Paul Bergman joined Professor David Binder in pioneering the School of Law's Clinical Program in early 1970. He primarily teaches Evidence. He also teaches Film and the Law and helps direct the Street Law Clinic in which students teach legal concepts to high school students. He has received the University's Distinguished Teaching Award and an award from the American Trial Lawyers Association for Excellence in Teaching Trial Advocacy.
Professor Bergman likes to play tennis, and as a "recovering jogger" rides a bicycle to work each day. As a law student, he felt it his duty to keep levity in the classroom, a practice he continues as a teacher, earning him the gratitude of his students.
In the field of lawyering skills Professor Bergman has co-authored Deposition Questioning: Strategies and Techniques (with Binder and Moore, 2001); Trial Advocacy: Inferences, Arguments, Techniques (with Moore and Binder, 1996); Lawyers as Counselors: A Client Centered Approach (3rd ed., with Binder, Tremblay and Weinstein, 2012) and Trial Advocacy in a Nutshell (4th ed., 2007). He has initiated self-help litigation books with Nolo Press, publishing Nolo's Deposition Handbook (5th ed., with Moore, 2010); Represent Yourself in Court (7th ed., with a former UCLA Law student, Sara Berman-Barrett, 2010), which is aimed at laypeople who represent themselves in civil cases; and The Criminal Law Handbook (12th ed., with Berman-Barrett, 2011), which aims to explain the criminal justice system to non-lawyers and to help defendants work effectively with their lawyers. In the field of evidence, he has published Evidence Law and Practice (5th ed., with Taslitz and Friedland, 2012). Finally, with Professor Michael Asimow, he has studied popular culture, movies, and the law with Reel Justice: The Courtroom Goes to the Movies (2nd ed., 2006).