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It all starts with an idea. UCLA School of Law began in a burst of post-war optimism. Fueled by a renewed faith in our democratic ideals, the people of Southern California wanted a law school that would serve the poor boys and girls of East Los Angeles who could not afford to go to private school or travel north to Berkeley. Already dedicated to serving the best and the brightest students from all walks of life, the law school quickly recruited a stellar faculty who would provide high-quality teaching
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and mentoring as well as seminal scholarship. As part of this vision, UCLA Law committed itself to being impactful in the world, converting its excellence in law into a quest for justice. Ever since its inception, UCLA School of Law has been true to these founding principles: offering a transformative educational experience, empowering the best and brightest to think creatively about law and policy, and advancing human welfare by nurturing the conditions for a fair and inclusive society. Today, we are the youngest law school in the top 20. Our trajectory has been remarkable, as bold as the vision for UCLA Law itself, and now we are embarking on another ambitious initiative, a $150 million campaign that will be the largest in the school’s history. This effort is part of the Centennial Campaign for UCLA, a campus-wide commitment to honor our past while looking to our future. With continuing decreases in state support, we find ourselves at a pivotal moment when our tradition of access and opportunity must increasingly be realized through private means. As you will see in our feature article, our law school campaign is all about the students— offering them scholarship support, providing them with a dynamic and responsive curriculum, giving them the opportunity to study with world-class faculty and allowing them to participate in the most pressing debates of the day through our highly acclaimed programs, centers and institutes. Throughout this issue, you will see examples of alumni and friends who are making a difference by endowing scholarships and chairs, by funding law and policy work with direct impact and by providing post-graduate opportunities to our students. In this special edition of UCLA Law Magazine, you will see examples of our ongoing efforts to train the next generation of leaders in law. We always have been at the forefront of educational innovation, pioneering clinical programs and transactional skills training as well as developing significant specializations in fields like business law, critical race studies, entertainment law, law and philosophy, and public interest. We are introducing a number of curricular reforms that will enhance the learning experience and better prepare our students for the challenges of practice. From the day that students arrive at the law school, they will understand their privileges and obligations as legal professionals. During their law school careers, they will master knowledge and skills that will enable them to pursue their chosen paths, whether as civil litigators, criminal trial lawyers or transactional attorneys. When students leave our law school, they will become part