The UABC-USD training program seeks to provide training to help practitioners, law professors, and law students prepare to operate this new system, and promote cross-border legal exchanges in the San Diego-Baja California region. The two-day seminar initiated on Friday is the first series of trainings specifically directed to law professors and lawyers who will serve as trainers in law classrooms and in future trainings.

The program is coordinated by UABC Law Professor Daniel Solorio and USD School of Law Professor Allen Snyder on behalf of the Universidad Autónoma de Baja California Law School, the University of San Diego School of Law, and the Trans-Border Institute. This program one of five such initiatives presently supported by  the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and Higher Education for Development (HED), including other partnerships between: Southwestern Law School and the Tecnológico de Monterrey (ITESM); Universidad de Nuevo León and Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México; Emory University and Universidad Panamericana; and Chicago Kent College Law School at the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) and the Tecnológico de Monterrey (ITESM).

For the trainings the Legal Education Program has assembled a team of lawyers (including James Gailey, Lynne Lasry, Christopher Weaton) with substantial international training experience to provide the best practices in promoting oral advocacy skills, as well as an overview U.S. criminal justice approaches.

The program includes other exchanges and forums, including student scholarships for UABC students to obtain a masters degree from the USD School of Law, major international conferences, and presentations by leading experts such as Mexican Supreme Court Justice José Ramon Cossío and Human Rights Lawyer Miguel Sarre.