Catherine Coleman

Catherine Coleman joined USC Gould School of Law in Fall 2004 as an adjunct teaching first-year legal writing. After four years in that program, she joined the Academic Support staff in 2008 as academic support counselor and adjunct assistant professor of law. She served as interim director of Academic Support from July 2012 to February 2013 and was appointed director in March 2013.  In February 2015 she was appointed associate professor of lawyering skills and director of academic support, and in 2018 she was appointed professor of lawyering skills.

Coleman counsels first-year and upper-division students on improving their academic performance and exam-taking skills. She also team-teaches the Academic Support Program's course on Legal Analysis of Evidence. Outside the Academic Support Program, she teaches the Advanced Legal Writing Practicum for upper-division students and writing-skills workshops for first-year students.

Coleman was formerly an associate, partner, managing partner and of counsel with Kinsella, Boesch, Fujikawa & Towle in Los Angeles, practicing civil litigation with the firm for 15 years. From 1980-83 she was a trial attorney with the Federal Programs Branch, Civil Division, of the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, D.C., handling cases that were the first court challenges to new federal programs. She previously clerked for the Honorable Herbert F. Murray of the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland.

A graduate of Stanford University, Coleman received her JD from Harvard University, where she was senior comments editor of the Harvard Civil Rights – Civil Liberties Law Review and published “Re-Emergence of a Controversy: Enforcing Acreage Limitation” (Harvard Environmental Law Review, 1978).

FACULTY IN THE NEWS

The New Republic
February 20, 2019
Re: Sam Erman

The New Republic published a review of Sam Erman's book entitled "Almost Citizens: Puerto Rico, the U.S. Constitution, and Empire. According to the reviewer, "The book is deeply researched and densely footnoted, but Erman’s writing is also lively and lucid, and he has an eye for catchy stories and compelling characters." The review goes on to suggest that aside from its compelling narrative, the book "has recovered a crucial history of the struggle over democracy, rights, race, and gender in America, a set of conflicts we have not left behind."

RECENT SCHOLARSHIP

Jonathan Barnett
December, 2018

Jonathan Barnett co-authored a letter to the Federal Trade Commission in response to a request for public comments following Hearings #4 on Innovation and Intellectual Property Policy. 

Dorothy S. Lund
December, 2018

"Nonvoting Shares and Efficient Corporate Governance," Ackerman Conference on Differential Voting Shares, Bar-Ilan University, Tel Aviv, Israel.

Orin Kerr
December, 2018

"Implementing Carpenter" posted to SSRN.