Fall 2011
As you may have heard by now, in August we received a transformative $10 million gift – the single largest in the school’s history – from our 2009 Public Service Alumnus of the Year Lowell Milken ’73. The gift, along with leadership gifts from other friends and alumni like Charles Williams, David Epstein, Ralph Shapiro, Michael Masin and Dan Emmett, has enabled the law school to meet and surpass its ambitious $100 million fundraising goal well ahead of its five-year schedule. When the Campaign for UCLA School of Law was publicly launched in 2008, the expectations for success were very high, and I am pleased to report that we have exceeded them.
Lowell’s gift supports a core area of excellence by establishing the Lowell Milken Institute for Business Law and Policy. The Institute will allow us to initiate a range of curricular innovations, promote critical research, provide financial support for our students and enhance training in real-world transactional skills to prepare students for the challenges of today’s global economy. Our business law and policy program is already a standout among U.S. law schools; this gift will help to make it among the best in the world.
Our programs are growing more dynamic and rigorous, and our student body is certainly up to the challenge. Joining our strong second and third year classes, this fall we welcomed 321 students to the J.D. class of 2014 from an applicant pool of 7,317 – the fourth largest in the history of the law school. The class has a record-high median LSAT score of 168 and an increased median GPA of 3.78. Prior to coming to UCLA Law, our students enjoyed successful careers in a wide range of fields outside of law; the class contains an intelligence linguist, an actor, a patent agent, and an engineer, to name a few. In addition, 7% of the incoming class already hold advanced degrees. Also of note, the law school welcomed the largest-ever incoming LL.M. class, with 92 students.
In addition to our remarkable students, our faculty – already among the finest in the country – continues to grow in size and quality. Professor Laura Gomez, who taught at UCLA Law for 12 years and was a co-founder of the Critical Race Studies Program before she left in 2005, has rejoined our faculty. She teaches in the areas of race and the law, law and society and constitutional law, among others. We also added two impressive junior faculty members to our ranks. Acting Professor Samuel Bray, whose work focuses on the law of remedies, joins us from the Stanford Constitutional Law Center, where he was the executive director. Acting Professor Alexander Stremitzer, whose teaching interests include theoretical and experimental law and economics, was previously assistant professor of Economics at the University of Bonn and visiting assistant professor at Yale. I have no doubt that our newest faculty members will make significant contributions to our school in both their teaching and their scholarship.
And you, our friends and alumni, are also making a difference. This year, 30.2% of all law school alumni made a gift to the law school, placing us 4th in alumni participation rates among our fellow top-tier law schools. The Law Firm Challenge and the Reunion Challenge greatly contributed to this success. In its ninth year under the leadership of Jim Barrall ’75, the Law Firm Challenge broke new records on all fronts, with 79% of alumni at 95 participating firms making a gift to the school, and 50 of these firms reaching 100% in their support. In its second year, Rick Runkel ’81, in his role as chair, enabled the Reunion Challenge to make notable progress, with donations this year totaling more than $790,000. Congratulations to the winners of this year’s challenge, the class of ’71, for raising more than $200,000. (And if you graduated in a year ending in a 2 or a 7, I hope you save the date – May 19, 2012 – for this year’s class reunions!)
We are exceptionally proud of all of our accomplishments, but there is still more to be done. As law school becomes more expensive, quality students from all backgrounds are being impacted and, in some cases, shut out of a legal education. I believe that we are not truly a public law school in every sense of the word if high-caliber students from all walks of life cannot come here and get an excellent legal education, regardless of their financial circumstances.
Consider this: In 1991, tuition and fees for the academic year were $3,272. By 2001, that number more than tripled to $11,156. And this year? Tuition is $44,922 – quadruple what it was only 10 years ago. This dramatic rise in cost is mainly due to an equally dramatic decline in state funding. In 2001, state funds covered 70% of the law school’s operational costs; in 2010, state funds only covered 30%. Sadly, the state is not a reliable partner anymore, and robust private funding is the only way to keep our law school accessible and our core classes, programs and facilities fresh and challenging. Please consider giving back to UCLA Law. We need you.
But I know saying “we need...” is not enough. A lot of people “need” right now. We want you to give to UCLA Law not only because we need, but also because we are a wise investment. We are an excellent law school with the potential to be a truly premier legal institution on the worldwide stage. And as our star rises, so does yours – you will be remembered as leaders who built a legacy for generations to come.
So please take this time to send us a gift or to log on to www.law.ucla.edu/giving. I urge you to stretch your giving. If you’ve already made a gift this year, thank you! We would love it if you could make another. If you made a gift last year, please consider increasing your gift this year. And if it has been a few years since you made a gift, or if you have never made a gift to your law school, it’s never too late to start.
I hope you are as excited as I am about what the future holds for UCLA Law. Momentum is building, and we want you to be a part of it.
Warmly,
Rachel F. Moran
Dean and Michael J. Connell Distinguished Professor of Law