“UC Irvine School of Law will provide an education equal to or better than any law school in the country. I especially hope that students who are excited about being part of creating a new institution will apply. Students will be full partners in creating a wonderful institution that will last long beyond our careers.”
— Erwin Chemerinsky, Founding Dean

“I hope to see students who will recognize UCI as top tier from the beginning and who desire to help the school achieve that status by every measure. I also hope the school will attract students committed to social justice and helping the disadvantaged rather than those interested in the law as a means of making themselves rich.”
— Joseph DiMento, Founding Faculty

“A law school needs to be a big tent, and UCI will be that, so it will be a welcoming home to a diverse group of students. Students from all over the United States who aspire to careers in public service, in academia, in the elite law firms, in small law offices will find the intellectual challenge and professional skills training that will help them succeed. UCI has some of the finest faculty in the United States who study law from the perspective of the social sciences and the humanities, and the UC Irvine School of Law will have on-the-ground professional training opportunities for students in a huge array of fields, including criminal law, intellectual property and civil rights. We’ll be a hardy band of pioneers in the first few years, but we’ll be pioneering in the safe environment of a great university and one of the most vibrant and diversified legal markets in the United States.”
— Catherine Fisk, Founding Faculty

“The exciting thing for me about being the law school’s founding director of admissions is the chance this will give me to meet and recruit people who will want to be in the inaugural classes of the school, who will relish the idea of being pioneers in this great adventure! I am confident that we will attract applicants who are very bright, very well prepared, but also very committed to the concept of participating in the creation of an institution. We are looking for people who want to be path makers with us. I can only imagine the level of energy and excitement on the first day of classes in August 2009!”
— Victoria Ortiz, Dean of Students and Director of Admissions

“This is a pioneering institution, and the type of student who will be attracted to join us will share that pioneering spirit and the desire to create something new and better than what’s come before. I think that also will be reflected in their commitment to service, whether it’s ultimately doing pro bono work at a major law firm or pursuing a career in public interest law.”
— Carrie Hempel, Clinical Professor of Law and Associate Dean of Clinical Education and Service Learning Programs

“I am hoping UCI will attract intelligent and courageous first- and second-generation Americans who are ready to think differently about what lawyering can accomplish in the world. They should be interested in creative problem solving for some of the most difficult problems facing our state, cities, nation and the world—poverty, continuing unfairness, inequalities, and discrimination, environmental degradation and waste, property management for best uses, use of new technology, education, and human flourishing in the face of increasing demographic diversity, rapid change, and some resource scarcity. I hope students will work in the public interest sector, as well as in the more creative places in the private sector.”
— Carrie Menkel-Meadow, Founding Faculty (currently the A. B. Chettle Jr. Chair in Law, Dispute Resolution and Civil Procedure, Georgetown University School of Law)

“UC Irvine School of Law will be open to a wide array of students, but I hope that all of them will share a desire to make the world a better place. Some graduates will do pro bono work at law firms; others will work for the government; and still others will become public interest lawyers. But each can give back to the community in some way, including some that I have not even imagined yet!”
— Rachel Moran, Founding Faculty (currently Robert D. and Leslie-Kay Raven Professor of Law at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law)

> Hear what UCI students say about who should apply to UC Irvine School of Law (video)