Baseball attorney gives Los Angeles students tutorial on sports law
by
Sara Randazzo
May 7, 2009
|
Los Angeles, CA
At first glance, the wood-paneled room outfitted with a judge's bench, jury box and stately American flag looked like any other courtroom, except maybe for the crest of the Dorsey High School Dons instead of the California state seal.
And when court was called into session, there was no familiar crack of gavel on wood.
'Brrrriiiiiing' went the school bell, announcing the start of the day at the South Los Angeles high school campus.
Teacher Montoya Long's 12th graders had gathered in their classroom-turned-courtroom to hear a lesson in sports law from David Cohen, director of legal affairs and risk management for the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.
Eyeing the Angels pin adorning Cohen's sweater, one student asked, "Are you an Angels fan?"
"Something like that," Cohen replied, smiling. Then he launched into a talk on the intersection of sports and the law.
Cohen had left the ballpark for the classroom to participate in "Street Law," a program that partners law schools with lawyers to bring legal seminars to students. The session at Dorsey HIgh was run by Southwestern Law School and the Southern California chapter of the Association of Corporate Counsel.
Southwestern's Street Law director Laura Cohen (no relation to David Cohen) said the Washington, D.C.-based program, "teaches practical legal education to young people of color to encourage them to pursue legal careers."
The curriculum focuses not only on shaping future lawyers, she said, but imparting legal knowledge that can help the students in their everyday lives. Many of the students at Dorsey High School, and those in other Street Law programs, live in foster or group homes or are on probation.
The program also seeks to broaden students' preconceived notions about the law. Long, who has taught the same group of students for three years, said they started off "knowing about criminal law, not anything else."
"Having attorneys come in has really opened their eyes," Long said.
Senior Darius Turner is proof.
"I used to think law was just about getting a case and arguing it," Turner said. "But it's a lot of time and effort. You need to know your rights and how the law works to succeed."
John Freese, a third-year law student at Southwestern, who ran the Dorsey program with classmate Miri Kim, also noticed the high schoolers' perceptions expanding.
"The students have an ethereal, esoteric idea of the law, then this brings it in front of them and they think, 'That could be me,'" Freese said.
After three weeks of instruction from Freese and Kim, the class - part of Dorsey's law and public service magnet - heard lectures from corporate counsel on topics that included landlord-tenant disputes, contracts and sexual harassment in the workplace.
David Cohen led the class through a mock negotiation with students playing the roles of athletes and sponsors. A few minutes into the exercise, the room filled with the cacophony of shouted demands: "We want naming rights!" "Fourteen million!" "Fourteen point five!"
As the room calmed down, Cohen emphasized the importance of the lesson.
"Negotiation is about building a relationship. Litigation is about destroying it," he explained. "It's always better to mediate or negotiate. Everyone feels they've walked away and gotten something out of it."
Street Law was started by a group of Georgetown University Law Center students in 1972. Over the past three decades, the nonprofit has expanded to chapters around the world. Many other California law schools, including those at USC, UC Berkeley, UCLA and University of San Francisco, also host programs in local high schools and middle schools.
The foundation's corporate legal diversity pipeline program puts corporate legal departments, such as those with the Southern California chapter of the Association of Corporate Counsel, in the classroom. It is often unfamiliar territory for the attorneys.
Angels' Cohen said he adapted his lesson from a lecture he has given to law school students and was pleased with the result.
"This group of students is very passionate," he said. "They argued with strength and conviction."
Laura Cohen said she hopes the program imparts lessons to her law students as much as it does on the high schoolers.
"It's a chance for law students to get out in the community and understand what the problems are for the youth," she said. "Poverty is at the heart of it," she added. "They learn to understand what students are facing day to day - education, housing issues, employment issues - just life."
Source:
Copyright 2009 Daily Journal Corporation
(Reproduced with permission)
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Topic: Civic & Law-Related Education