UCI’s Faculty Senate Backs the Idea of Having an Accredited Law School

A faculty committee on Tuesday unanimously endorsed establishment of a law school at UC Irvine as the university contemplates nearly doubling in size over the next 15 years.

Such a school of about 400 to 600 students would be an advantage in attorney-rich Orange County, one of the largest locales in the United States without a law school accredited by the American Bar Assn., according to a task force of professors and private lawyers who studied the issue.

“There are 2.3 million people in Orange County, and there is no place that big that doesn’t have an ABA-accredited law school,” said UCI professor Joseph F. Di Mento, who served on the eight-member task force formed by UCI’s Academic Senate last fall. “We’re bigger than many states that have one or more law schools.”

UCI Chancellor Jack W. Peltason cautioned that the proposal, approved Tuesday by the faculty senate’s 30-member executive committee, is still in the most preliminary stage of consideration. The next step is a hearing by the full Academic Senate on June 7.

“Development of a new professional school requires a rigorous review process that includes not only campus faculty and administration, but the (University of California) Council of Chancellors, the office of the president and the Board of Regents, and the state Post-Secondary Education Commission,” Peltason said.

Beyond that, developing a new public law school would require substantial state funding, he said. Financial requirements, however, were not studied by the task force.

“It doesn’t mean a law school is going to be built tomorrow, but it does mean there is support from the faculty for this initiative, so I’m very excited,” Di Mento said.

The proposal for a new law school comes at a time when more students than ever are competing for limited space in California’s 16 ABA-accredited legal schools, four of which are part of the University of California system.

“Very, very good students don’t get into the leading law schools in this state, not because they aren’t good enough, but because of the limited supply,” Di Mento said.

Last year at UCLA alone, there were 20 applicants for each student accepted into the law school, according to former California Supreme Court Justice John A. Arguelles of Irvine, a task force member.

UCI is ideally located in a county where the number of lawyers now is estimated at 8,000, where federal and state appellate court branches have opened recently, and where most national law firms have established offices.

“UCI has everything going for it--it has the location, the tremendous interest of local bench and bar, the tremendous prestige of the UC system and its commitment to excellence, it has a booming economy,” Arguelles said. “It even has a climate that would be an attraction for students and a great inducement in assembling a very outstanding faculty.”

Orange County has not had an ABA-accredited law school since Pepperdine Law School left Anaheim for its Malibu campus in 1979, according to legal experts.

Western State College of Law, headquartered in Orange County and the largest law school in California, with about 1,800 students at campuses in Fullerton and San Diego, fought unsuccessfully for years to gain ABA approval.

But legal experts said they doubt that a UCI law school would compete with Western State, whose students generally are older and attend part time.

Coincidentally, Western State plans to open a third branch with 200 students in Irvine this fall, but Western State officials said the expansion is fueled by increasing numbers of students applying from South County and the Irvine area, not by rumors of a school of law at UCI.

One bonus for Orange County residents for a UC law school is that such institutions tend to serve as catalysts for legal aid programs, the task force concluded.

“Excellent law schools generally have such (legal) programs,” said task force member Peter D. Zeughauser, general counsel for the Irvine Co.

Orange County Presiding Superior Court Judge Leonard Goldstein said such a law school “would only be positive for Orange County, and, I think, for the state.”