March 2. Lunch served.
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| Mark Wapnick, Class of 1972 |
The USC Gould School of Law’s “Conversations with the Dean” series continues Tuesday, March 2, with distinguished guest Mark Wapnick ‘72, the founder of CourtCall and pioneer of the telephonic court appearance system.
Wapnick, who launched CourtCall in 1996, will sit down with USC Law Dean Robert K. Rasmussen from 12:30 to 1:15 p.m. in Room 7. The event is open to the greater USC community, and lunch will be provided on a first-come, first-served basis.
Because most court appearances last just a few minutes – and attorneys spend several hours traveling to court, waiting for the judge and getting back to the office – Wapnick devised a teleconferencing system that serves more than 1,500 state and federal courtrooms in 42 states.
Using CourtCall, attorneys phone into court from their offices and participate in hearings and other court matters just as they would in person. CourtCall has handled nearly 2 million appearances, saving attorneys an average of two hours of travel time each time they use the system.
A real estate and business attorney in Los Angeles, Wapnick came up with the idea for CourtCall as he sat in traffic during a 40-mile trip back from court. His appearance had lasted fewer than five minutes, but his entire trip cost him several hours of driving time.
“While I sat there, I thought there had to be a way to eliminate the waste of hours and money associated with non-evidentiary, pretrial proceedings,” Wapnick said. “That’s when CourtCall was born.”
-Gilien Silsby
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