School Daze

By Erwin Chemerinsky

      My plan had been to write a column when named as dean of the Donald Bren School of Law at the University of California, Irvine, to get the word out that there is a new law school opening its doors to students in 2009. I guess that the good news about the events of last week is we now have the best publicized new law school in the history of the planet.
      It was an extraordinary week, one of the hardest and certainly the strangest of my life. I was tremendously moved by the support and kindness that I received from so many people. Literally hundreds of former students wrote or called, and law professors, lawyers and judges across the country publicly and privately expressed their support. I could not help but feel like George Bailey, from the movie "It's a Wonderful Life," as people whom I have known across my life were there for me at a very difficult time.
      Even more important, it was an occasion for academics of all political views to reaffirm their commitment to academic freedom. Academic institutions are special places where all views should be expressed and discussed. Only through this process can ideas, development and intellectual advancement occur.
      Now comes the fun part (and the hard work) of being part of building a new law school. Why another law school? I once heard Scott Bice, the superb former dean of the University of Southern California Law School, remark that there are plenty of lawyers, but not nearly enough good ones.
      California does not have a law school at a public university south or east of the University of California, Los Angeles, an area of enormous population. If it were a city, Orange County would be the eighth largest in the country. My hope is that the law school will have a special relationship with Riverside and the Inland Empire, and, for that matter, San Diego, none of which have their own public law school.
      There has not been a new public university law school in over 45 years, since UC Davis School of Law was launched, and there has not been a new public university law school in Southern California since UCLA opened more than a half century ago. The percentage of lawyers practicing in California who graduated from public universities has decreased significantly over time.
      I believe that a public university has a special role and mission in the state where it is located. Being significantly supported by the state's tax resources, it should aim to be of service to it. In part, this is done by educating the students of the state, many of whom will constitute the region's next generation of great lawyers, judges and academics.
      As a public university, teaching a commitment to public service will be a core aspect of the law school's mission. This is not liberal or conservative; individuals of every political persuasion should feel a duty to use their talents and skills to make society better. My hope is that leadership training will be a part of the new law school's mission and program.
      The University of California, Irvine, is an especially desirable place for a new law school. It already has some of the country's top faculty in law-related fields, such as criminology, law and humanities, law and society, law and psychology, law and economics, and others.
      Thus, part of what will make the new law school distinctive will be its use of these outstanding faculty members in creating a truly interdisciplinary law school. The most important change in legal education since I was a law student 30 years ago has been the realization that law is informed by other disciplines, such as economics, philosophy and psychology, just to name a few.
      At the same time, law regulates all aspects of society and thus shapes the environment in which these other disciplines operate. Most law schools have become interdisciplinary by hiring faculty in these other fields. UCI has the advantage of being able to use terrific existing faculty to help achieve this goal.
      My hope, too, is that the school will be an innovator in legal education. I would like to see every law student have a significant "experiential learning" component in law school and, ideally, in each year of law school. For example, we will have as our goal that every student must have a clinical experience, or something comparable to it, before graduating. I always have been astounded that medical students treat patients, often from early in their training, but many law students never see a client until after they graduate.
      The law school likely will emphasize areas that are particularly important in Orange County, such as intellectual property, law and technology, environmental law, law and medicine, and public interest law. My hope is to begin immediately to create fellowships for students in each of these areas.
      The goal is to hire six to eight faculty this year and three to six the following year, with a faculty of about 35 when fully operational. Although it will start smaller, ultimately there will be 200 students in a class. It will be a faculty and student body that is diverse in every possible way, where all viewpoints are reflected and debated.
      I do not underestimate how daunting the task of creating a new institution will be. The existence of this school is the result of enormous hard work by many people at UCI and in Orange County over the last 15 years. Chancellor Michael Drake has been tireless in his efforts to make this dream a reality.
      I am honored to have been chosen as the founding dean of this law school. Nothing that I have done in my professional life is as important as this. I only hope that I can begin to live up to the expectations of Chancellor Drake and others who have put their confidence in me.
     
      Erwin Chemerinsky is the Alston and Bird Professor of Law and Political Science at Duke University in Durham, N.C. He will begin serving as the founding dean of the Donald Bren School of Law at the University of California, Irvine, in July 2008.