VAN NUYS : College Is Offering Paralegal Training

Responding to the sudden closure of Merit College, Valley College has created a course so that the hundreds of paralegal students who were left in limbo can complete their training.

The customized class begins June 5 and is the Van Nuys college’s first extension course, said Dennis Reed, dean of community relations. Extension courses offer instruction, but don’t provide credit toward a degree.

The class is aimed at students who have completed three of the paralegal program’s four quarters and is available for $732. A complete paralegal training program will be offered beginning in September for $2,900.

Merit College closed April 28, to the shock of its 900 students and instructors, and with less than a month remaining in the semester.

About 200 students were pursuing paralegal training at the Van Nuys vocational school when it closed, including 35 who had completed three of the program’s four quarters.

Valley College officials had previously talked about establishing their own paralegal courses, but weren’t planning to launch them until the spring semester.

“I’ve been here 15 years and I’m not aware of anything like this having been done before. It’s a unique situation,” Reed said. “The June 5 course was set up in three days. We weren’t going to [offer classes] immediately until we saw the pictures of the students in the newspaper, stranded with nowhere to go.”

It’s not known how many Merit students will enroll, but the program has already helped one victim of the school’s demise.

Hariann Goldman, formerly a paralegal instructor at the defunct school, designed the Valley College extension course and will teach there.

“It’s such a special circumstance,” Goldman said.

“I know each of these students and how they’re doing,” he said.

“These were people really stuck in the cross-fire.”

Merit College is owned by J. Robert Evans of San Diego and had operated out of a five-story building on Sepulveda Boulevard, near Sherman Way, since 1967.

Evans’ attorney, Larry Fieselman, attributed the closure to a significant drop in enrollment after the Northridge earthquake.