Sara J. Berman is a professor of lawyering skills and the director of Gould’s Academic Success Program. Before joining the USC Gould School of Law, Berman served on the faculty and in senior administrations of law schools in California, New York and Florida, and as the founding director of academic and bar success at the AccessLex Center for Legal Education Excellence, a national nonprofit in Washington, D.C. An early adopter of distance learning in legal education, Berman also taught for 15 at the first fully online law school and founded and co-chairs a national hybrid learning pedagogy conference.

Berman’s publications and scholarship focus on student success, teaching and learning, bar exams, professional licensing, distance learning, and self-represented litigants. She is the author of more than ten West Academic books including those in the multi-volume Law School Success Series, the co-author of the West Step-by-Step Guide series, and the co-author of two Nolo.com books — one on civil litigation and the other on the criminal justice system.

Berman was recently appointed to the Thomson Reuters Institute’s AI and the Future of Legal Practice Advisory Board. She is also a member of the Collaboratory on Legal Education and Licensing for Practice, the ABA’s law school committee for lawyer’s assistance programs, and the NextGen Bar Exam Advisory Board for BarBri.

Berman earned her JD from the UCLA School of Law and graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a BA from UCSB, double majoring in French literature and Political Science with an emphasis in International Relations.