The University of California, Irvine School of Law announced on Friday that the American Bar Association has granted full accreditation to the school with immediate effect. Dean Erwin Chemerinsky, observed happily in the press release, “I am very proud that the decision by the ABA is at the earliest possible time under the ABA rules.”
Dean Chemrinsky commented, “From the outset, our goal has been to build a top law school that emphasizes preparing students for the practice of law at the highest levels of the profession … The ABA’s decision puts the official seal of approval on the hard work of scores of faculty, administrators, students, and supporters, both on campus and in the legal community. We are so grateful for the generosity and support we have received in building the University of California, Irvine School of Law.”
In nearly half a century, University of California, Irvine School of Law was the first public law school in the state. It created an innovative curriculum that included requirements like mandatory participation in legal clinics for every student; new courses that did not exist in other law schools in the state; emphasizing methods of legal analysis in the first-year, and creating upper-level courses for incorporating skills training in law school courses.
A recent study ranked the Irvine School of Law 7th in the country for scholarly impact, and to its pride, in 2013, its students completed 10,000 hours of pro bono work. The Orange County Register reported that out of 134 UC Irvine law school graduates who have taken the bar exam in different states since July 2012, 118 have passed. The school graduated another 92 students in the latest batch.