LAW PORTAL
- About
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
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.
- Faculty
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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Cuauhtemoc Ortega
USC Gould School of Law
- FACULTY DIRECTORY
- LECTURERS IN LAW DIRECTORY
- EXPERTS DIRECTORY
- FACULTY IN THE NEWS
- SCHOLARSHIP AND PUBLICATIONS
- DISTINCTIONS AND AWARDS
- + CENTERS AND INITIATIVES
- CENTER FOR LAW AND PHILOSOPHY (CLP)
- CENTER FOR LAW AND SOCIAL SCIENCE (CLASS)
- CENTER FOR LAW, HISTORY AND CULTURE (CLHC)
- CENTER FOR TRANSNATIONAL LAW AND BUSINESS (CTLB)
- INITIATIVE AND REFERENDUM INSTITUTE (IRI)
- PACIFIC CENTER FOR HEALTH POLICY AND ETHICS
- 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: August 30, 2021
Cuauhtemoc Ortega was appointed Federal Public Defender (FPD) for the Central District of California in October 2020 by the judges of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. He began working in the Office of the Federal Public Defender in 2010 as a trial attorney, after working for a brief period at Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP. As a trial attorney, Ortega handled numerous jury trials regarding a wide-range of offenses, including firearms, fraud and criminal threats. In 2016, he became a supervisor and chair of the Office’s Diversity Committee; he was promoted to chief deputy in 2019. In his current capacity as Federal Public Defender, he supervises over 200 trial, appellate and habeas attorneys and legal support staff across three offices in Los Angeles, Santa Ana and Riverside.
Ortega is a graduate of Columbia Law School, where he was Executive Articles Editor of the Columbia Law Review and recipient of the Archie O. Dawson Prize for Oral Advocacy. Upon graduating from Columbia, he served as a law clerk to the late Hon. Alicemarie H. Stotler, United States District Judge for the Central District of California.
He received his bachelor’s degree in political science from UCLA, where he also served as editor in chief of the Daily Bruin student newspaper. He currently sits on the Executive Committee of the California Lawyers Association’s Criminal Law Section and on the Judicial Appointments Committee of the Los Angeles County Bar Association.
FACULTY IN THE NEWS
West Central Tribune
September 7, 2021
Re: Susan Estrich
Susan Estrich wrote an op-ed about the hypocrisy of certain laws in Texas. "You have to hand it to those Texans," she wrote. "On one hand, they believe in liberty — to not wear a mask. But for the victim of rape or incest to have control over her body? No way."
RECENT SCHOLARSHIP
Thomas D. Lyon
July, 2021
“Use of global trait cues helps to explain older adults’ decrements in detecting children’s lies” (with Alison O’Connor, Micaela Wiens, & Angela D. Evans) (in press), Legal and Criminological Psychology.
Thomas D. Lyon
July, 2021
“Causal indicators for assessing the truthfulness of child speech in forensic interviews” (with Zane Durante, Victor Ardulov, Manoj Kumar, Jennifer Gongola, & Shrikanth Narayanan) (in press), Computer Speech & Language.
Thomas D. Lyon
July, 2021
“The difficulty of teaching adults to recognize referential ambiguity in children's testimony: The influence of explicit instruction and sample questions” (with Breanne Wylie, Jennifer Gongola, & Angela D. Evans) (in press), Applied Cognitive Psychology.
