A. Barry Cappello Program in Trial Advocacy

Cappello Scholarships, sponsored by program namesake A. Barry Cappello, provide financial awards to admitted students with a history of success and interest in trial advocacy. The Irving H. Green Prize, named for the successful Los Angeles trial lawyer, is awarded annually to the graduating students who have demonstrated excellence in trial advocacy. This financial support is another way that UCLA’s commitment to trial advocacy is virtually unique among top-tier law schools.

For more information, contact program director Justin Bernstein.

At UCLA, the challenge isn’t finding classes that offer training in trial advocacy. The challenge is finding time to take them all. We offer Trial Advocacy, Trial Practice, Advanced Trial Advocacy, Advanced Trial Criminal Advocacy, Evidence, and Advanced Evidentiary Objections.

These courses are in addition to Appellate Advocacy, Pretrial Civil Litigation, Depositions and Discovery, and Sentencing Advocacy. The law school also offers more than 50 clinical and experiential courses, several of which give students the opportunity to advocate in court.

Each semester, A. Barry Cappello '65 hosts The Art of the Trial, where he and other leading practitioners discuss their high-profile cases and address the real-world dimensions of trial practice, from jury selection and class-action litigation to strategies for preserving issues on appeal. The Art of the Trial series takes students beyond coursework and provides them practical tools they can use throughout their careers. Guest speakers have included Thomas Nolan, chair of Skadden's West Coast litigation practice; acclaimed trial lawyer Brian Panish of Panish Shea & Boyle LLP; veteran trial consultant Noelle Nelson; and appellate expert Norman Pine of Pine Pine Freeman Tillett.

Irving H. Green was a much-honored trial attorney known for representing the underdog in courts across the country. During his career, Green received numerous awards — including the Ted Horn Memorial Award, given by the Los Angeles Trial Lawyers Association. He also was a member of the Inner Circle of Advocates, a group whose membership is limited to 100 outstanding trial lawyers in the United States.

Born in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1905, Irving Green grew up poor and attended night school, graduating from law school when he was only 20. While waiting a year to be sworn into that state's bar (its legal minimum age was 21), he worked for West Publishing Company, selling law books so that he could earn enough money to open his own law office. Mr. Green was admitted to practice in California in 1952, and he practiced in Los Angeles until 1981.

Irving Green's enthusiasm for his work, his determination to help those who had no other champion, and his excellence and creativity serve as an inspiration today. Of his father, UCLA Professor of Mathematics Mark Green has said, "He lived his convictions while having a successful career." In a letter written about her late husband before the inaugural lecture, Fay Bettye Green noted, "Irving Green never forgot his background ... The trial of a case was his raison d'être— his research was thorough, and his skills enabled him to convince the jury of his client's cause."

The Green family has chosen to honor Irving Green by creating a program designed to bring truly outstanding trial lawyers to UCLA to inspire law students and to engage in an exchange with them focused on the often unpopular role of lawyer.

Lectures

2019
Dale K. Galipo '84

2018
Marc Seltzer '72

2017
Moses Lebovits '75

2016
Mark D. Baute '86

2014
Brad N. Baker '75
Harland W. Braun '67
A. Barry Cappello '65
Anna Y. Park '92
Stephen C. Yeazell

2013
Arnoldo Casillas '91

2012
Harland W. Braun '67

2011
Anna Y. Park '92

2010
Winston McKesson '82

2009
David R. Glickman '57
Steven C. Glickman '82

2008
Barbara Hadsell '78

2007
Kent Burton '75
Brad Baker '75

2006
A. Barry Cappello '65

2005
Kenneth R. Feinberg

2002
James J. Brosnahan

2000
Bryan Stevenson

1999
Elizabeth J. Cabraser

1998
Roxanne Barton Conlin

1997
Ned Good

1995
William W. Vaughn '55

1994
Johnnie L. Cochran, Jr.

The Cappello Program also hosts lectures on practical, contemporary topics. For example, we hosted Women in the Courtroom, in which trial attorneys Amanda Bonn from Susman Godfrey and J'me Forrest from Munger, Tolles & Olson discussed challenges that women face in the courtroom—and strategies for overcoming them, and A Discussion with Black Trial Lawyers, in which commercial litigator Bart Williams, civil rights lawyer Olu Orange, and public defender Mercedes Cook discussed challenges that black lawyers face in court.

UCLA Law students who complete a sequenced, rigorous program of training in trial advocacy and fully participate in UCLA Law's Mock Trial program are eligible for the Cappello Certificate in Trial Advocacy at graduation. This prestigious certificate recognizes the recipient's curricular and co-curricular commitment to and training in trial advocacy. In order to receive the Cappello Certificate for the 2018-2019 academic year, the law school requires satisfactory completion of the following:

1. Trial Advocacy Courses. Students must complete at least one introductory trial advocacy course consisting of at least 2.0 units and at least one advanced trial advocacy course consisting of at least 2.0 units. Introductory offerings include Simulated Civil Trial Advocacy (Law 705) and Criminal Trial Advocacy (Law 720). Advanced offerings are any trial advocacy courses with the term "Advanced" in the title, including Advanced Topics in Trial Advocacy (Law 795) and Trial Advocacy: Using Real-World Jury Trials to Master Trial Techniques (Law 795), as well as Trial Practice (Law 798).
2. Evidence. Students must complete at least one course in Evidence consisting of 2.0 or more units.
3. Courtroom Experience. Students must participate in at least three events or activities that give them practical trial experience. Qualifying events and activities include (a) each semester in an externship for which the student receives course credit and in which the student is trying cases or handling preliminary or evidentiary hearings; (b) each participation in an internal trial competition organized by the Cappello Program; (c) each participation in an external competition as part of the law school's Trial Team; and (d) each semester in one of these clinics: Veterans Justice, Civil Rights and Police Accountability, Criminal Defense, International Human Rights, Amicus, Supreme Court, and Immigrant Family Law, Bond Advocacy, and Pay or Stay: An Exploration of the Bail System in America. For the purposes of the requirement, students only receive credit for the first participation in an internal trial competition.
    

Notes:

• If students wish to receive the Certificate, they should email a statement of qualification to the Director of the Cappello Program in Trial Advocacy between March 23 and April 13.
• To the extent that students are unsure whether classes, clinics, externships or other opportunities satisfy Certificate requirements, they should consult the Director of the Cappello Program in Trial Advocacy before undertaking such opportunities. The list of qualifying clinics is presumptively exhaustive, but if students obtain courtroom advocacy opportunities in other clinics, they may request credit toward the Cappello Certificate from the Director of the Cappello Program in Trial Advocacy.