Juris Doctor (JD) degree

California Southern Law School confers the degree of Juris Doctor upon students who have successfully completed at least 84 semester units.

THE ACADEMIC PROGRAM

The curriculum requires four years of classroom work and study.

First year law students’ courses during the Fall-Spring semesters:
Contracts, Torts, and Criminal Law/Legal Writing

Advanced students’ courses during the Fall-Spring semesters:
Second year - Civil Procedure, Remedies, and Real Property
Third year - Corporations, Constitutional Law, and Evidence
Fourth year - Commercial Law, Wills & Trusts, and Trial Practice

Law students enroll in the following courses during summer sessions:

First year students:
Criminal Procedure and Agency

Advanced students’ courses:
Professional Responsibility
Community Property on Monday & Thursday
or Legal Research on Monday & Thursday

METHOD OF INSTRUCTION

The case method of study is the basic classroom tool. Students study actual cases selected to illustrate particular problems of law and to demonstrate solutions to these problems and the reasons for the solutions. California Southern Law School uses the same legal casebooks as all outstanding law schools.

Instructors lead the discussion of the case material and present supplementary lectures. The discussions are designed to aid the student in understanding the development of law to its current state, and to pose questions of current interest related to particular problems under study. Students learn to develop their own analytical abilities and to apply abstract principles of law to concrete situations.