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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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Joseph Paller Jr.
USC Gould School of Law
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- FACULTY IN THE NEWS
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- CENTER FOR LAW AND PHILOSOPHY (CLP)
- CENTER FOR LAW AND SOCIAL SCIENCE (CLASS)
- CENTER FOR LAW, HISTORY AND CULTURE (CLHC)
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- INITIATIVE AND REFERENDUM INSTITUTE (IRI)
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- SAKS INSTITUTE FOR MENTAL HEALTH LAW, POLICY, AND ETHICS
- + WORKSHOPS AND CONFERENCES

Lecturer in Law
699 Exposition Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90089-0074 USA
Last Updated: June 26, 2018
Joseph L. Paller, Jr. is a principal of Gilbert & Sackman. He represents labor unions, employee benefit plans, and plaintiffs in class action litigation. The Daily Journal has ranked Paller as one of the top 75 employment attorneys in California. He was ranked as the “2017 Lawyer of the Year” in the greater Los Angeles area in the field of Labor Law - Union. Paller is one of a handful of lawyers in North America who has been elected as both a Fellow of the College of Labor and Employment Lawyers and a Fellow of the American College of Employee Benefits Counsel in recognition of his contributions to those fields of specialization. He has been recognized as a Southern California Super Lawyer for 15 consecutive years, as well as by Best Lawyers in America, and many similar organizations. Paller is chair of the Personnel Commission of the Los Angeles Unified School District, which provides civil service protections for 38,000 classified employees in the nation’s second largest school district. He has served on the Commission since 2001. He was honored as the 2017 Distinguished Personnel Commissioner by the California School Personnel Commissioners Association. Since 1995, Paller has served as an employment dispute arbitrator for the American Arbitration Association. He is a former member of the Board of Directors of the AFL-CIO Lawyers Coordinating Committee in Washington, D.C. He served as chair of the Labor and Employment Law Section of the Los Angeles County Bar Association from 1993 to 1994, and has been a member of the Section's Executive Committee since 1987.
Paller has been admitted to practice law in California, Nevada, New York and Pennsylvania. He is a graduate of the UCLA School of Law. He teaches Labor Arbitration.
FACULTY IN THE NEWS
Bloomberg Government
June 22, 2022
Re: Franita Tolson
Franita Tolson was interviewed about how federal lawsuits from North Carolina, Alabama, and Arkansas test the limits of the Voting Rights Act, the boundaries of state government authority, and the ability of voting rights groups to file racial gerrymandering cases. “These doctrines and approaches in these cases fundamentally reset the rules of the game,” she said. “In 2030 we will live in a completely different world than we lived in in 2020, and 2020 was not favorable to minority voters at all.”
RECENT SCHOLARSHIP
Robin Craig
March, 2022
"Saltwater Sovereignty: Tribal Marine Management Authority Along the Pacific Coast.” Online Environmental Law Workshop. University of Maryland School of Law, Baltimore, MD.
Daniel Klerman
March, 2022
“Comment on Choi, Erickson, & Pritchard, ‘Coalitions among Plaintiffs’ Attorneys in Securities Class Actions’,” Conference on Empirical Legal Studies, Virtual, Toronto, ON, Canada.
Robin Craig
March, 2022
“Who’s on First? The Mind-Blowing Attempt to Conceptualize Deference in the Midst of Decision Delays and Agency Repeals,” J.B. and Maurice C. Shapiro Environmental Law Symposium for the George Washington University School of Law, Virtual, Washington, D.C.