Academics

Criminal Legal Practice Certificate Program

Faculty

Harry Mitchell Caldwell
Professor of Law
B.A., cum laude, California State University, Long Beach, 1972
J.D., Pepperdine University, 1976

H. Mitchell Caldwell teaches Criminal Law and Criminal Procedure as well as trial advocacy courses and serves as advisor of the law school’s highly successful interschool trial teams. Before joining the Pepperdine faculty, he was a trial prosecutor in Santa Barbara and Riverside counties.  Full Bio

Carol A. Chase
Professor of Law
B.A., summa cum laude, University of California, Los Angeles, 1975
J.D., University of California, Los Angeles, 1978

Before joining the Pepperdine faculty, Professor Chase was an assistant U.S. attorney for the criminal division in Los Angeles. She has been an associate in the Los Angeles offices of Hughes, Hubbard & Reed, and Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher and Flom. She is a member of the American Bar Association, the California State Bar, and is admitted to practice in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, and the U.S. District Court for the Central and Eastern Districts of California.  Full Bio

Naomi Goodno
Assistant Professor of Law
A.B., Princeton University, 1995
J.D., Boalt Law School, Universityof California, Berkeley, 1999

After focusing on history and teaching as an undergraduate at Princeton University, Professor Goodno attended Boalt Law School for the first two years and spent her third year studying at Harvard Law School. While at Boalt, Professor Goodno served as an articles editor for the California Law Review. At Harvard, she was an active member of the Mediation Program. She also interned at the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Northern District of California, and the Alameda District Attorney’s Office. She recently clerked for the Honorable Arthur L. Alarcon of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.  Full Bio

Tim Perrin
Vice Dean and Professor of Law
B.A., summa cum laude, Lubbock Christian University, 1984
J.D., cum laude, Texas Tech University, 1987

Professor Perrin began teaching at Pepperdine in 1992 and has served as Associate Provost since 2003-2007. He has served as vice dean since August 2007. While in law school, Dean Perrin participated on the Texas Tech Law Review and was awarded membership in the Order of the Coif and the Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society. Upon graduation, he worked as an associate with the law firm Gary, Thomasson, Hall, & Marks, in Corpus Cristi, Texas, practicing general civil litigation from 1987 to 1992.  Full Bio

Chris Chambers Goodman
Professor of Law
B.A., cum laude, Harvard College, 1987
J.D., Stanford University, 1991

While at Stanford Law School, Professor Goodman participated on the board of directors for the Annual Women of Color and the Law Conference, worked as a teaching assistant in the political science department, and was an assistant editor for a new journal on gender issues. After law school she worked as an associate at Manatt, Phelps & Phillips (1991-93) and Gipson, Hoffman & Pancione (1993-1995), engaging in civil litigation in state and federal courts. In 1995, Professor Goodman began teaching at UCLA, and created and taught a course in lawyering skills for public interest attorneys.  Full Bio

Samuel J. Levine
Professor of Law
B.A., cum laude, Yeshiva University, 1990
J.D., cum laude, Fordham University, 1994Rabbinical Ordination, Yeshiva University, 1996LL.M., highest honors, Columbia University, 1996

Professor Levine joined the Pepperdine Law School faculty in 2002. He has published more than forty law review articles in the areas of legal ethics, criminal law, law and religion, Jewish law, and constitutional law. His articles have appeared in numerous law reviews, including Fordham Law Review, Houston Law Review, Indiana Law Review, Maryland Law Review, Notre Dame Law Review, Tulane Law Review, and Utah Law Review, as well as peer-reviewed journals, such as the American Journal of Legal History, Constitutional Commentary, Dublin University Law Journal (Trinity College Dublin), and the Journal of Law and Religion. Professor Levine’s scholarship has also appeared in textbooks and anthologies, has been included in course adoptions in the United States and Israel, has been cited by courts in the United States and New Zealand, and has been cited by scholars in the United States, Israel, Canada, and Australia.  Full Bio

Nancy L.N. McGinnis
Assistant Professor of Law
B.A., California State University, Fullerton, 1968
J.D., cum laude, Pepperdine University, 1985

Suburban mom and community volunteer turned lawyer, Professor McGinnis teaches Legal Research and Writing and Honors Appellate Advocacy and serves as faculty coach/advisor for Pepperdine’s nationally recognized moot court program. She has been a faculty member since 1988, and was associate dean for Advancement, Alumni and Public Affairs before returning to fulltime teaching. Although a child of the ‘60s, Professor McGinnis remembers graduating from then-fledgling California State University, Fullerton in 1968 with a bachelor of arts in English.  Full Bio

James M. McGoldrick, Jr.
Professor of Law
B.A., Pepperdine University, 1966
J.D., University of Chicago, 1969

Professor McGoldrick began his career as a trial attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice in the attorney general’s Program for Honor Law Graduates, Antitrust Division. He is a member of the State Bar of California and the American Bar Association. Professor McGoldrick is admitted to practice in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. He teaches Constitutional Law, Criminal Procedure, and Federal Courts.  Full Bio

Laurie Serafino
Director of Clinical Education
and Assistant Professor of Law
B.A., University of California, Davis, 1974
J.D., cum laude, Southwestern University School of Law, 1979

Professor Serafino practiced law for twenty years, mostly as a criminal defense attorney. She represented indigent defendants as a deputy Los Angeles County public defender and as a private trial lawyer appointed by the Los Angeles County Superior Court in felony, juvenile, and misdemeanor cases.  Full Bio