California Desert Trial Academy College of Law Tag

CDTA: Going Beyond The Basic Curriculum

CDTA: Going Beyond The Basic Curriculum

The California Desert Trial Academy meets the needs of modern law students. Those who are looking for a different approach to legal education need not look any further than the CDTA. Our four-year Juris doctorate program allows many older students the time and opportunity to obtain a legal education. Most traditional law schools teach only substantive core courses, cramming them into a three-year schedule. Rather than providing a traditional three-year curriculum that offers basic classes, the CDTA offers a four-year period of legal study that goes beyond traditional core subjects. As part of its standard curriculum, CDTA provides students with instruction...

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Most Law Schools Just Educate, CDTA Educates, Trains, And Develops

Most Law Schools Just Educate, CDTA Educates, Trains, And Develops

Many schools do an exceptional job of teaching students the black letter law of core subjects such as torts, real property, and contracts. Unfortunately, this is all that these law schools endeavor to do. Thus, most of the students in traditional law schools graduate with only knowledge of the substantive law and little practical instruction beyond it. Many traditional law schools would say that teaching the substantive law is their only function. At the CDTA, we go beyond educating our students: we also train and develop our students to be exceptional attorney-advocates in any courtroom. The core curriculum of most traditional...

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Preparing for Final Exams

Preparing for Final Exams

It’s that time of year. No, we’re not talking about the holiday season, even though it is that time of year as well. It’s the time of year when final exams are imminent and forthcoming. After a full semester of reading and briefing cases, as well as hours of lectures and copious note-taking, a subject’s final exam approaches like a white whale on the horizon. Once this test is finished, then, and only then, will the holidays start for law students. Until that time, here are some tips for preparing for final exams. *Devise a plan of attack You should have already...

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Bar Exam Basics: The Performance Test

Bar Exam Basics: The Performance Test

The California bar exam lasts for two days and consists of five one-hour essay questions, one 90-minute Performance Test, and 200 multiple-choice questions (Multistate Bar Examination (MBE). The essay questions and Performance Test are administered on the first day in two sessions. Applicants answer three essay questions in the morning session and two essay questions and the Performance Test in the afternoon session. Through the California bar exam of February 2017, the exam lasted three days and included two three-hour performance tests, one on Tuesday, the first day of the exam, and one on Thursday, the last day of the exam....

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The Importance Of Knowing Procedural Law

The Importance Of Knowing Procedural Law

In many ways, life is full of conflicts between procedure and substance, as is the law. Lawyers must never solely rely on their knowledge of the substantive law. They must realize that knowledge of the substantive law is as equally important as their knowledge of procedural law. Lawyers must respect the fact that law is a combination of both. They must painstakingly acknowledge this combination of substance and procedure or risk failure as attorneys. Lawyers also tend to categorize every situation they confront as falling into one or the other of two categories, which are apparently supposed to be mutually exclusive...

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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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February 2020 California Bar Exam Approaches

February 2020 California Bar Exam Approaches

Taking the California bar examination for the first time is an experience that is more than a little frightening and stressful. There’s the thought of oversleeping on the first day of the test. How about excessive noise from a party across the motel parking lot that prevents you from sleeping the night before? There’s a lot to know about the California Bar exam, other than the material. As the 2020 February bar exam in California and other states approaches, knowing all the details is crucial, not only for practical reasons but for reasons of minimizing stress. 1,458 people (31.4 percent of applicants)...

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