USD Law Advocate, Spring 2026

A DECADE OF TRANSFORMATIVE TRAINING USD’s Experiential Advocacy Practicum celebrates its 10th anniversary

is needed for legal education to keep up with the demands of the legal market.” USD School of Law students and faculty agree! As part of the required curriculum, the EAP introduces litigation and transactional practice through realis tic, simulated casework administered by San Diego’s leading practitioners, many of whom are USD Law alumni turned adjunct faculty. One such alumnus, Jason Miller ’18 (JD), an associate at Mintz, was a teaching assistant for the program in its inaugural year and is now an instructor. “As a student, I appreci ated learning directly from successful practitioners and discovering how I could emulate their approach to closing a deal,” he said. Today, he strives to be the same inspiration for his students. Guided by experts in a small setting of 10 to 12 stu dents per group, students devise various strategies to win their cases and, in doing so, not only apply theory to practice but also learn from one another that differ ent viewpoints and arguments can be just as effective as others. In the first five weeks of law school, stu dents are taking depositions, drafting documents, negotiating terms and presenting oral arguments—a truly exceptional experience that many lawyers don’t have until they are well into their practice. “The Experiential Advocacy Practicum is a great experience where we get to actually interview wit nesses, take depositions, gather evidence, review discovery, and put it all together for a closing oral

Professor Linda Lane leads EAP class.

❱❱ Ten years ago, the University of San Diego School of Law launched a truly unique plan to reimagine the first-year experience and give every student hands-on, practical training from the moment they arrive on cam pus. Today, the Experiential Advocacy Practicum (EAP), created and led by Professor of Practice Linda Lane, has become a national model for prepar ing practice-ready lawyers and a defining feature of a USD legal education that gives students the foundation and confidence to be successful after graduation. Bloomberg Law named USD School of Law as a finalist in the 2024 Law School Innovation Program for Changing Pedagogy and noted, “USD Law’s Experiential Advocacy Practicum is a key example of the innovation that

“ EAP brings together different areas of law that students may not have known existed, ” said Saleem Hawatmeh, partner at Winger Grebing, who participated in EAP first as a student and is now an adjunct professor. Hawatmeh applauds the program’s hands-on structure that provides students early exposure to the excitement, stress and realities of being a lawyer. Having had no connections to litigation or trial attorneys prior to law school, he is grateful to Professor Lane and EAP for opening his eyes to the breadth of legal careers available and introducing him to practitioners who were passionate about their work, an attribute he endeavors to embody for his students.

SPRING 2026

4