DEAN’S MESSAGE
As we begin a new academic year at California Western, I extend my deepest gratitude to you, our alumni and friends. Not only have you supported our law school through an unprecedented time of change and challenge, but you have also doubled down in that support and shown me that the California Western community really is like no other. By way of example, I supported the decision of the Board of Trustees to mandate vaccines for all students, faculty, and staff—with the safety of the California Western community as the top priority for the law school. The subsequent feedback I received from our alumni and friends in the community was overwhelmingly positive. This support was one of the many indicators over the past year that I had made the right choice to come to California Western. The return to in-person classes this Fall fills me with hope as well as excitement for what the future holds. A recent essay by columnist David Brooks emphasized that COVID-19 has presented us with the opportunity to ask ourselves about our lives—to step back, be intentional, and ask what’s really important—and calls on us to focus on what matters. I think this is as true for a law school as it is for us as individuals, and I look forward to working with you to help California Western achieve its full potential. COVID-19 has not slowed us down here at the law school. This year’s entering class of students has the strongest set of entering credentials the law school has seen in a number of years. They are a remarkable group, with more than 27% coming from outside of California, more than 60% female, and speaking over 32 different languages amongst them. As you will see in the following articles, the past year has been one of robust activity and improvement on multiple fronts. We have an exciting new cohort of junior faculty, who along with their more senior colleagues continue to make major contributions to the legal academy. Faculty have gracefully mastered the challenges of remote teaching while eagerly awaiting and preparing for their recent return to the classroom this Fall. Their hard work and good fortune are California Western’s good fortune as well as we continue to raise the academic profile of the law school. Additionally, we have crafted a new strategic vision for the law school, which has created the opportunity to bring in a new set of energetic and entrepreneurial leaders to help actualize that vision.
Our programs and clinics are going strong, undeterred by the pandemic and committed to the communities they serve. I am proud to share the current profiles and recent achievements of our Community Law Project, New Media Rights, and California Innocence Project. Each of these clinics is improving the lives of their clients and expanding justice in countless ways. I am gratified that our alumni and friends in the community have proven just as active in their engagement and philanthropy over the past year. When the pandemic hit, you stepped up to support our newly created Student Emergency Relief Fund, which has helped our students surmount the financial and other challenges created by the coronavirus. This support included a $50,000 allocation from our Alumni Association, whose board members increased their participation rate to 99%. The generosity of our alumni and friends also expanded access to legal education with the creation of California Western’s first endowed scholarship funds aimed at expanding racial justice and equality. Additionally, our alumni and faculty emeriti are including the law school in their estate plans in ever increasing numbers. The following articles include a profile from one such alum who says she is making a bequest to California Western “to pay back what I learned from law school.” I hope each of you will think about what California Western has made possible for you, and I invite you to join us on the exciting journey ahead.
ALUMNI NEWSLETTER 3
