You can connect with Alberta at albertac@email.arizona.edu.

Professor Lorraine Gin ('99, BA '94) personifies the outstanding professional expertise our faculty members bring to their teaching and mentoring.

A professor of legal writing at the law school since 2010, she has brought a wealth of experience working with Arizona's bench to her students. She began her legal career clerking at the Pima County Superior Court, where, she says, "I had the great fortune of clerking for two extraordinary teachers, Judge Stephen Villarreal ('75, BA '72) and Judge Charles Harrington."

She then practiced at the firm of Rusing and Lopez, PLLC (now Rusing Lopez & Lizardi, PLLC), but she was drawn back to the courts -- this time to the Arizona Court of Appeals. She clerked there for Judge Peter Eckerstrom, Judge Jan Florez, and Judge Garye Vasquez ('84) and stayed on as a staff attorney for both Division One and Division Two of the Court.

"Working for the courts allowed me to indulge my inner bookworm in a very practical fashion," Lorraine says. "Now that I have worked directly with the majority of Arizona's appellate judges, I believe I have a unique perspective on appellate practice to share with my students."

Today, Lorraine is in charge of our upper-level writing program. She teaches Advanced Legal Writing and Introduction to Appellate Advocacy. She also oversees our Judicial Clerkship Program and Criminal Defense Clinic. This past semester, she introduced a new course in Judicial Opinion Writing.

"I really enjoy teaching courses that challenge students academically and get them out into the legal community working on real cases," Lorraine says. "That's the theory behind the Judicial Clerkship Program and Criminal Defense Clinic; students are placed directly in the courts and with local criminal defense agencies. In the Judicial Opinion Writing course, I'm able to teach judicial writing in an academic setting, but I use real case briefs and current issues to bring the subject to life."

In her spare time, Lorraine is an avid reader and hiker. Inspired by one of her favorite books, Hilaire Belloc's The Path to Rome, she recently walked nearly 500 miles across Northern Spain on the Camino de Santiago. She has two children who are now both Wildcats themselves. "I couldn't convince them to come with me on that walk, but perhaps I will be more persuasive on another walk in the future," she says.

You can learn more about Lorraine at our website.

Arizona Law students have a passion for service and for learning that has led them over the years to seek judicial clerkships. In most years, more than 20 percent of each graduating class clerks for a judge -- a rate more than twice the national average.

When the Arizona Court of Appeals, Division Two holds court in our Ares Auditorium next week, three of the six judges in attendance will be Arizona Law alumni. (A fourth alum, Judge Mike Miller '84, is unable to attend this year's program.)

Division Two Arizona Law alumni are Judge Philip Espinosa ('83, BA '78); Judge Virginia Kelly ('90, BA '68); Judge Miller, who was sworn in last year at an investiture ceremony held at the law school; and Judge Garye Vasquez ('84). Judge Peter Eckerstrom is a member of our National Board of Visitors and is teaching a course at the law school as an adjunct professor.

What's more, two of the judges with the Arizona Court of Appeals, Division One are Arizona Law alums: Judge John Gemmill ('76, BS '71), and Judge Patricia Orozco ('89, BA '77), and Chief Judge Diane Johnsen earned her BA from the U of A in 1975.