The National Jurist, a magazine and online source of information for pre-law and law students, included Chapman University Dale E. Fowler School of Law in the “Top 60 Law Schools in the Country for Practical Training.” The magazine ranked the top 21 schools by grade and grouped the remaining schools alphabetically by grade. Chapman’s Fowler School of Law was included in the list of B+ schools of the top 60 schools in the March issue of The National Jurist.

“The faculty and administration are pleased to be noted for our emphasis on training law students to be practicing lawyers. The faculty is implementing a comprehensive set of curricular reforms aimed at more fully integrating the teaching of practice skills with legal doctrine. For example, in this spring 2014 semester, three popular doctrinal courses were supplemented with an additional one hour lawyering practice ‘lab’,” said Daniel B. Bogart, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and the Donley and Marjorie Bollinger Chair in Real Estate Law.

According to the article, the rankings were based on four factors – three objective and one subjective. The three objective factors include the number of clinic positions per enrollment, the number of field placements or externships per enrollment, and the number of simulation courses per enrollment.

Fowler School of Law’s legal clinics provide students with the opportunity to attain real-world experience by working on actual cases under the supervision of seasoned legal professionals. There are currently six clinics at Fowler ranging from elder law to entertainment contracts law.

Through Fowler’s Externship program, students are given the opportunity of attaining practical skills by working for judges, government agencies, corporations, and public interest organizations, and more.

“We are delighted to be recognized based on our existing programs that we are expanding with new simulation courses and initiatives to create partnerships with practitioners,” said David Gibbs, associate professor at Fowler School of Law.