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About USC Gould
USC Gould is a top-ranked law school with a 120-year history and reputation for academic excellence. We are located on the beautiful 228-acre USC University Park Campus, just south of downtown Los Angeles.
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Academics
Learn about our interdisciplinary curriculum, experiential learning opportunities and specialized areas.
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Admissions
USC Gould helps prepare you for a stellar legal career. You can pursue a JD degree, one of our numerous graduate and international offerings, or an online degree or certificate.
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Students
Participate in an unparalleled learning experience with diversity of people and thought. Get involved in the law school community and participate in activities that enhance your studies.
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Careers
We work closely with students, graduates and employers to support successful career goals and outcomes. Our overall placement rate is consistently strong, with 94 percent of our JD class employed within 10 months after graduation.
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Faculty
Our faculty is distinguished for its scholarship, as well as for its commitment to teaching. Our 12:1 student-to-faculty ratio creates an intimate and collegial learning environment.
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Michael Jenkins
USC Gould School of Law
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Lecturer in Law
Email: mjenkins@law.usc.edu699 Exposition Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90089-0074 USA
Last Updated: January 4, 2020
Michael Jenkins is a partner with the law firm of Best Best & Krieger, LLP and specializes in the practice of municipal law. He currently serves as city attorney for the cities of Goleta (since 2017), Hermosa Beach (since 1996), Rolling Hills (since 1982) and West Hollywood (since 1984) and as general counsel to the Los Angeles County West Vector Control District, the South Bay Cities Council of Governments, the Westside Cities Council of Governments and the Harbor Community Benefit Foundation.
He served as president of the City Attorneys Department of the League of California Cities (1993), co-authored the original version of the league’s Municipal Law Handbook and chaired the league’s Brown Act Committee from 1994 to 2016. He served as editor for Open & Public V, the league’s manual on the Brown Act. Jenkins also served as president of the City Attorneys Association of Los Angeles County and member of the Executive Committee of the Public Law Section of the State Bar, as well as editor of the section newsletter.
Jenkins has been practicing law for 41 years, most of that time in the area of municipal law. He was admitted to the State Bar in 1978 immediately following his graduation with honors from Duke University School of Law, where he served as executive editor of the Duke Law Journal. Jenkins graduated with highest honors from Haverford College.
In 2015, Jenkins was honored by the American Bar Association with the Jefferson Fordham Advocacy Award, which recognizes professional excellence in the practice of state and local government law.
FACULTY IN THE NEWS
Los Angeles Times
May 11, 2022
Re: Emily Ryo
Emily Ryo was interviewed about how immigration shortfalls, like soaring housing prices, are fueling California’s population drop. “A whole assortment of the service sector area has been tremendously affected by a lack of immigrant labor that we haven’t really seen and is just really unprecedented,” she said. “Immigrant labor has been a huge part of the long-term home care sector, and a decline in the population in California has had a significant effect.”
RECENT SCHOLARSHIP
Ariela Gross
March, 2022
“Becoming Free, Becoming Black: Race, Freedom, and Law in Cuba, Virginia, and Louisiana,” Centre International de Recherches sur les Esclavages at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris, France.
Camille Gear Rich
March, 2022
“No More Boxes to Check: Imagining The Anti-Racist Law Firm,” NALP Annual Education Conference, New Orleans, LA.
Thomas D. Lyon
March, 2022
“Disclosure Among Child Abuse Victims” (with K. London and M. Eisen), Fourth Zoom Psychology and Law Symposium: Children in Legal Settings, Maastrict University, Maastricht, Netherlands.