IRVINE : Classes to Explore Legal Issues, Rights

A series of classes designed for the layman to understand legal rights and issues will begin Wednesday at UC Irvine.

The course will explore legal problems such as divorce, real estate, wills, bankruptcy, DUI (driving-under-the-influence) charges and consumer issues. The “People’s Law School” also will have a session on the legal rights of victims of rape and other violent crime.

Santa Ana attorney James J. DiCesare will join Deputy Dist. Atty. Jane L. Shade in discussing both the criminal and civil aspects of violent crime. DiCesare, who handles product and premise liability cases, said the course would set a number of legal issues straight for the public.

“We want people to know how the legal system works when there is a violent crime,” DiCesare said. “We will discuss both the responsibility of the perpetrator of the crime under the law and the responsibility of third parties, such as the liability of owners of establishments, apartment houses or sporting events and their responsibility for wrongful conduct.”

“People should know how it works, yet they shouldn’t have to be a victim to know how it works. They shouldn’t have to go through the trauma and the heartbreak to know how the system operates,” he said.

Family law will be the subject of the June 20 class. Discussions will focus on divorce law, domestic relations, child custody and child abuse.

The course will be from 7 to 9 p.m. Wednesdays from this week through Aug. 15 at the Nelson Auditorium in the Whitby Building on the UC Irvine campus. To register visit the UCI Extension Registration Office on Pereira Drive west of Berkeley Road on campus, or call (714) 856-5414.

The fee is $10 per seminar or $70 for the nine-week series.