CDTA

Checklist For 1st Year Law Students, Part One

Checklist For 1st Year Law Students, Part One

It’s never too early for first-year law students to prepare a checklist for their first year in law school. The following are some tips for finding success regularly throughout the year: Read. Always do the reading assigned for a subject in its entirety. The following point cannot be overstressed: If you fall behind on your daily reading, you are likely to fall behind for the entire semester. Also, read when you are most awake and alert in a location where there are no distractions. Brief. Take notes while reading an assigned case, noting the legally significant facts, the case’s holding, and the...

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There are Many Paths To A Meaningful Legal Career – Criminal Justice, Investigation, Law Enforcement

There are Many Paths To A Meaningful Legal Career – Criminal Justice, Investigation, Law Enforcement

Whether during school or after graduation, at some time, law students consider pursuing a career outside the traditional practice of law. The most formidable obstacle is determining precisely how to use a law degree in non-traditional legal settings. While the typical career paths are narrow and well-defined, alternative paths are extremely broad and have many branches, none of which are particularly obvious or categorical. Non-traditional law jobs are not usually found “prefabricated” but are custom-fit to an applicant’s interests, passions, and skills, which requires deliberate and exact self-assessment, as well as painstaking job market research. For those who have considered using their law...

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Using Zoom To Enhance Your Law School Experience

Using Zoom To Enhance Your Law School Experience

At the California Desert Trial Academy, we are continuously seeking ways to better utilize online resources for the benefit of CDTA’s growing student body. This includes better ways for students and faculty to communicate. Zoom provides a reliable, feature-laden video communications experience for students and professors alike. Its’ value is obvious and importance cannot be overstated during the coronavirus pandemic. For many law students, Zoom will now do more than enhance their law school experience – Zoom will provide their law school experience. As of the beginning of spring, 2020, law students were trying to adjust to the dramatic alteration of...

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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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