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 in 1940.[9]
Prior to the requirement that all California 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, not counting those employed where a JD degree was an advantage, employed in a professional position, and those enrolled in graduate studies, 55% of the Class of 2021 was employed in full-time, long-term positions that require bar admission within nine months of graduation.[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]
Princeton Review "Best 170 Law Schools" (2008) – number 22 overall among law schools for average starting salary[14]
The Census Group Composition 2009 ranking, which scores law schools based on selectivity, salary, placement and yield, ranks Santa Clara Law at Number 64.[15]
Hylton Rankings 2007, 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 2011 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 in 2012 nationally for intellectual property.[20]
Charney Hall
Bar passage rates
Based on a 2001–2007 six-year average, 73% of Santa Clara University Law graduates passed the California State Bar.[21]
Post-graduation employment
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 private-sector starting salary for Santa Clara Law graduates in 2020 is $100,000.[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]
The total cost of attendance (indicating the cost of tuition, fees, and living expenses) at Santa Clara for the 2021-2022 academic year was $89,444 for first-year law students.[29] The Law School Transparency estimated debt-financed cost of attendance for three years is $262,472.[30]
The top-five feeder states in order are California, Texas, Nevada, Washington, and Arizona.[32] For the 2021 entering class, 2,336 people applied to the School of Law and 205 full-time and 21 part-time students matriculated.
For the 2021 entering class, the LSAT scores for entering full-time students were 160 for the 75th percentile and 155 for the 25th percentile. The undergraduate GPA for full-time entering students was 3.62 for the 75th percentile and 3.21 for the 25th percentile.[32]
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.[33]
Campus
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.
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.[34] 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.[35] 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.[36]
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.[37]
Notable faculty
Colleen V. Chien – senior advisor for intellectual property in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP)[38]
^Weyenberg, Michelle (January 2011). "Best Law Schools for Public Interest". The National Jurist. San Diego, California: Cypress Magazines. 20 (4): 24–28. Archived from the original on 2011-08-08. Retrieved 2011-04-20.
^"Alphonso Michael (Mike) Espy". Black Americans in Congress. United States House of Representatives. Archived from the original on March 16, 2012. Retrieved April 19, 2012.
^"Representative Beth Kerttula". Alaska State Legislature: House of Representatives. Archived from the original on February 8, 2012. Retrieved April 19, 2012.
