The curriculum requires four years of classroom work and study. The fall semester starts in late August or early September, the spring semester starts in January, and the summer session in June. Students enroll in nine units of courses per semester. The required summer courses are two units or three units of credit each. Students complete the required summer courses in two or three summer sessions.
Students attend summer classes three evenings a week or less.
Students study actual cases selected to illustrate particular problems of law and to demonstrate solutions to these problems and the reasons for the solutions. Instructors lead the discussion of the case material and present supplementary lectures. The discussions are designed to aid the student in understanding the development of law to its current state, and to pose questions of current interest related to particular problems under study. Students learn to develop their own analytical abilities and to apply abstract principles of law to concrete situations. California Southern Law School uses the same legal casebooks as all outstanding law schools.