November 6, 1998

Viewing Mexican law firsthand

Loyola law students in Mexican courts

For an American law student doing an externship in a Mexican criminal court of first instance, a typical day would go something like this: In the morning you’d dress in a suit and go to criminal court. There, you would observe an “interrogatorio,” a taking down of a witness’ sworn testimony by one of the court’s “secretarios,” a court clerk who also is an attorney. Afterwards, you would have the opportunity to speak with the presiding judge about the case and draft an order for the judge’s signature. In between, you would discuss substantive and procedural law with law students and court personnel.

The list of international experiences offered to Loyola School of Law students includes the law school’s four-year-old judicial externship program in Cuernavaca, Mexico. For three to four weeks, participating law students spend several hours each day, in the civil and criminal trial courts of the First Judicial District of the State of Morelos, located in Cuernavaca. There, the students have the opportunity to meet and interact with lawyers, judges, their clerks and other staff, observe judicial proceedings, and perform other tasks such as drafting legal documents.

The law students who have participated in the externship program have nothing but exciting things to say about their experience. According to Jennifer Doerrie, “This program was unquestionably the highlight not only of my time in Mexico but of my entire law school experience to date. The people I worked with were friendly and accommodating, and I learned more about the way the Mexican legal system functions in one month in the courts in Guernavaca than I would have learned in an entire semester of Mexican law in a U.S. classroom.”

Mexican procedural law differs a great deal from that of the United States although its substantive civil law is familiar to Louisiana law students. The externs learn that Mexican courts do not employ our concept of the trial as a single event, but rather view legal proceedings as a series of smaller meetings between the parties, attorneys, and court personnel, culminating in a final judgment. They also become acquainted with the Mexican system of “amparo”–which includes, but is much broader than, the common law institution of habeas corpus–and with Mexico’s system of agrarian courts, established to implement land reform after the Mexican revolution.

The externship gives U.S. law students an incomparable opportunity for international exchange in which they can compare the Mexican legal system and history with that of the United States. As law student Johanna Arias reports, “The experience gave me a better understanding of how other countries develop the law according to their cultural, economic, and social experiences.”

The externship is an excellent opportunity to get to know the Mexican legal system from the inside out. We are very grateful to Chief Justice Jorge Garcia Ribi of the Morelos Supreme Court and to his assistant, Lic Ruben, Toledo Orihuela, as well as to the judges of the courts of first instance, in whose courts our students are placed, for making this opportunity possible.

–Clinical Professor Evangeline Abreil, Supervisor of the Externship Program and Co-director of Loyola’s Summer Legal Studies Program in Mexico