University of California, Irvine School of Law Dean and Distinguished Professor, Erwin Chemerinsky, spoke at Pacifica Institute’s Luncheon Forum.
As Dean Erwin Chemerinsky spoke at the Pacifica Institute luncheon forum all that were listening were amazed by his energy and charisma. He said that to make UC Irvine School of Law one of the top 20 law schools in the country is his goal. However tough of a goal this might be, to star among Yale and Harvard for a new school, many critics already believe with the level of faculty under the guidance of Dr. Chemerinsky this is going to happen. At the school there are 8 founding faculty members all from top schools of the nation, and even a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist amongst them. According to some critics the quality of the faculty has already made them among the top 10. The goal of the school was to start very small and be free. If you have a top notch school and it’s free people will come. However this law Scholl is not to be just a top law school, Erwin states that if we do this and just this we would have failed. Our goal is to train new lawyers that are able to practice to the highest degree. Students will be inspired to practice in public service. Also all students that attend will be required to have one or two semesters of clinical service to graduate. According to Erwin this is the law school for the 21st Century. Eventually 200 a class and 50 faculty members is where he would like to see it. The school will focus on a few main areas of study, these are: Intellectual property, Environmental Law, Law and medicine, International business law and Public interest.