J.C. Lore III

Professor J.C. Lore is Distinguished Clinical Professor of Law and Director of Trial Advocacy at Rutgers Law School. A nationally and internationally recognized leader in trial advocacy, experiential legal education, and children’s rights, he is co-author, with Steven Lubet, of Modern Trial Advocacy: Analysis and Practice (NITA/Aspen), one of the world’s leading advocacy textbooks. The book has been adopted by more than 95 law schools in the United States and translated or adapted for use in numerous countries around the world. At Rutgers, Professor Lore founded and directs the Rutgers Advocacy Center, which provides free advocacy training for public-interest lawyers.

Professor Lore’s teaching and public service have been widely recognized. He is the recipient of the Lindback Distinguished Teaching Award, the Rutgers Chancellor’s Award for Teaching Excellence, the Rutgers Chancellor’s Award for Civic Engagement, and the Jo Ann Harris Public Service Award from the National Institute for Trial Advocacy. Rutgers students have selected him as Professor of the Year or Lawyering Professor of the Year more than ten times. He was also elected a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation.

In addition to his Rutgers teaching, Professor Lore has trained more than 10,000 lawyers, judges, investigators, law enforcement personnel, public-interest advocates, advocacy instructors, and students in advocacy and legal education programs throughout the United States and around the world. His work focuses on expanding access to justice, strengthening advocacy education, and developing innovative experiential legal training programs. He has led or taught programs in India, Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana, Ethiopia, Tanzania, China, Japan, Singapore, Ireland, and other countries, often in partnership with universities, public-interest organizations, government agencies, and justice-sector institutions.

In 2025, he was selected as a Fulbright Specialist in India, where he worked with National Law University Delhi on advancing clinical legal education and public-interest programming. He also received a Rutgers Global Grant for his work on advancing the right to counsel and training the public entire public defense system in Ghana. In 2019, he served as a Visiting Professor at Jilin University in China.

Professor Lore has been a faculty member of the National Institute for Trial Advocacy (NITA) since 2004 and has served as a Program Director, Team Leader, and faculty member in advocacy programs throughout the United States and internationally. He has also taught at Emory Law School’s Kessler-Eidson Trial Techniques Program and previously taught trial advocacy at Northwestern University School of Law. In addition to his teaching, Professor Lore frequently consults with law schools, universities, public defender offices, and governmental and nonprofit organizations on the design of advocacy and experiential education programs.

He is also co-author, with Reuben Guttman, of Pretrial Advocacy. In recent years, he has authored and developed international advocacy training materials and case files used in legal education and justice-system training programs in Africa and elsewhere.

At Rutgers, Professor Lore has played a leading role in developing innovative advocacy and interdisciplinary programs. He created and helped develop interdisciplinary courses and training initiatives integrating trial advocacy, forensic science, expert testimony, criminal investigation, and experiential learning. He also developed Rutgers’ coordinated evidence and trial advocacy curriculum.

Professor Lore joined the Rutgers faculty in 2006 as the founding co-director of the Children’s Justice Clinic; the law school’s first clinic focused on children’s rights and juvenile justice. Through the clinic, law students represented children in juvenile delinquency matters while also addressing the broader social and environmental issues affecting their clients and communities.

Before entering academia, Professor Lore served as an assistant public defender with both the Defender Association of Philadelphia and the Cook County Public Defender’s Office in Chicago. He also worked at Northwestern University School of Law’s Bluhm Legal Clinic, where he trained and supervised attorneys representing children in juvenile court, and served as Acting Director of the Farmworker Legal Aid Clinic at Villanova University School of Law. Over the course of his career, he has litigated hundreds of trials, evidentiary hearings, and motions in courts and administrative proceedings.

Professor Lore serves on the New Jersey Supreme Court Civil Practice Committee and the New Jersey Supreme Court Rules of Evidence Committee. A frequent commentator on criminal justice, trial advocacy, and evidence issues, he has appeared in and been quoted by media outlets throughout the United States.

Through his teaching, scholarship, and international advocacy training initiatives, Professor Lore works to strengthen experiential legal education and expand access to justice both domestically and internationally.