One university and UC Hastings

Ed-xistential Crisis

By Adam J. Garzoli

There’s little that can be said about legal education that students, graduates and professors of law schools haven’t already said. It needs to be more practical, or more grounded in theory. The juris doctor takes too long to complete, or is just the right length. Law school has been both criticized for being too expensive while not offering enough value to students and defended as a sound proposition with good economic returns. I don’t intend to rehash any of these arguments or delve into broader controversies, but I would like to address those challenges facing a law school close to home, and our role in the matter.

UC Berkeley, of course, maintains its own law school, and a fairly reputable one at that. It’s rightfully a source of pride for our campus community. Certainly it has had its share of controversies, but the more interesting story is across the Bay.

Located in San Francisco, UC Hastings College of the Law is at a critical juncture in its history. The combination of minimal state support for the institution — and for UC law schools more generally — and a saturated legal job market in the region has created difficulties for UC Hastings, particularly with regard to much-hyped law school rankings.

It can be easy to turn a blind eye to UC Hastings’ current situation. After all, UC Berkeley and its law school are doing well, and only a relatively small fraction of students here are seriously contemplating a legal education. But to ignore UC Hastings’ challenges would be to ignore the fact that the histories and alumni communities of UC Berkeley and UC Hastings are intertwined, not to mention the fact that as one university — the University of California — our interest in the welfare of other UC campuses and affiliates, such as UC Hastings, should be just as strong as our interest in the Berkeley campus.

First, some background on UC Hastings. Founded as the law department of the University of California in 1878, UC Hastings College of the Law is a standalone law school that maintains special status within the UC system as an affiliate of the university governed by its own board of directors, as opposed to the UC Board of Regents.

So why should UC Hastings’ welfare be our concern? Looking at the long history between the Berkeley campus and UC Hastings, it’s clear that the relationship between the two institutions has been mostly mutually beneficial. In the two decades following 1878, students at the University of California (Berkeley) looked to UC Hastings in San Francisco for in-state formal legal education, as a law school had yet to be formed at UC Berkeley. The awarding of law degrees by UC Berkeley’s Department of Jurisprudence in 1903 changed the playing field, but certainly did not end the flow of students from the Berkeley campus to UC Hastings.

Beginning in the 1940s and through the 1970s, Hastings elevated its reputation by recruiting distinguished legal scholars from around the country to its faculty, many of whom had been forced into retirement at the age of 65 by their former institutions. The so-called “65 Club” drew faculty from institutions such as Harvard and the University of Chicago, but most heavily from UC Berkeley — including former dean William Prosser. Along with faculty, UC Hastings attracted some notable UC Berkeley students during this period and in subsequent decades, including Jeff Adachi (San Francisco’s elected public defender) and Robert Matsui (former U.S. congressman).

The UC Berkeley-Hastings connection remains significant today. UC Hastings is one of the most popular law school destinations for UC Berkeley graduating seniors. At the same time, the most recent American Bar Association disclosures provided by the UC Berkeley School of Law indicate that 18 UC Hastings students — about 5 percent of its first-year class — transferred to the UC Berkeley School of Law last year. Presumably these students were some of UC Hastings’ strongest, and by taking them in, the UC Berkeley School of Law did UC Hastings no favors.

At first glance, that might seem just fine; after all, law schools regularly compete for transfer and first-year students. The UC Berkeley School of Law is certainly justified in accepting qualified transfer applicants. But in light of UC Berkeley and UC Hastings’ historical ties and the “one university” principle of maintaining excellence throughout the UC system, cooperation rather than competition should characterize relations between the two schools.

At this important moment in UC Hastings’ history, our campus should work to reaffirm its support for the law college. As it stands, a little more than a year ago UC Santa Cruz and UC Hastings established a program to allow participating UCSC undergraduates to complete their bachelor’s degree and UC Hastings JD in six years as opposed to seven (thus building up the UCSC-to-UC Hastings pipeline). That’s not necessarily the right program for UC Berkeley, but there are opportunities for our campus and UC Hastings to partner in a mutually beneficial way. One possibility would be a more robust interschool exchange program, wherein UC Berkeley undergraduates with advanced standing could enroll in one or two classes at UC Hastings, and select UC Hastings JD students could make greater use of UC Berkeley School of Law’s resources (instead of transferring to achieve that purpose).

UC Hastings is one of the most important legal institutions in the history of the state. It will endure. After having reduced its enrollment, it now has its sights set on reworking its financial aid policies to better recruit talented students and building a new academic building and more student housing. UC Hastings’ revival stands to benefit future UC Berkeley graduates who enroll there for their legal education, and consistent with the “one university” principle our campus should contribute to facilitate its success.

[Source]: Daily Californian