon for any law student, especially first-year law students, to struggle with midterm exams. For first-year law students, the new environment and increased, frenetic academic pace may affect performance on a midterm. And then, of course, there is the fact that law exams are formidably challenging and downright difficult for almost any student. If you received a disappointing grade on a midterm, it is possible to recover and regroup for finals. Positive thinking and hard work will go a long way toward reversing and improving an unsatisfactory grade. The following tips may provide some guidance: *Think positively Midterms...

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CDTA: Reshaping Legal Education For The Modern Era

CDTA: Reshaping Legal Education For The Modern Era

Education is one of the greatest privileges that we have as human beings. The opportunity to learn in any setting, especially a formal one, is special. It should be cherished since not everyone has this opportunity. There is no excuse for not working as hard as possible in any environment of higher learning. The possibilities are endless. In 2019, legal education is transforming. It’s a transition to a new era. The change is far from complete and, hopefully, ongoing and consistent. Education, especially legal education, is seeking ways to serve the needs of law students better, even if it means discarding traditions...

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CDTA’s Unique Curriculum

CDTA: Going Beyond The Basic Curriculum

The California Desert Trial Academy is at the forefront of modern legal education. Our unique Juris doctorate program provides a manageable four-year program that allows many older students the opportunity to pursue a law degree. CDTA’s Curriculum is based on a four-year period of legal study designed not only to teach students the substantive law but to train and develop them to be attorneys who are also capable and effective advocates. In addition to typical core requirements, CDTA offers students courses on subjects that will especially aid them in the practice of law in the Coachella Valley and surrounding areas. 20th...

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Bar Exam Basics: The MPRE

Bar Exam Basics: The MPRE

Professional Responsibility is perhaps not every law student’s favorite subject. It does not add anything to a lawyer’s substantive toolbox. No lawyer practices the “Law of Professional Responsibility.” As law students know, it has to with ethics and doing what is proper in the course of practicing law. To ensure that everyone who obtains a license to practice law is more than a little familiar with these ethics, every bar examinee and bar applicant must take and pass the Multistate Professional Responsibility Exam (MPRE) for admission to a state bar. The MPRE is required for admission to the bars of all but...

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No More Games, Logic Games

No More Games, Logic Games

Many people who took the LSAT would say that their least favorite part was the section of “Logic Games,” which assessed examinees’ analytical reasoning skills. At least that is what the Law School Admission Council (LSAC), better known as the folks who administer the LSAT, would say is the purpose of these enjoyable word problems from beyond the darkest realms of Mordor. How much better would my score have been on the LSAT if the “logic games section” wasn’t on the exam? I’ll never find out, but in just a few years, prospective law students will. In the next four years, the...

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A Primer On The California Baby Bar

A Primer On The California Baby Bar

CDTA students are required to take the California First-Year Law Students (FYLSX), also known as the California “Baby Bar” Exam. The examination includes both essay and multiple-choice questions and is administered in one day. All law students who have successfully completed one year of legal studies are eligible to apply for the First-Year Law Students' Examination. The California Baby Bar is administered in Los Angeles and San Francisco metropolitan areas in June and October annually. Examinees have four hours to complete four essay questions and three hours to complete one hundred multiple-choice questions. Credit for law study completed after passing the First-Year...

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