Chapman University Dale E. Fowler School of Law: A Comprehensive Overview

Chapman University's Dale E. Fowler School of Law is dedicated to training skillful and ethical lawyers through a combination of rigorous academic study and practical, hands-on experience. Located in the heart of Historic Old Towne Orange, just two blocks from Plaza Park, the Fowler School of Law offers a unique learning environment enriched by its location and its commitment to interdisciplinary programs.

Historical Context and Location

The Fowler School of Law's location has historical significance. The campus is situated near the Orange Metrolink station, on land that was once part of the Rancho Santiago de Santa Ana, granted by the Spanish crown in 1810. In 1872, Mr. Chapman donated to the town the land on which the law building is currently located. This historical backdrop enriches the academic atmosphere.

Donald P. Kennedy Hall

In 1999, the School of Law moved into Donald P. Kennedy Hall, a $30 million complex on Chapman University's main campus. The building provides optimal teaching and learning experiences in its classrooms and courtrooms. The principal building, rising four stories and providing 133,000 square feet of floor space, offers an efficient and pleasant learning environment for students. Classrooms and seminar rooms are equipped with state-of-the-art technology for enhanced teaching and learning and are capable of accommodating future changes in electronic, visual and on-site learning. Two courtrooms, one designed for trials and the other for appellate hearings, provide fully equipped facilities for trial advocacy exercises, mock trial and moot court competitions and formal hearings by visiting courts. Student lounges and facilities for student organizations ensure that the law school experience at Chapman is both productive and pleasant. In addition, a 720-car parking structure at the rear of the law building provides ample parking for students, faculty and visitors. The distinctive historical facade of an earlier building, modeled after the eleventh century Romanesque Basilica del Santi Vitale e Agricola in Bologna, Italy, is preserved within the walls of the new structure.

Faculty and Resources

Chapman University’s Dale E. Fowler School of Law has approximately fifty full-time faculty members, including many faculty with teaching experience from other leading law schools, faculty who have formerly clerked for four United States Supreme Court justices and Nobel Laureate Dr. Vernon Smith.

Hugh and Hazel Darling Law Library

The Hugh and Hazel Darling Law Library is located in Kennedy Hall at the Chapman University Dale E. Fowler School of Law. Dedicated in honor of Hugh and Hazel Darling in 2016, the Darling Law Library occupies one full wing of Kennedy Hall. The facility features 11 group study rooms for use by Fowler School of Law students. A Current Awareness Room, located on the Law Library’s second floor, features popular legal and news periodicals, along with a DVD collection of films and documentaries about the law or featuring legal themes. The Darling Law Library’s collection contains thousands of volumes and volume equivalents, and numerous databases facilitating access to more than 2 million electronic resources. Within the Darling Law Library are four computers for conducting legal research. A scanner, a microfiche/microfilm reader, two copy machines, and two printing stations also are available. On display is the latest scholarship by Fowler School of Law faculty, along with a collection of framed Vanity Fair art prints gifted to the Fowler School of Law. A bronze relief of its namesakes, Hugh and Hazel Darling, appears on the Law Library’s first floor.

Academic Programs and Opportunities

The Fowler School of Law provides a comprehensive legal education through its J.D., LL.M., and joint degree programs.

Juris Doctor (J.D.) Program

The J.D. program is designed to equip students with the knowledge, skills, and ethical grounding necessary for a successful legal career. All students pursuing a JD degree from the School of Law must satisfy two practice-oriented writing requirements, one experiential course requirement and a professional development requirement. The set of courses required for a JD degree are subject to change, and notwithstanding the list shown below, students pursuing this degree must check the School of Law Student Handbook to ascertain currently applicable academic requirements www.chapman.edu/law/student-resources/registering-classes/student-handbook.aspx. All law students seeking a JD degree must meet graduation requirements set out in the School of Law Student Handbook. These requirements may be found at the following address www.chapman.edu/law/academic-programs/course-descriptions/required.aspx. For students enrolled in the Juris Doctor program, a full course load is defined as twelve credits per term. Students may take up to sixteen credits per term. Students wanting to complete the program on a part-time basis should maintain a credit load of eight to eleven credits. Students wanting to drop below eight credits must obtain written permission from the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs. Fall and spring are required terms. The Fowler School of Law maintains a 14-week semester followed by a two-week exam period. Summer term consists of a seven-week term followed by a one-week exam period.

LL.M. in Taxation

The LL.M. in Taxation builds upon the school’s strength in the tax field, including our outstanding clinical program and the many specialized tax materials in the law library. Courses in the LL.M. program are taught by a mixture of experienced full-time professors and leading practitioners who bring extensive real-world experience to this very specialized area of legal practice. The School of Law’s trial and appellate tax clinics are supplemented by an estate planning clinical opportunity and regular externship opportunities with the State Board of Equalization, the IRS Office of Chief Counsel and the Department of Justice Tax Division.

Joint J.D./MBA Program

In cooperation with the Argyros College of Business and Economics, the Fowler School of Law offers a joint degree leading to the awarding of both the Chapman JD and MBA degrees. The programs, which are available at present only to full-time JD students, require four years of study. Although students in the programs will have an academic advisor in each of the programs, students will conduct registration activities at the Fowler School of Law.

Certificate Programs

Chapman provides rich opportunities for law students to earn certificates in the following specialty areas: Advocacy and Dispute Resolution, Business Law, Criminal Law, Entertainment Law, Environmental/Land Use/Real Estate Law, International Law, Entrepreneurship, and Tax Law. Professors with extensive business law expertise in these practice categories deliver a high-caliber education that is interesting and enriching and will open up new career opportunities for participating students. Successful completion of an emphases program requires the law student to earn a minimum 2.600 overall cumulative GPA and a minimum 3.000 cumulative GPA in the emphasis program courses.

Read also: Chapman Grad Tuition Costs

Experiential Learning

The School of Law has established innovative and exciting clinical offerings, giving students invaluable hands-on experience and providing real benefits to the surrounding community.

Clinical Programs

The Alona Cortese Elder Law Center: provides free legal services to local seniors. It has represented victims of elder abuse, both physical and financial, going to court to obtain permanent restraining orders against their abusers. Chapman students working in the Elder Law Center represent seniors in administrative hearings regarding government benefits, draft wills and health care directives and help seniors with a wide variety of legal issues.
The Entertainment Contracts Law Clinic: provides students with a unique opportunity to work directly with low budget independent filmmakers and to serve as production legal counsel for a feature length motion picture. In conjunction with entertainment industry organizations such as the Directors Guild of America, the clinic’s director identifies eligible film(s) that are ready to begin production. The producer and/or director of the selected film then works directly with clinical students who will draft all production-related contracts and documents. Students typically assist in setting up the corporation or LLC, filing for copyright, drafting employment agreements for the producer, director, actors and crew, as well as executing releases and location agreements. Students will complete the production legal work for a minimum of two films per semester.
The Tax Law Clinic: teaches students valuable negotiation, interviewing, advocacy and trial skills. In the clinic, law students advocate on behalf of disadvantaged taxpayers who otherwise could not afford representation. Tax law students who have completed prerequisite tax law courses are eligible to represent taxpayers under the supervision of attorney-professors. If matters cannot be resolved, students represent the taxpayer at trial before the tax court or other administrative hearing. The clinic has saved taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars since its founding in 1997. Chapman is fortunate to be one of only two law schools in California-and a very small percentage of ABA approved law schools nationwide-to be awarded a federal grant to operate a low income taxpayer clinic (LITC).
The Mediation Clinic: allows students to develop and use mediation skills through regular and frequent practice with actual parties under the supervision of experienced mediators in the Superior Court.

Read also: Tuition and Fees at Chapman

Lawyering Skills Competitions

Lawyering skills competitions offer an opportunity to learn and internalize necessary skills and values in an intense, enjoyable way. They also offer an opportunity to meet and learn from members of the local bench and bar, who have graciously acted as judges and coaches for our teams. Interscholastic competitions offer an opportunity to meet and compete against students from law schools all over the country, sometimes all over the world and to meet judges and lawyers from outside of Orange County. Chapman students have excelled in competitions at regional and national levels. The School of Law has three student-run boards that are responsible for competitions: an appellate moot court board, a mock trial board and an ADR board that conducts negotiations, mediation and client counseling competitions. Chapman students recently succeeded in making it to the national finals of the ABA National Appellate Advocacy Competition, the Thomas Tang Moot Court Competition and the ABA Arbitration Competition. In addition, Chapman has won or secured impressive achievements in the California Bar Environmental Negotiation Competition, the International Law Student Mediation Tournament, the National Pretrial Competition and numerous other competitions.

Externships and Journals

Students may receive credit for approved externship placements. To satisfy Standard 310, students must complete at least 42.5 hours of fieldwork for each credit. Students must complete and submit daily time-reporting logs, regular progress reports, and final reports to the field supervisor and Director of Externships, in accordance with established externship policies. Students may receive credit for serving on approved journals per the Handbook. Students shall submit detailed timesheets to the journal’s Faculty Advisor every two weeks. For each unit of credit, students must complete a minimum of 42.5 hours of journal-related work. Students may receive credit for Directed Research for up to three credits. For each unit of credit, students must complete a minimum of 42.5 hours of research and writing work. Students shall submit detailed timesheets to their supervising faculty member every two weeks.

ABA Standard 310 Compliance

In 2014, the ABA adopted the federal definition of a credit hour as required by the Department of Education. Pursuant to ABA Standard 310, a credit hour must reasonably approximate “not less than one hour of classroom or direct faculty instruction and two hours of out-of-class student work per 15 weeks, or the equivalent amount of work over a different amount of time.” Academic activities such as field placement, clinical, and co- curricular courses must entail “at least an equivalent amount of work.” For purposes of this Standard, 50 minutes suffices for one hour of classroom or direct faculty instruction. An “hour” for out-of-class student work is 60 minutes. Under the Fowler School of Law’s semester system, one credit hour is granted for 50 minutes of classroom or direct faculty instructional time per week, multiplied by 15, and at least 120 minutes of additional out-of-class student work each week, or an equivalent amount of work for other courses and activities, multiplied by 15. Courses or other credit-bearing activities that occur over a different time period must incorporate the same total amount of instructional time and additional assigned work per credit hour as a standard course.

Courses that require a written final exam (in class or take home) are scheduled for 50 minutes per credit hour multiplied by 14, regardless of the length of term. Instructors assign at least 120 minutes per credit hour, multiplied by 15, of out-of-class work for students to complete over the course of the term. All in-class final exams are scheduled for a minimum of 120 minutes and a maximum of 210 minutes. Take home examinations that are scheduled during an exam period shall be scheduled for a minimum of eight hours (480 minutes). Legal Analysis, Writing, and Research I and II are scheduled for at least 45 minutes of classroom instruction or direct faculty instruction via individual conferences, multiplied by 12, and a minimum of 155 minutes of out-of-class work per credit hour per week, multiplied by 13, including research, completion of drafts of writing projects, and preparation for oral argument. Courses not requiring a final exam (other than LAWR I & II and clinical courses) are scheduled for 50 minutes per credit hour multiplied by 14. Instructors assign at least 135 minutes per credit hour per week, multiplied by 14, of out-of-class work for students to complete over the course of the term.

Credit for Clinical Courses may be awarded for 50 minutes of classroom or direct faculty instructional time or for 60 minutes of out-of-class student work preparing for and performing clinic work, preparing for class, and completing class assignments or other academic work related to the course assigned by the supervising faculty member. Clinical faculty members can determine the overall number of hours of each type of work required for each unit of credit for their clinical courses, but they must include a classroom component as per ABA Standard 304. Students enrolled in clinical courses must complete required hours and submit time keeping records in accordance with clinic practices.

For classes that require attendance in regularly scheduled classroom sessions or direct faculty instruction, course instructors shall require outside student work that reasonably approximates a minimum of 120 minutes per course credit hour per week, multiplied by 15. Academic literature indicates that a skilled adult reads an average of 5-40 casebook pages per hour, depending on the density of the text, the difficulty of the material (number of new concepts), and the competency expected (to skim, understand or engage). These reading time estimates do not include additional work expected of the student, including but not limited to rereading material for comprehension, briefing cases, additional reading of treatises and course-related material, outlining, practice questions and examinations, CALI exercises, and participation in study groups and review sessions.

Review Processes for ABA Standard 310 Compliance

Initial Review Process: All faculty members are required to fill out the ABA Standard 310 Compliance form for each course and to append it to their syllabi for submission to the Associate Dean of Academic Affairs in the 2017-2018 academic year.

Periodic Review Process: After the initial review process, all course instructors shall submit their course syllabi consistent with university policy. All new courses will utilize the New Course Proposal Application form. This form requires proponents to justify the amount of credit requested, including a description of both classroom hours and the estimated out-of-classroom work.

Career Services

Through its outstanding Career Services program, the School of Law assists students in networking and in obtaining summer law firm clerkships, part-time employment and employment after graduation.

Student Affairs and Resources

The Fowler School of Law provides various resources to support students throughout their academic journey. These resources include academic advising, career counseling, and disability services.

Disability Services

The university is committed to providing equal educational opportunities to students with disabilities. Students needing accommodation prior to admission, should inform the Disability Services Office of the need for accommodations well in advance of their matriculation, activities, the reason for the request and specific type of accommodation requested. To provide the accommodations in a timely manner, new students should inform the Disability Services Office of the need for accommodations well in advance of their matriculation. The university does not limit on the number of persons with disabilities who may be admitted or enrolled. All information is treated as confidential information by the Fowler School of Law.

Other Resources

The university also has resources for making good financial decisions and assistants, nurse practitioners and a Medical Doctor.

Academic Integrity

Students are expected to adhere to the Fowler School of Law Academic Integrity Policy.

Complaint Procedures

The law school has procedures to address student complaints. Complaints should be submitted within ten (10) business days of receipt of the written complaint. The procedures involve an investigation by the law school to address the complaint or further investigate the complaint. These procedures are also subject to re-accreditation review by the ABA.

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