Santa Clara University School of Law

Santa Clara University School of Law was founded in 1911. The school is part of Santa Clara University (founded 1851), the oldest operating institution of higher learning in California and the oldest Catholic university in the American West. It was approved by the American Bar Association in 1937.[8] It joined the Association of American Law Schools (AALS) in 1940.[9]

Prior to the requirement that all Californian law graduates must take the state bar exam, Santa Clara Law was one of the five schools whose graduates were exempt from the examination, along with Boalt Hall, Hastings, Stanford, and USC.[10]

According to the required disclosures under ABA Section 509, 50.3% of the Class of 2013 was employed in full-time, long-term positions requiring bar admission.[11]

Law school rankings of Santa Clara Law include:

• Number 4 for Intellectual Property Law among law schools in the United States[12]
• Number 12 for diversity among law schools (tied for first in California with the USC Law School)[13]
• Number 96 overall among law schools in the United States[2]
• Princeton Review "Best 170 Law Schools" (2008) – number 22 overall among law schools for average starting salary[14]
• The Census Group Composition ranking, which scores law schools based on selectivity, salary, placement and yield, ranks Santa Clara Law at Number 64.[15]
• Hylton Rankings, which scores programs based on their U.S. News & World Report peer assessment ratings provided by law professors and by the mean LSAT scores of each law school, ranked Santa Clara Law at Number 78 overall.[16]
• Listed Number 13 overall for mid-career median salary (at $188,000 a year) in Forbes' list of Best Law Schools for Getting Rich[17]
• Graded as "B-" in the January 2011 "Best Public Interest Law Schools" listing by The National Jurist: The Magazine for Law Students[18]
• Graded as "A" in the March 2011 "Diversity Honor Roll" by The National Jurist: The Magazine for Law Students[19]
• Its journal, Santa Clara Computer and High Technology Law Journal, is ranked #6 nationally for intellectual property.[20]

Charney Hall

Based on a 2001–2007 six-year average, 73% of Santa Clara University Law graduates passed the California State Bar.[21]

According to Santa Clara's official 2013 ABA-required disclosures, 42.2% of the Class of 2013 obtained full-time, long-term, JD-required employment nine months after graduation, excluding solo-practitioners.[22] Santa Clara Law's Law School Transparency under-employment score is 34.5%, indicating the percentage of the Class of 2013 unemployed, pursuing an additional degree, or working in a non-professional, short-term, or part-time job nine months after graduation.[23]

Law School Transparency reports a 41.3% employment score for the Class of 2011.[24]

According to the American Bar Association's "Official Guide to ABA-Approved Law Schools," 94.5 percent of Santa Clara students were employed nine months after graduation, with 77 percent of graduates employed in the private sector and 21 percent employed in the public sector.[25]

According to the Princeton Review, the average starting salary for Santa Clara Law graduates is $90,000.[26] According to Forbes magazine, mid-career median salary is currently $188,000 a year.[17]

According to a study done by online salary-information company PayScale, graduates of Santa Clara Law have the third highest midcareer median salary among all graduate programs in the United States.[27] The report found that Santa Clara Law graduates typically make $76,900 the first year following graduation and attain a midcareer median salary of $197,700.[28]

Atrium inside Charney Hall

The total cost of attendance (indicating the cost of tuition, fees, and living expenses) at Santa Clara for the 2013-2014 academic year was $70,320.[30] The Law School Transparency estimated debt-financed cost of attendance for three years is $262,472.[31]

The top feeder schools into Santa Clara Law, in order, are UC Berkeley, UC Davis, UCLA, UC Santa Barbara, UC San Diego, San Jose State University, and Santa Clara University.[32]

The top five feeder states in order are California, Texas, Arizona, Washington, and Illinois.[32] In 2013, 2,598 people applied to the School of Law and 246 matriculated.[33] Over 44 percent of the applicants were from outside California, including applicants from all 50 states and 55 foreign countries.[33]

The LSAT scores were 162 for the 75th percentile and 158 for the 25th percentile. The GPA for entering students was 3.55 for the 75th percentile and 3.12 for the 25th percentile.[33]

Santa Clara Law has a chapter of the Order of the Coif, a national law school honorary society founded for the purposes of encouraging legal scholarship and advancing the ethical standards of the legal profession.[34]

Over the last century, the Santa Clara University campus, located along El Camino Real in Santa Clara, has expanded to more than 104 acres (0.4 km²; 0.2 sq mi). Amid its many Mission Style academic and residential buildings are the historic mission gardens, rose garden, and palm trees. The campus benefits from the area's mediterranean climate, with more than 300 days of sun a year.

Until 1939, the law school inhabited present-day St. Joseph's Hall at the center of campus. Under the tenure of Dean Edwin Owens, Bergin Hall was constructed and became home to the school in 1939. The new building was built using monies collected through Santa Clara football's successful appearances in the Sugar Bowl and named after Thomas Bergin, Santa Clara's first graduate, a California legal pioneer, and an early donor to the School of Law.

The Edwin Heafey Law Library was constructed in 1963, and expanded in 1973 to include more space for library materials. Heafey was renovated and expanded again in 1988. The collection contains over 400,000 volumes in print and digital formats.[35] Additionally, the library manages an institutional repository which currently contains over 4,000 digital items including a collection of papers related to the Congressional hearings regarding the Watergate Scandal donated by Congressman Don Edwards.[36] Other digital collections include documents relating to litigation over the Patient Protection and Affordable Healthcare Act (also known as Obamacare) and the Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict.[37]

Charney Hall - Law Library Reference Desk

Also in 1973, Bannan Hall was built, including space for the Law School on the ground floor. In 2008 Dean Donald Polden announced the law school would have exclusive use of Bannan Hall, and the building was renovated and used exclusively by the law school shortly thereafter.

In 2018, the Law school moved into Charney Hall, a new $60 million building built specifically to house the Law school.[38] The 96,000-square-foot building is a vast improvement over the school's existing facilities, which are spread over very different buildings, one of which was built a century ago. In contrast, Charney Hall calls to mind the nearby Silicon Valley tech campuses thanks to copious amounts of open space, natural light, cutting-edge classroom technology, plenty of student comforts, and flexible spaces that foster collaboration and innovative teaching.[39]

• Colleen V. Chien – senior advisor for intellectual property in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP)[40]
• David D. Friedman – author of The Machinery of Freedom[41]
• Eric Goldman – ICo-Director of the High Tech Law Institute, author of Technology and Marketing Law Blog[42]
• Ro Khanna – adjunct instructor, former Deputy Assistant Secretary in the United States Department of Commerce
• Catherine Sandoval – Commissioner on the California Public Utilities Commission[43]

• Mike Espy (1978)[44] – former 25th United States Secretary of Agriculture, Member of the U.S. House of Representatives
• Phyllis Jean Hamilton (1976)[45] – Judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California
• Beth Kerttula (1981)[46] – Minority Leader, Alaska House of Representatives
• Robert J. Lagomarsino[47] (1953) – U.S. Representative for California's 19th District
• Zoe Lofgren (1975)[45] – U.S. Representative for California's 16th congressional district
• Douglas Moylan (1991)[45] – Judge on the Supreme Court of Guam; first elected Attorney General of Guam
• Edward A. Panelli (1956) – [48] Justice of the Supreme Court of California
• Jimmy Panetta – assistant district attorney in Monterey County, California[49]
• Leon Panetta (1963)[45] – former Secretary of Defense; former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency; previously, White House Chief of Staff under Bill Clinton; U.S. House of Representatives (California)
• Howard Wallace Pollock (1953) – U.S. Representative for Alaska
• Curren Price (1976)[50] – Senator, California State Senate
• Albert J. Ruffo (1936)[51] – 48th Mayor of San Jose
• Mark Stone (1988) – Assemblymember for California's 29th State Assembly district

Timeline of historical events, including previous deans.[52]

• James Campbell – 1911 to 1918
  

  Dean Lisa Kloppenberg with law students
• Lawrence E. O'Keefe, SJ – 1919 to 1920
• Clarence Coolidge – 1920 to 1933
• Edwin J. Owens – 1933 to 1953
• Byron J. Snow – 1953 to 1955
• Warren P. McKenney – 1955 to 1959
• Leo Huard – 1959 to 1969
• George Strong (acting) – 1970
• George Alexander – 1970 to 1985
• Richard Rykoff (acting) – 1985 to 1986
• Gerald Uelmen – 1986 to 1994
• Mack Player – 1994 to 2003[53]
• Donald J. Polden – 2003 to 2013[54]
• Lisa Kloppenberg – 2013 to present[55]

• Official website