The National Law Journal's L.A. Legal Pad

Hastings College of Law receives $1M anonymous donation

Administrators at the University of California Hastings College of the Law were delighted to receive an anonymous $1 million contribution to boost financial aid.

The contribution is the largest donation for student financial assistance in the 130-year history of the law school, said Hastings Chancellor and Dean Nell Jessup Newton.

"Thanks to this extremely generous friend of Hastings, leaders of the future will be able to consider the broadest array of career options without the obstacles imposed by significant debt," said Newton.

Representatives of the donor, whose name is unknown to Hastings, delivered the $1 million gift with written instructions directing it be used for financial aid and scholarships. Newton said that the funds may be available as soon as the upcoming academic year.

"I hope that some day I will have the opportunity to tell our donor personally how much this gift means to me and to my alma mater," said Newton, a 1976 graduate of the law school.

-- Peter Page

UC Bekerley and USC law professors join UC-Irvine's new law school

Two California law professors are joining UC-Irvine's new law school, The Recorder reported.

Rachel F. Moran, a UC Berkeley law professor and director of their Institute for the Study of Social Change, will head UC-Irvine's Donald Bren School of Law.

Heading up the law school's clinical program is Carrie Hempel, a University of Southern California law professor and the directing attorney for the USC Post-Conviction Justice Project.

The dean of the law school, Erwin Chemerinsky, is expected to name the school's founding faculty next week.

UC-Irvine professors with backgrounds in law and policy will also join the law school in joint appointments.

Loyola Law School launches weekly legal podcasts

On May 5, Loyola Law School in Los Angeles launched a program of free weekly podcasts on legal topics for the general public.

The podcasts are disseminated via iTunes U, which distributes course content and other material from colleges and universities through its iTunes Store. Podcasts can be downloaded to an individual's MP3 player.

"We have several professors who are able to do a nice job of explaining in plain English a lot of what is going on in the legal world," said Brian Costello, deputy director of communications of Loyola Law School. "We decided to put that out to the masses." The podcasts, available on Mondays, are derived from interviews and symposia, rather than course lectures, he said. This month, for example, podcasts feature previous discussions by professors about ending the war in Iraq and election law issues for the 2008 presidential race.

-- Amanda Bronstad

UCLA Law launches $100M endowment for scholarships, faculty, clinical programs

The University of California—Los Angeles School of Law has launched a $100 million endowment campaign to support scholarships, faculty and clinical programs related to public policy.

Announced April 29 by UCLA School of Law Dean Michael Schill, the campaign is the official start to a fundraising effort that already has resulted in substantial gifts to the school, including a $6 million donation from Michael and Joanne Masin to provide scholarships to 12 top performers after their first year of law school.

Relying on private donations has become increasingly important for the school because of declining support from the State of California, which as dwindled to about 37% of the law school's resources.

The campaign will support the development of clinics and programs that focus on business law and policy, law and philosophy, racial studies, intellectual property and more.

UCLA School of Law was founded in 1949 and is a relatively young institution compared with its competitors. With about 970 students, tuition is $25,457 for residents and $36,381 for nonresidents, according to the American Bar Association-Law School Admission Council Official Guide to ABA-Approved law schools.

The campaign is scheduled to close in December 2012.

-- Leigh Jones

More grads go to NLJ 250 firms

A bigger percentage of students graduating from top law schools in 2007 took jobs at NLJ 250 law firms than those graduating in 2006, The National Law Journal reported. While Columbia Law School took the top spot again, with nearly 75% of its graduates to NLJ 250 law firms, two Los Angeles schools also made the list.

The University of Southern California's Boalt Goald School of Law ranked No. 14, with more than two out of five graduates hired by NLJ 250 law firms in 2006.

UCLA Law moved up the rankings to No. 17. Of its 320 graduates, 39.1 percent went to NLJ 250 law firms. UCLA law dean Michael Schill told the NLJ this was due to a greater effort to geographically diversify the student body.

Read the full story here

Erwin Chemerinsky talks about the future of UC-Irvine law

UC-Irvine's new law school plans to take cues from how medical schools teach their students.

Law dean Erwin Chemerinsky told Los Angeles City Beat that he plans to require law students to get clinical experience by working directly with clients, similarly to how medical school students begin seeing patients before they graduate.

Schools are good at teaching how to read cases, understand legal doctrine and make arguments based on legal doctrine, but they do a shabby job at preparing students to practice law, he told the newspaper.

Chemerinsky also hopes to better instill a sense of public service.

"I think that many students hear about public service from the dean who welcomes them the first day and from the commencement speaker at their graduation on the last day," he told the newspaper. "We could do much better within the school."

Chemerinsky also believes law students should be trained in other fields, like psychology and economics.

UCLA Law gets $1.5 million for chair in music industry law

UCLA School of Law received a $1.5 million commitment for a chair of law, focusing on music, entertainment or intellectual property law.

The money comes from The Shapiro Family Charitable Foundation, naming it the Pete Kameron Endowed Chair in Law in honor of the music industry  figure.

UCLA Law gets $10 million for new climate change center

The UCLA School of Law received $10 million to create a center on climate change and the environment.

The Emmett Center will be the nation's first law school center focused exclusively on climate change, according to a UCLA press release.

It will collaborate with the school's environmental law clinic and environmental law and policy program.

The center's faculty director will be law professor Ann Carlson, with other positions to be determined upon the center's completion, the UCLA's Daily Bruin reports (here).

The endowment comes from Dan Emmett, chair of a Santa Monica real estate investment trust, and his family. Emmett is an adviser to Gov. Schwarzenegger's Green Building Initiative and is a founding member of several environmental organizations in the state.

UCLA holds climate change symposium tomorrow

UCLA will host a public symposium on climate change law and policy tomorrow to include policymakers, legal scholars and environmental experts.

Topics will include:

• Domestic litigation after the the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Massachusetts v. EPA decision
• International law and climate change
• Regulation
• The private sector
• Implementation issues

Confirmed speakers include:

• Mary Nichols, chair of the California Air Resources Board and UCLA law professor
• Cass Sunstein, University of Chicago law and political science professor
• Dr. Peter Gleick, president and co-founder of The Pacific Institute and MacArthur Genius Grant fellow

The day-long symposium will go from 8 a.m. to 4:50 p.m. and take place at the UCLA School of Law, Room 1347.

Local firms give big to UC-Irvine's new law school

­ The University of California, Irvine Donald Bren School of Law has raised $23.5 million from individual donors, which include many local lawyers and law firms.

UCI¹s law school plans to open its doors by fall 2009. Two dozen donors have given financially to UC Irvine as of Jan. 15.

The largest gift, at $20 million, came from billionaire and local philanthropist Donald Bren, the namesake of the school. Another $1 million each came from the Joan Irvine Smith & Athalie R. Clarke Foundation and Mark Robinson, founder and senior partner of Robinson, Calcagnie & Robinson in Newport Beach, Calif.

J. Craig Williams and Lisa Chester, of the Williams Lindberg Law Firm in Newport Beach, gave $150,000. Williams, an environmental litigation attorney, is a lecturer at UC Irvine on law involving toxic materials. Chester is chief financial officer and controller at the firm.

Among the 13 donors that gave $100,000, all but one were lawyers or law firms. National firms that gave $100,000 were Jones Day (through its foundation), Latham & Watkins, O¹Melveny & Myers, Morrison & Foerster and Kirkpatrick & Lockhart Preston Gates Ellis.

Thomas Malcolm, a partner in the Irvine office of Jones Day, is a member of the advisory committee to Erwin Chemerinsky, who was hired last fall to become the dean of the Donald Bren School of Law. He officially starts on July 1.

Three Los Angeles-based firms gave to UC Irvine: Allen Matkins Leck Gamble Mallory & Natsis; Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher; and Irell & Manella. Snell & Wilmer, based in Phoenix, gave $100,000. All the firms listed have offices in Orange County, Calif.

Locally, Knobbe, Martens, Olson & Bear and Payne & Fears, both based in Irvine, each gave $100,000. Anne Andrews, name partner of Andrews & Thornton, which is based in Irvine, also gave $100,000. Andrews specializes in personal injury and mass tort litigation, especially involving the herbal supplement ephedra.

DecisionQuest Inc., a Los Angeles-based trial consulting firm, is the only non-law firm or lawyer that gave $100,000.

Los Angeles-based Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, which has an office in Costa Mesa, Calif., gave $30,000; Winthrop Couchot, a bankruptcy firm based in Newport Beach, gave $25,000; Dorsey & Whitney, which has an Irvine office, gave $17,500; the Law Office of Michael Fields gave $1,000; David S. Ettinger, a partner at Horwitz & Levy in Encino, Calif., and his wife, Susan, gave $250; and Norman H. Green, a partner at Irsfeld, Irsfeld & Younger in Glendale, Calif., and his wife, Rachel, gave $100.

Chemerinsky has been instrumental in attracting donors. Last fall, UC Irvine Chancellor Michael Drake initially withdrew his offer to Chemerinsky to become dean of the new law school. His decision sparked uproar among legal scholars; Drake reoffered Chemerinsky the position days later.

Green said he was solicited, but didn't give a donation to UC Irvine, soon after Drake withdrew his offer to Chemerinsky. "After they rehired him, I got a different solicitation and sent them $100," Green said. "I said it was in honor of Dean Chemerinsky."

-- Amanda Bronstad