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New law school planned for Palm Springs region

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An abandoned cinderblock furniture store in the middle of Indio, Calif. will be converted into a series of courtrooms and legal clinic offices in a few years, filled with law students who want to spend their future careers in the courtroom.

That’s what California criminal defense attorney John Patrick Dolan has in mind for his new law school that is expected to open in fall 2012, called California Desert Trial Academy College of Law.

While the negotiations to buy and develop the space are still under way, in the interim the school will operate out of the local courthouse at the Larson Justice Center.

Dolan says he is starting the school because he spotted a need for an institution to teach the art of trial advocacy.

“Other than court classes in law school, they don’t really get grounding for a small number of lawyers who spend their life in litigation and in criminal civil courts,” said Dolan.

Coachella Valley, home to the 76,000-person town of Indio, isn’t just deserted when it comes to courtroom classes. It’s void of law schools period, as he found out when he moved to the area seven years ago and his daughter started applying to law schools a few years later.

The closest law school to Indio, located 125 miles east of Los Angeles, sits 70 miles away in Riverside, Calif. That school, California Southern Law School, commands tuition rates that are much higher than the $12,000 his four-year program plans to charge per year, which includes books and materials, he said.

That price is expected to fluctuate as the school expands down the road, though, the first year class will enjoy a steady rate.

He’s not turned off by the fact that the economy for new lawyers is still not a good one.

“Where the economy is bad is in larger law firms that hire associates,” he said. “What I am hearing about the legal profession and economy doesn’t really impact our areas.”

Those areas include working in a public defenders’ office, the county council’s office or opening up a new office. Just one new law school opened up this fall, the Belmont University College of Law in Nashville.

He’s preparing to file a massive application with the California Bar about policies, curriculum, scheduling and financials. It’s expected to take three to four months to get approved by the state bar as a candidate law school and the journey towards accreditation from the American Bar Association can take between two and five years.

While applications to ABA-accredited schools fell 10 percent last year, demand appears high at Dolan’s school.

“We are amazed by the interest,” he said, adding that over the years, anecdotal evidence hinting at the need for a new school was vocalized by Indio’s courtroom deputies and teachers.

Its latest informational session for the new school welcomed more than 50 prospective students, and five more sessions are scheduled between November and June.

The plan is to enroll 25 to 30 students a year in a four-year phasing period, and he would like to quadruple that number five years from now.

Interest has come from folks looking to jump into a second career, retired locals, and 18- or 19-year-old high school graduates.

“It’s an eclectic group,” he said. “It’s an interesting cross section of the population out here. There are no particular limitations on being a trial advocate.” 

Since the classes will be held at night during the week, most of the students will also be working during the day. As will Dolan, who has handled everything from traffic tickets to death penalty murder cases over his near three-decade career as a courtroom attorney. He will be joined by a handful of other professors, including Sue Steding, a former Riverside County prosecutor, and Julie Bornstein, an attorney who has served in the California Assembly.

On Saturdays, the students will be exposed to training and writing programs, prepping for the baby bar and the California bar and learning the basics of daily courtroom duties, like figuring out which side of the courtroom to stand on to give a Power Point presentation.

Once the school is approved as a candidate law school, subsequent interviews can take place with prospective students and the incoming class should be admitted by June. 

Tierney Plumb

Tierney Plumb

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