CannonFodder

We recently learned that over 90% of the inaugural Class of 2012 passed the bar exam on their first try.  Based on exam passage rates in previous years, this will put us at the very high end of California law schools.

And of the 56 students who graduated in May, 20 have accepted judicial clerkships, which gives us the highest percentage of law clerks of any law school in the country for 2012.

Combined with the recent study ranking our faculty 7th in the country in scholarly impact (behind Yale, Harvard, Chicago, Stanford, NYU, and Columbia), we have every reason to celebrate 2012 as a very good year!

Bryan Stevenson, Founder and Executive Director of the Equal Justice Initiative, delivered the Third Annual Al Meyerhoff Public Interest Lecture: “Confronting Mass Incarceration and Excessive Punishment in America.”

An introduction to Professor Stevenson’s impressive and moving work is available publicly via a TED video:

Members of the inaugural Class of 2012 staffed a Bar Week table, constituting the first activity of the UC Irvine Law Alumni Association.   The school’s first and only alumni are preparing to award their class gift, a post graduate public interest fellowship for a member of the Class of 2013.

Over 90% of the ”inaugurals” donated to the fellowship, raising more than $46,000.  The dollar figure alone outpaces most top law schools—the alumni-participation-in-giving rate is tops.
   

Last night’s celebration at the Four Seasons Beverly Hills of the Daily Journal Top 100 Lawyers in California recognized Professor Katie Porter for her work as the AG-appointed California independent monitor of banks in the nationwide $25 billion mortgage settlement, and Dean Erwin Chemerinsky for the successful launch of UCI Law.  They were two of only four academic lawyers included in the elite group–giving UCI Law the distinction of being the best represented law school in California.

A remarkable development on the national: the 2012 Leiter report ranks the UCI Law Faculty 7^th in the nation in scholarly impact.
   In our first year the faculty was ranked 10^th, last year 9^th—and now with 33 professors, we are no longer so small that this ranking can be easily dismissed.  Thank you to the entire community for playing a fundamental role in our success!

The 2012 Annual Law School Survey of Student Engagement included for the first time all three classes of UCI Law students.  The responses to two key questions were particularly striking: “How would you evaluate your entire educational experience at your law school” and “If you could start over again, would you go to the same law school you are now attending?”  National response rates by students hovered at 40% — 80% of UCI law students responded.  For all three classes,
70%-80% provided the most positive response possible: “excellent” and “definitely yes,” respectively.  A similar ratio held in comparisons between UCI law students and students at peer schools, all public schools, and schools with fewer than 500 students.

Thanks to all community members who have more than filled the role of dedicated alumni to our students!

 The Class of 2012 was joined by family and friends, founding donors, volunteers, and administrators for a celebratory dinner and ceremony honoring those who worked for many years to make the School of Law a reality.  The critical roles of Chancellor Michael Drake and Executive Vice Chancellor & Provost Michael Gottfredson were acknowledged with crystal gavels.  The years of work by the core volunteers were acknowledged with plaques: Mark Robinson, Hon. Andrew Guilford, Thomas Malcolm (accepted by his sister, Mary Ford), Gary Singer, James Irvine Swinden, and Senator Joseph Dunn.  

A marvelous weekend of celebrating the 58 graduates of our inaugural class, culminating in the Saturday ceremony featuring keynote speaker Hon. Harry Edwards and Jean Su ’12.  No better culmination of four years of loving labor!

The semester ended with a celebration of Professors Sarah Lawsky and Christopher Whytock, both voted tenure this month.  Congratulations!

Volume 1: Issue 2

Symposium Issue
 Bend or Break?
The Patent System in Crisis 

Masthead

Table of Contents

ARTICLES

Patent Fair Use 2.0
Katherine J. Strandburg

District Courts as Patent Laboratories
Jeanne C. Fromer

Antitrust, Inequitable Conduct, and the Intent to
Deceive the Patent Office
Christopher R. Leslie

How Does the Republic of Science Shape the Patent
System? Broadening the Institutional Analysis of
Innovation Beyond Patents
Fiona E. Murray, Joshua S. Gans, and Mackey L. Craven

Patent Amicus Briefs: What the Courts’ Friends Can
Teach Us About the Patent System
Colleen V. Chien

Policy Levers Tailoring Patent Law to Biotechnology:
Comparing U.S. and European Approaches
Geertrui Van Overwalle

Senator Lou Correa, California Senate District 34, visited with law students working on a variety of diversity pipeline initiatives.  Projects include a new Street Law Program, working with ACCA-SoCal to provide Santa Ana high school students with a “practical, participatory education about law, democracy, and human rights;” and the ongoing UC Irvine Saturday Academy of Law for Santa Ana Unified School District 9th graders.  Beginning January 2012, ”SAL” will come under direct management of the School of Law.

– CGC

Professor Catherine Fisk leads the toast launching Volume 1, Issue 1 of the UC Irvine Law Review.  The premier issue contains essays by many inaugural faculty explaining the history of the founding and the vision of public service upon which the School is being built.

–CGC

UCI School of Law staged its first small business community law forum at the Westminster Community Center.  The forum focused on employment, bankruptcy and immigration law, featuring speakers from the law school and the Vietnamese-American bench and bar.  Pictured is 2L Sam Lam telling the story of his family’s migration and his path to higher education.

– CGC

UCI Law students are demonstrating both their commitment to Climate Justice and their technological and new-world communication savvy through their organization of “a3 [Assemble, Advocate, Act]: A Conference on Climate Justice.”

There’s still time to tune into their web stream of the conference (which is about halfway through at the time of this post), and you can follow along on the a3 blog and pose questions and/or comment on the panels.

Leaders of this student conference are UCI Law 2Ls Theresa Bichsel, Luke Boughen, Jean Su, and UCI Political Science PhD candidate Josh Gellers.

At mid-day, the conference is already proving a huge success in inspiring dialogue and action among audience members through impressive speakers involved in a variety of Climate Justice projects and movements. The student organizers’ communication and outreach efforts (carried out by a well-coordinated cadre of fellow law students who are blogging, Tweeting, shooting photographs and posting to these platforms in real time) have no doubt played a major role in this success.