Assistant Director of the Quattrone Center at Penn Carey Law, Professor Marissa Bluestine leads a session on witness examination during Temple Law’s first Latin American trial advocacy bootcamp, held in Guayaquil in partnership with Academia de Litigación from June 4–7, 2025.

In 2024, Temple Law and the Universidad Espíritu Santo (UEES) in Ecuador signed an agreement aimed at enhancing academic exchange and collaboration. After attending Temple’s Spanish-language trial advocacy bootcamps in Philadelphia that same year, Professor Pablo Alarcón, Director of the UEES Graduate School of Law, and Professor Pamela Juliana Aguirre Castro, Director of the UEES Social Legal Observatory, proposed hosting a bootcamp at their campus in Guayaquil.

Building on this collaboration, Temple Law, in partnership with Academia de Litigación from Chile, held its first trial advocacy bootcamp in Latin America from June 4-7, 2025. Professor Marissa Bluestine led sessions on courtroom persuasion, opening and closing statements, and witness examination (both direct and cross). Professors Felipe Vazquez from Academia de Litigación and Diego Zalamea, invited by UEES, also taught classes and mentored students during practice sessions.

Assistant Dean John Smagula leads a four-day intensive course on the American legal system and legal reasoning for 52 students at UEES.

Additionally, Assistant Dean John Smagula conducted a four-day intensive course on the American Legal System and Legal Reasoning for 52 UEES students. Those who pass the final exam will be eligible to transfer one academic credit to Temple Law’s Master of Laws for Foreign-Trained Lawyers program, with the English language examination requirement waived.

During their visit to UEES, Deans Alarcón and Smagula met with university and law school officials and faculty to explore new opportunities for student and faculty mobility, as well as potential online programs.

“We are thrilled with our partnership with Temple Law School,” said Dean Alarcón. “We deeply appreciate Temple’s unique and engaging approach to international partnerships, as well as its commitment to creating global opportunities.” Dean Smagula expressed his gratitude, thanking Dean Alarcón and his colleagues for their warm hospitality and excellent arrangements. “We are excited to collaborate with a university that has such a strong international vision,” he said. “UEES’s global outlook, starting with President Fierro, will undoubtedly position the university for success worldwide, benefiting everyone within the institution.”

Temple Law and UEES are already in discussions about launching new programs in 2026.