Before coming to the School of Law in 1991, Rebecca Cochran worked first in a large Chicago law firm and then as an assistant prosecuting attorney for Montgomery County, Ohio. She didn’t always have an interest in law, however.

She received her undergraduate and graduate degrees in English and began a career in social work. She directed a Chicago shelter and 24 hour hotline for battered women and children, and because many of the women needed attorneys and went to court against their abusers, started accompanying them to court. “I saw what happened in the courtroom and thought, ‘I could do this!’” she says. While taking a client to a counselor at a nearby college one day, Professor Cochran saw a sign regarding LSAT registration. “It was the last day to register, and sort of on a whim I registered for the LSAT,” she says. Though she never had time to study, she took the test and was able to enter law school that spring.

After graduating second in her class from John Marshall Law School, where she was selected best oralist in the Wagner Labor Law National Moot Court Competition, Professor Cochran clerked for the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. She later became an associate with a Chicago law firm, Sachnoff & Weaver, where she specialized in commercial and FDIC litigation. After moving to Dayton with her family, Professor Cochran served as an assistant prosecuting attorney for Montgomery County, Ohio, where she worked with criminal appeals cases.

Her husband, an English professor, convinced her to try teaching. She started as a Lecturer at the School of Law in 1991 and is now a professor. Though she had taught English classes while working on her Master’s degree, Professor Cochran admits she was unsure if she wanted to teach law. “I thought I wanted to keep practicing, but I got hooked on teaching,” she says.

Currently the faculty coordinator for the Road to Bar Passage, Professor Cochran raises awareness of the bar exam and emphasizes the importance of practice tests. She says many students try to memorize all the information first and then take practice tests, but by the time they start taking practice tests, it’s too late. “They’re in the driver’s seat,” she says. “They have to be self-motivated.” 

Professor Cochran is the 1999 recipient of the University of Dayton’s Alumni Award for Excellence in Teaching. She served as the director of the Legal Profession Program from 1995 to 2004. She also served on the Board of Directors of the Association of Legal Writing Directors for three years and has been a member of the American Bar Association Communication Skills Committee.

Recent News

Professor Cochran is currently writing four chapters to contribute to a contact's casebook. She was appointed to the Ohio State Bar Association Appellate Law Specialty Board in 2006.

Courses
LAW 6820 Fundamentals of Evidence 
LAW 6845 Remedies
LAW 6872 Moot Court Interschool Competition

Publications

• Judicial Externships: The Clinic Inside the Courthouse, (3d ed., Lexis Publishing 2005)
• Federal Court Certification of Questions of State Law to State Courts: A Theoretical and Empirical Study, 29 Notre Dame Journal of Legislation 157 (2003)
• Legal Research and Writing Programs as Vehicles for Law Student Pro Bono Service, 8 Boston University Public Interest Law Review 429 (1999)
• Gaining Appellate Review by Manufacturing a Final Judgment, 48 Mercer Law Review 979 (1997)
• Using Closed Universe Assignments to Teach Legal Analysis, Writing and Lawyering Skills (with Maria Crist, Westlaw 1996)
• Evaluating Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(b)(5) as a Response to Silent and Functionally Silent Privilege Claims, 13 Review of Litigation 219 (1994)
• Criminal Discovery for the Civil Litigator 15 Litigation 13 (with Candace J. Fabri, 1988)
  Reprinted in The Litigation Manual (3d ed., 1999)