The local advantage: studying law in the Coachella Valley

Most people who want to be lawyers in the desert start from the same assumption: law school means leaving. Los Angeles, San Diego, somewhere with a campus and a parking structure and a rent figure that ends the conversation.

That assumption costs the Coachella Valley good lawyers every year, and it is not true. CDTA is the only law school located in the valley, and studying here rather than three hours away changes more than the commute.

You keep the life you already built

The people who do well in evening law school are usually the people who could not have done it any other way. They have a job. They have children, or a parent to look after, or a business that does not run itself.

Classes at CDTA meet Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday evenings and on Saturdays. If you live in Palm Desert, La Quinta, Coachella or Palm Springs, that is a short drive from where you already are, not a relocation and not a resignation letter.

You graduate into a legal community, not a directory

Studying where you intend to practice is worth more than it sounds. The judges hearing your mock trials sit in Riverside County. The faculty prosecuting and defending cases this week are doing it at the Larson Justice Center, twenty minutes from campus.

Weekly Barrister luncheons put students at the same table as practicing attorneys and judicial officers. By the time you are admitted, the local bar is a set of people who know your name rather than a list you cold-email.

The valley needs the lawyers

The Coachella Valley keeps growing, and legal need grows with it: family law, criminal defense, employment disputes, landlord and tenant, small business formation. Much of that work is done by attorneys who live here.

A law school that trains people from the region, in the region, is how that supply gets replaced.

The practical version

Small classes, instruction in a working courtroom, tuition designed to be paid monthly rather than borrowed, and a campus you can reach after work. It is a narrower promise than a large university makes, and it is a promise aimed squarely at people who live here.