Each new school year provides a wonderful sense of a new beginning. I am thrilled to welcome our new students to Berkeley Law, welcome back our returning students, and convey deep gratitude to our exceptional faculty and staff as we launch into the 2024-25 academic year.
I am often asked what makes Berkeley Law different from other law schools. I always point to three things: our excellence, our public mission, and our community.
By any measure, Berkeley Law is outstanding. Our faculty are among the most widely cited in the world, doing cutting-edge scholarship that influences the direction of many areas of law. Indeed, our faculty’s comprehensive excellence is part of what makes Berkeley Law special.
We have hired 30 new professors over the last seven years, including recruiting tenured faculty to join us from top law schools such as the University of Chicago, Duke, Penn, and Yale. They are not only great scholars, but also superb teachers. Our excellence is reflected in the very impressive credentials of students in all of our degree programs: J.D., J.S.D., LL.M., and Ph.D.
We are constantly looking to enhance our programs. For example, this year, we are launching a Leadership Academy for students, to help prepare the next generation of leaders in law. And we are creating a new Certificate in Artificial Intelligence for our LL.M. students.
Part of what makes Berkeley Law unique is its public mission. Deeply ingrained in the Law School is the belief that we have the responsibility — as an institution and as individuals — to use law to make our community, our society, and the world better. Our public mission is reflected in our curriculum, in the courses we offer, and how our classes are taught.
It is reflected in virtually every student doing pro bono work, including in their first year of law school. It is reflected in the financial support we provide to law students doing public service work, during their summers and after graduation, as well as our Loan Repayment Assistance Program.
Our clinics and research centers are integral to furthering our public mission. We have a terrific Clinical Program, which we are in the process of expanding. This year, we will be creating a new clinic focusing on the legal needs of small businesses and are looking to create a racial justice clinic and a family defense clinic in the near future. We also finalized an agreement to continue our working relationship with the East Bay Community Law Center, an integral part of our clinical offerings.
We have centers working in many areas of law, all of which involve our students in their many efforts. These include, just to mention a few, the Berkeley Center for Law and Business; the Berkeley Center for Law & Technology, the Center for Law, Energy, & the Environment; the Henderson Center for Social Justice; and the Center on Reproductive Rights and Justice. We recently have created new centers, including the Criminal Law & Justice Center, the Center for Law and Work, the Center for Indigenous Law & Justice, and the Berkeley Center for Private Law Theory.
Finally, what makes us special is you — our community. It is the most intellectually exciting community that I have been part of. Every week, there are many speakers and programs and symposia. Berkeley Law is a place where all ideas and views can be expressed with an underlying commitment that we can disagree with one another without being disagreeable. It is a warm, supportive community.
I constantly hear from students that it is a collegial, not a competitive, place to study law. It has the heartwarming and indispensable involvement and support of our alumni. Everything we do is facilitated by a terrific staff.
As we welcome new faculty, students, and staff, I am hopeful that the 2024-25 school year will be a wonderful one for Berkeley Law.
Erwin Chemerinsky
Dean
Jesse H. Choper Distinguished Professor of Law