Established more than 93 years ago, the University of Pacific, McGeorge School of Law is an internationally recognized leader in the field of legal education with alumni practicing in all 50 states and in 58 countries. Its location in the capital city of California, Sacramento, has shaped the school's focus on state and local government law, International law, water law, and advocacy.
Michael Hunter Schwartz, former dean and professor of law in the William H. Bowen
School of Law, University of Arkansas at Little Rock, became the 10th dean of McGeorge
School of Law, in July 2017. Each of the past three years, Dean Schwartz has been
ranked among the 15 Most Influential People in Legal Education; he was ranked ninth
in 2017.
The McGeorge School of Law faculty includes full-time and part-time professors who
hold law degrees from top law schools in the country, including Harvard, University
of Chicago, Stanford, Columbia, University of Pennsylvania, Northwestern University,
McGeorge, and Georgetown. McGeorge faculty members have created three national law
school textbook series, have published, collectively, more than 100 books, and have
published law school textbooks that have been adopted at more than 185 ABA law schools
in the United States.
The McGeorge School of Law Legal Studies Center was opened in 2011 and houses the Gordon D. Schaber Law Library. The state-of-the-art library serves the Sacramento legal community of students, law clerks and members of the Sacramento County bench and bar. McGeorge School of Law enjoys a number of significant national rakings, including a top-10 ranking for trial advocacy, a top-10 ranking for government law, an A+ ranking for providing practical legal training, a top-20 ranking for International Law, and a top-35 ranking for part-time programs. McGeorge School of Law has more than 13,000 alumni who practice in all 50 states and in 58 countries. More than 350 McGeorge alumni serve as judges, including two who are judges of the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, the second-highest court in the nation, and two who are state Supreme Court justices in Nebraska and Nevada.
McGeorge's unique Focused Decisions arm serves practicing lawyers all over the country providing litigation and jury consulting services, including mock trials and focus groups, trial presentations and technology support, and videography and editing services,
McGeorge School of Law began as a one-room night school in downtown Sacramento (L & 10th) in 1924, when it was founded as the Sacramento College of Law. Verne Adrian McGeorge was the founding dean and professor of law. The first commencement in 1925 marked the graduation of five new attorneys. The first female graduate of the school was Rose Sheehan in 1927, marking the college as ahead of its time in diversity and inclusion. In 1929, the Board of Trustees renamed the school McGeorge College of Law in honor of its founder.
Succeeding McGeorge, Russell Harris was dean from 1930-1933. Gilford Rowland was dean from 1933-1937. Lawrence Dorety was dean from 1937 until the school closed during WWII. The school reopened in 1946 under Dean John Swan. Dean Swan began to pursue a permanent home for McGeorge College of Law after several moves in downtown Sacramento.
In 1957, the influential Gordon D. Schaber became dean of McGeorge College of Law after Dean Swan's sudden death. Soon after, the Board of Trustees voted to move the school to a vacant well-baby clinic at the corner of 33rd Street and Fifth Avenue in the Oak Park neighborhood. Today, the McGeorge School of Law campus has grown to 13 acres. The law-school only campus continues to be located in Oak Park, three miles southeast of the state Capitol building in Sacramento, California.
For 34 years, Dean Schaber guided the school through its emergence as a first-class law school. In 1964, Schaber won accreditation by the Committee of Bar Examiners for the state of California. He recruited top-notch faculty, such as Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, who taught constitutional law on the Sacramento campus from 1965-1988.
McGeorge School of Law was accredited by the American Bar Association in 1968, paving
the way for its rise to national prominence. In 1983, McGeorge School of Law became
a member school in the Order of the Coif, the ABA's highest acknowledgement of academic
excellence; less than half of all law schools accredited by the American Bar Association
are also Order of the Coif member schools. The ABA bestowed on Schaber its highest
honor for service in legal education (The Kutak Award) in 1991, the year he stepped
down as dean.
Dean Gerald Caplan succeeded Schaber in 1991. During Caplan's tenure, the Governmental
Affairs program was established to capitalize on the school's location in Sacramento.
He expanded McGeorge's presence in intercollegiate Mock Trial competitions around
the nation. In 2002, Dean Elizabeth Rindskopf Parker became the eighth dean of McGeorge
School of Law. Parker championed the expansion of student study and faculty exchanges
in Europe, Latin America, Africa, and Asia. Parker expanded externships and started
new clinical programming in specialty areas such as immigration, mediation, and appellate
advocacy. She launched strong collaborations with high schools to establish mentoring
programs and law-themed curricula. In 2012, Francis J. Mootz III, formerly of UNLV's
William Boyd School of Law, became the ninth dean of McGeorge. Dean Michael Hunter Schwartz, who previously served as the dean of the William H. Bowen School of Law at University
of Arkansas at Little Rock, joined McGeorge as its tenth dean in 2017.
McGeorge merged with University of the Pacific as their school of law in 1966 and began offering day classes the following year. The original evening program for California leaders continues today, and is consistently recognized as one of the best part-time law programs in the nation.
McGeorge School of Law offers award-winning programs in moot court and mock trial, having won dozens of competitions, has one of the strongest government law programs in the country, and enjoys a global reputation for its programs in international law and water law. Its master program in Transnational Business Practice counts 500 alumni around the globe, and the law school offers the only LLM in water law in the nation. McGeorge also offers the only Masters in Public Policy and Masters in Public Administration degrees in the nation that are housed in a law school. The school offers annual summer programs for JD students in Salzburg, Austria, and Antiqua, Guatemala, attracting law students from around the world.
McGeorge's location in Sacramento, California's capital city, is a benefit to students who want to study public law and governmental decision-making. The McGeorge Capital Center prepares students for careers in leadership and service through extensive externship and co-curricular opportunities.
McGeorge has a rigorous core curriculum and also offers students a cutting-edge legal writing program and outstanding legal clinics, including clinics providing legal services in the areas of immigration law, mediation, legislation and public policy, bankruptcy, elder and health law, criminal law, and small business law. Students and supervising attorneys handle hundreds of civil and immigration cases a year through all phases, including trial and appeal; author legislation actually enacted by the California legislature; mediate disputes between prisons and prison inmates; and draft legislation.
(As Approved by the Faculty on Oct. 27, 2016)
The mission of the McGeorge School of Law, University of the Pacific, is to:
Provide a student-centered education that prepares its graduates for productive, successful, and ethical careers in law and other professions that serve society, and for leadership in building a diverse society committed to global social justice; and
Contribute to the improvement of law and policy through engaged scholarship and other forms of public service.
