Faculty

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 Undefeated
April 19, 2018
Re: USC Gould School of Law

Thomas Lenz was quoted on how the NFL's refusal to hire quarterback Colin Kaepernick, as well as safety Eric Reid may bolster Kaepernick's case against the NFL for conspiring to keep him out of the league because of his political views. “To the extent that someone else has some parallel activity, some similar involvement, it certainly cast suspicion [on what’s occurring in the NFL]," said Lenz. “It’s the sort of thing that, as the facts bear out, you have to wonder if there’s some sort of pattern going on. … It definitely warrants some inquiry.”

RECENT SCHOLARSHIP

Robert K. Rasmussen
January, 2018

"Puerto Rico and the Netherworld of Sovereign Debt Restructuring," Workshop, Duke Law School, Durham, NC. 

Edward Kleinbard
January, 2018

"The Right Tax at the Right Time," Florida Tax Review 21 (2017): 208.

Edward Kleinbard
January, 2018

“The Perversion of the Tax Policy Process,” Keynote Address at the USC Tax Institute, Los Angeles, CA.