University of California, Hastings College of the Law
University of California, Hastings College of the Law (UC Hastings or Hastings) is a public law school in San Francisco, California, in the Civic Center neighborhood.
Founded in 1878 by Serranus Clinton Hastings, the first Chief Justice of California, it was the first law school of the University of California (UC) state university system and was one of the first law schools established in the Western United States. It is one of the few university-affiliated law schools in the United States that does not share its campus with undergraduates or other graduate programs.
In 2009, U.S. News & World Report ranked Hastings 39th among all U.S. law schools.
History
Hastings has a unique relationship with the University of California. In 1878, when Justice Serranus Clinton Hastings gave $100,000 to the University of California to start the law school bearing his name, he imposed two conditions: the school must remain in San Francisco near the courts; and it could not be governed by the Regents of the University of California. Thus the school's leader (who holds the dual titles of chancellor and dean) must obtain funds directly from the California State Legislature, unlike other UC institutions, which receive money from the Regents. In a commencement address, Hastings called his school "a temple of law and intellect, which shall never perish, until, in the lapse of time, civilization shall cease, and this fair portion of our country shall be destroyed or become a desert."
In the 1960s, Hastings began the "65 Club," the practice of hiring faculty who had been forced into mandatory retirement at age 65 from Ivy League and other elite institutions. After the passage of age discrimination laws, however, the "65 Club" slowly phased out, and Hastings hired its last "65 Club" professor in 1998. In the mid-1950s, Newsweek published a story where then Harvard Law School dean and jurist Roscoe Pound declared, referring to UC Hastings: "Indeed, on the whole, I am inclined to think you have the strongest law faculty in the nation."
Location
UC Hastings campus spreads among three main buildings located near San Francisco's Civic Center: 200 McAllister Street houses academic space and administrative offices
198 McAllister contains mainly classrooms and faculty offices
100 McAllister (known casually as "The Tower") is student housing
The campus is within walking distance of the Muni Metro and Bay Area Rapid Transit Civic Center/UN Plaza Station. UC Hastings is commonly but affectionately derided by students and alums as being located in the ugliest corner of the most beautiful city in the world. Indeed, the school has been referred to in jest as "UC Tenderloin."
Located within a two-block radius of the campus is the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, the California Supreme Court, the California Court of Appeal for the First District, San Francisco Superior Court, San Francisco City Hall, United Nations Plaza (and Federal Building Annex), the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, and the Main Library of the San Francisco Public Library system. The heavy concentration of public buildings within the Civic Center, as well as the high crime rate, result in heavy police presence, and high security, around UC Hastings.
Organization and structure
UC Hastings is controlled by a nine-member Board of Directors. The UC Hastings Board of Directors exists independently of, and is not controlled by, the Regents of the University of California. Pursuant to California law, eight of the directors are appointed by the Governor of California. Pursuant to the UC Hastings constitutive documents, the ninth director must be a direct lineal descendant of UC Hastings founder Clinton Serranus Hastings. The Hastings family member now serving on the board is Claes H. Lewenhaupt.
UC Hastings' detachment from the UC Regents gives it a broad degree of independence in shaping educational and fiscal policies; however, due to a shrinking California education budget, Hastings must also compete for limited educational funds against its fellow UCs. Despite the apparent competition between the UC law schools, Hastings was able to maintain its traditionally high standards without having to decrease class size or raise tuition prices to higher levels than fellow UC law schools, until the California budget crisis in June 2009, first raised the possibility of slashing $10 million in state funding.
A few days later, however, lawmakers rejected the harsh budget cut, agreeing to cut only $1 million and apparently preventing dramatic tuition hikes.
Under California law, if the government ever cuts funding to Hastings to below the 19th century figure of $7,000 a year, the state must return the $100,000, plus interest, to the Hastings family. State Sen. Mark Leno (D-San Francisco) has argued that the rejected $10 million budget cut, in abandoning state financial support for the school, would have allowed the Hastings family to launch an expensive court fight to reclaim the $100,000 plus hefty interest.
Academics
Hastings offers a three-year Juris Doctor program with concentrated studies available in seven areas: civil litigation, criminal law, international law, public interest law, taxation, family law, and recently, a new concentration in intellectual property law. Most J.D. students follow a traditional three-year plan. During the first year, students take required courses as well as one elective course. In the second and third years, students may take any course or substitute or supplement their courses with judicial externships or internships, judicial clinics, or study abroad. The college also offers a one-year LL.M. degree in U.S. legal studies for students holding law degrees from foreign law programs.
Rankings
US News ranks Hastings 39th among top law schools in the US, and is the most diverse of the four law schools in the UC system. It also has the largest student body and student/faculty ratio of the UC schools.
According to Brian Leiter's Law School rankings, Hastings ranks 27th in the nation in terms of scholarly impact as measured by academic citations of tenure-stream faculty, on par with USC. In terms of student quality, Hastings ranks 33rd in the nation by average LSAT score.
UC Hastings is 14th in the nation for bar passage rate versus the average passage rate of its venue state.
According to the Web site "Law School Advocacy," UC Hastings had the No. 2 Moot Court program in the country in 2007.
Publications
Inaugurated in 1997 as the publishing department at UC Hastings, the O'Brien Center for Scholarly Publications publishes nine journals on various aspects of the law. The oldest journal out of the nine is the Hastings Law Journal, which was founded in 1949. The O'Brien Center also has published two books: Forgive Us Our Press Passes, by Daniel Schorr and The Traynor Reader: Essays, by the Honorable Roger Traynor. [http://www.uchastings.edu/hlj Hastings Law Journal]
[http://www.hastingsblj.org/ Hastings Business Law Journal]
[http://www.uchastings.edu/comment/ Hastings Communications and Entertainment Law Journal]
[http://www.uchastings.edu/clq/ Hastings Constitutional Law Quarterly]
[http://www.uchastings.edu/hiclr/ Hastings International and Comparative Law Review]
[http://www.uchastings.edu/hrplj/ Hastings Race and Poverty Law Journal]
[http://uchastings.edu/wlj/ Hastings Women's Law Journal]
[http://www.uchastings.edu/wnw/ West-Northwest Journal of Environmental Law and Policy]
[http://www.uchastings.edu/stlj/index.html Hastings Science & Technology Law Journal]
Notable alumni
Dick Ackerman (1967) - California State Senate Republican Leader
Jeff Adachi (1985) - The Public Defender of San Francisco
Jeffrey Amestoy (1972) - Former Chief Justice of The Vermont Supreme Court
Nestor Barrero (1984) - Vice President and Employment Counsel for Universal Studios
Marvin Baxter (1966) - Associate Justice of the California Supreme Court
Michael D. Bradbury (1967) - former District Attorney of Ventura County, California
Lloyd Braun (1983) - former media executive with Yahoo!, former chairman of the American Broadcasting Company Entertainment group
Matthew R. Broad (1984) - Executive Vice President and General Counsel for OfficeMax Incorporated
Willie Brown (1958) - former Speaker of the California State Assembly and Mayor of San Francisco
Melvin Brunetti (1964) - Senior Circuit Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
Richard Bryan (1963) - Former U.S. Senator and Governor of Nevada
Cynthia Bryant (1995) - Office of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Deputy Chief of Staff
James S. Bubar (1978) - Democratic candidate for US (Shadow) Representative from the District of Columbia
Ed Case (1981) - U.S. Congressman from Hawaii's 2nd Congressional District
Suzanne Case (1983) - Executive Director, Nature Conservancy of Hawaii
Rachelle Chong (1984) - Current Commissioner for California PUC and former FCC Commissioner
Carol Corrigan (1975) - Associate Justice, Supreme Court of California
Joe Cotchett (1964) - Nationally prominent trial lawyer & famous social justice litigator, attorney for Valerie Plame
Bill Dannemeyer (1952) - U.S. Congressman from California's 39th Congressional District (Orange County)
Christopher Darden (1980) - prosecutor in O.J. Simpson trial
Scott Drexel (1975) - chief prosecutor, State Bar of California
Sidney M. Ehrman (1897) - Co-Founder and Named Partner of International Law Firm Heller Ehrman LLP
Clair Engle (1933) - U.S. Senator from California
Santiago Fernandez (1980) - Senior Vice President and General Counsel for The Los Angeles Dodgers
Clara Shortridge Foltz (1881) - The first practicing female lawyer in the United States
Philip Kan Gotanda (1978) - Award-winning playwright
Abby Ginzberg (1975) - Award-Winning Documentary Filmmaker
Karla Gray (1976) - Chief Justice of the Montana Supreme Court
Ruth Church Gupta (1948) - First woman elected president of the San Francisco Lawyers’ Association and first woman to head the Bar Conference of Delegates
Kathryn Walt Hall (1972) - Former U.S. Ambassador to Austria
Terence Hallinan (1964) - San Francisco District Attorney
Kamala Harris (1990) - San Francisco District Attorney
Emanuel S. Heller (1889) - Founder and Named Partner of International Law Firm Heller Ehrman LLP
Bob Hertzberg (1979) - former Speaker of the California State Assembly and Los Angeles mayoral candidate
Vicki Iovine (1980) - Playboy Playmate, Author
Gregg Jarrett (1980) - Anchor, Fox News Channel
Nick Jones (2007) - Grandson of "Deep Throat" Mark Felt, responsible for coordinating revelation of Deep Throat's identity to the media
Parker Kennedy (1949) - President, First American Corporation
Constance Lau (1977) - President & CEO, American Savings Bank, Honolulu
Otto Lee (1994) - Mayor of Sunnyvale
Carl Leonard (1968) - Chairman and Director of the Hildebrandt Institute, the educational arm of Hildebrandt International, and former Chairman of Morrison & Foerster
Jonathan P. Lowell (1985) - City Attorney for San Bruno, California
John Maata (1977) - Senior Vice President and General Counsel for Warner Bros. Studios
Frank D.G. Madison (1892) - Named Partner of Pillsbury Madison & Sutro, now Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP
Robert Matsui (1966) - U.S. Congressman from California's 5th Congressional District (Sacramento)
Edward J. McCutchen (1879) - Founder and Named Partner of McCutchen, Doyle, Brown & Enersen, now Bingham McCutchen LLP
Rodney Melville - US judge, notable for presiding over the People v. Jackson case.
Thomas Mesereau (1979) - Famous criminal defense attorney with a star-studded client list, including Michael Jackson and Robert Blake
Nicholas G. Moore (1967) - Chairman of PriceWaterhouseCoopers
Alexander Francis Morrison (1881) - Founder and Named Partner of International Law Firm Morrison & Foerster LLP
George Moscone (1957) - Assassinated Mayor of San Francisco
Paula A. Nakayama (1979) - Associate Justice of the Hawaii State Supreme Court
John M. Ordway (1976) - U.S. Ambassador to Armenia
Andrew Downey Orrick (1947) - Former Acting Chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and son of William Horsley Orrick, Sr. of the law firm Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe, where he also worked
Horace Davis Pillsbury (1896) - GC & President, Pacific Bell; Son of Evans Searle Pillsbury of Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP
Mario R. Ramil (1975) - Associate Justice of the Hawaii State Supreme Court
Robert Rigsby (1986) - Associate Justice in the D.C. Superior Court
George R. Roberts (1969)- Co-Founder, of Kohlberg Kravis & Roberts Company
Richard Sakai (1980) - BAR/BRI Lecturer for Legal Writing, USF Law Professor
Kevin Shelley (1980) - 28th California Secretary of State
Douglas W. Shorenstein (1979) - Chairman/CEO, The Shorenstein Company
Jackie Speier (1976) - U.S. Congresswoman
Todd Spitzer (1989) - California State Assemblyman
Alfred Sutro (1894) - Named Partner of Pillsbury Madison & Sutro, now Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP
Kelvin Taketa (1980) - President & CEO, Hawaii Community Foundation, Director of Hawaiian Electric Industries, Inc.
Nancy Tellem (1979) - CBS Entertainment President
Richard Thalheimer (1974) - CEO and Founder of The Sharper Image
Tom Umberg (1980) - California State Assemblyman
Ann Veneman (1976) - 27th U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, Executive Director of UNICEF
Adam Wasserman (1995) - Founder of ExamSoft Worldwide, Inc.
Michael C. Wood (1979) - President & Founder, LeapFrog Enterprises
Current Notable Faculty Members
Bill Dodge
David Faigman
Calvin Massey
Roger Park
Joseph Grodin
Geoffrey Hazard
John Diamond
William "Bill" Hutton
Ethan Leib
Ugo Mattei
Mary Kay Kane
Richard Marcus
Joan Williams
Charles Knapp
James Wagstaffe
The Sixty-Five Club: Notable Former Faculty Members
William Prosser, Torts
Rudolf Schlesinger, International & Comparative Law
Julius Stone, Jurisprudence & International Law
Roger Traynor - Former California Supreme Court Justice
Raymond Sullivan - Former California Supreme Court Justice
Arthur Goldberg - Former U.S. Supreme Court Justice
Rollin Perkins, Criminal Law & Procedure
Richard B. Powell, Property
Edward S. Thurston, Restitution
Roscoe T. Steffen, Civil Law & Equity
Hastings in popular culture
Lindsey McDonald, an attorney at the demonic law firm Wolfram and Hart in the television show Angel, was a Hastings alum.
Translation of "University of California, Hastings College of the Law"
Persian: دانشگاه کالیفرنیا، کالج حقوق هیستینگز, French: École de droit Hastings de l'université de Californie.
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