L.A. Law School Considers Move to O.C.

In an effort to expand classroom and library size, Whittier College Law School trustees are considering moving their campus from Los Angeles to Orange County, officials said Thursday.

“Orange County seems to be the best option,” said John FitzRandolph, the law school’s dean.

The 690-student law school, now in posh Hancock Park in Los Angeles, is seeking to double its space, FitzRandolph said. Its current building has about 60,000 square feet, but the school would like to have about 120,000 to 160,000 square feet.

If the college moved to Orange County, it would be the first school here to be approved by the American Bar Assn. There are currently six such approved law schools in Los Angeles County, including Whittier College’s campus.

FitzRandolph said easy automobile access is important to night students, so college officials have examined a handful of possible sites easily accessible by freeway, including office space in Costa Mesa, Santa Ana and Irvine. About a third of the students attend night courses, he said.

The Whittier trustees are pondering the move less than three months after Chapman University officials announced they will begin their own law school in the county and will seek ABA accreditation.

Chapman University expects its first classes to begin with six full-time and four part-time professors in late August, 1995. If Whittier College’s law school decides to move to Orange County, its classes might begin as early as fall, 1995, but the following fall is a more likely target date, officials said.

“The population is large enough to support either two or three ABA law schools” in Orange County, said Jeremy Miller, dean of Chapman’s law school. “Most importantly, we have some innovations, which will attract different kinds of students than those at Whittier.”

Orange County already has a popular law school: Western State University College of Law. While Western State is approved by the state bar, it does not have ABA accreditation. Such accreditation is often difficult and time-consuming to obtain and depends on such factors as library size and the number of full-time professors.

“There is no concentration of 2.5 million people in this country without an ABA (accredited) law school,” FitzRandolph said, noting that in the past Loyola Law School and UC Irvine both considered establishing law schools in Orange County but decided “it wasn’t in the cards.”

Trustees have been examining the possibility of moving out of Los Angeles for about four years, FitzRandolph said.

The move is by no means a done deal. At the college’s October board meeting, trustees ordered a study to determine the cost of moving to Orange County. The report is due back by February. A decision on whether to move could be made at the next board meeting in February or possibly earlier, FitzRandolph said.