DCSIMG

Advocacy Faculty

Professor Vitiello

Michael Vitiello
 Distinguished Professor and Scholar and Professor of Law
Director of the Center for Advocacy and Dispute Resolution
B.A., Swarthmore College
J.D., University of Pennsylvania

Professor Vitiello clerked for three years for Judge J. Sydney Hoffman of the Superior Court of Pennsylvania, that state’s intermediate appellate court. He taught at Loyola University Law School in New Orleans for more than a decade and has also been a visiting professor of law at Tulane University and the University of Mississippi. While at Loyola, he helped establish the Loyola Death Penalty Resource Center, a federally funded institute. Professor Vitiello also was involved in pro bono litigation in Louisiana on behalf of appellants and indigent defendants. His law review articles have appeared in journals at schools such as Ohio State, Michigan and the University of California, Berkeley and have been widely cited by scholars around the country. He and Professor Miller are the co-authors (with Michael Fontham) of Persuasive Written and Oral Advocacy: In Trial and Appellate Courts and three companion case file books. Professor Vitiello was elected to the American Law Institute in 2002. He has been active in the campaign to reform California’s Three Strikes Law and California’s sentencing laws.

 

Professor BrickerCary Bricker
Lecturer in Law, Trial Advocacy
B.A., University of Rochester
J.D., Boston University

Professor Bricker comes to Pacific McGeorge from the Temple University School of Law in Philadelphia, where she was director of the highest-rated Trial Advocacy program in the country. She began her legal career as a staff attorney with the New York Legal Aid Society, Criminal Division, taking 20 jury trials to verdict in four years. As a senior staff attorney with the Federal Defender Division of the Legal Aid Society, she tried 25 jury trials to verdict. While working in New York City, she served as a trial advocacy adjunct professor of law at Fordham University, provided guest commentary for numerous Court TV trials, and joined the National Institute for Trial Advocacy as a faculty member teaching in regional programs, the national session and numerous law firms. She became an associate professor at Temple in 2002, teaching Trial Advocacy and Advanced Trial Advocacy as well as coaching the law school's top-ranked competition team. Professor Bricker was voted Professor of the Year in 2006 by the Pacific McGeorge Day and Evening Divisions.

 

thomas leach

Thomas J. Leach
Professor of Law
Director, Trial Advocacy & National Ethics Trial Competition
B.A., Cornell University
M.A.T., Wesleyan University
J.D., University of Pennsylvania

Professor Leach team-teaches Trial Advocacy with Professor Joseph Taylor and Professor Cary Bricker and developed and teaches Advanced Trial Advocacy (a course added in 1999). He came to Pacific McGeorge in 1996 from Philadelphia, where he was a trial lawyer and partner at the firm of Drinker Biddle & Reath and taught as an adjunct professor at Temple University School of Law. He also directs and teaches trial-skills courses for the National Institute for Trial Advocacy. Professor Leach served a two-year clerkship with Judge Edmund Spaeth of the Superior Court of Pennsylvania before joining his firm in 1978. He litigated in the fields of general corporate and commercial disputes, specializing in franchising, construction, and automotive products liability cases. Professor Leach was also the chair of his firm’s Alternative Dispute Resolution Resources Group, and litigated several multi- million dollar cases settled through ADR techniques.

 

Professor Moylan

Mary-Beth Moylan
Director, Global Lawyering Skills
B.A., Oberlin College
J.D., Case Western Reserve University

Professor Moylan joined the faculty in 2000. Prior to coming to Pacific McGeorge, she was a civil litigation associate with one of Sacramento’s largest law firms, Downey Brand Seymour & Rohwer. Professor Moylan clerked for Judge Lawrence K. Karlton, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of California, following graduation from law school at Case Western Reserve University. She also practiced political law with Olson, Hagel & Fishburn in Sacramento. While a law student, Professor Moylan was a co-founder of the Miami-based Haitian Refugee Center National Project.

 

Professor TelfeyanEd Telfeyan
Professor, Global Lawyering Skills
Director, Moot Court Program
B.A., Gettysburg College
J.D., University of the Pacific, McGeorge

Before joining the Pacific McGeorge faculty in 2000, Professor Telfeyan amassed over twenty years of experience as both a litigation and transactional attorney. Over the course of his career, he has also served as a policy consultant to the California Legislature and as a legislative advocate for a state trade association. Following his graduation from law school, Professor Telfeyan was an Associate Professor of Law at the Glendale College of Law from 1975 to 1979. He also taught as an adjunct faculty member for four years in the 1980’s at the University of Northern California School of Law. While a law student, Mr. Telfeyan headed a tutorial program for first-year students, founded the student newspaper and served as its first editor-in-chief, wrote for the Pacific Law Journal ‘Green Sheets’ and chaired the executive committee of the Moot Court Honors Board.