Dear Alumni:

As 2020 draws towards a close, I would like to share two important messages. First, we hope that you and your loved ones remain safe and well and that you are navigating the myriad of challenges of 2020 as successfully as possible.

Second, our law school is on the rise. McGeorge has enjoyed remarkable improvements in new-student entrance credentials. In fact, these increases are our most significant in more than a decade and are greater than all but a few law schools in the country. Specifically:

Up 25%

  • In four years, our median LSAT has improved 25%, from 151 (48th percentile) to 154 (60th percentile).

Best Ever

  • Our median undergraduate GPA has improved from 3.19 to 3.4, tied for the highest median undergraduate GPA in McGeorge history.

And More

  • We also have seen our 25th percentile LSAT improve from 148 to 150, our 25th percentile undergraduate GPA improve from 2.89 to 3.07, our 75th percentile LSAT improve from 154 to 156, and our 75th percentile undergraduate GPA improve from 3.44 to 3.62.

Up 27%

Our job placement rate (for jobs that require bar pass or for which a JD degree is a career advantage) has seen similar improvement.

  • Our rate for the Class of 2017 was 60%. Our rate for the Class of 2019 is 76.4%, our highest in more than eight years and exceeding the rates of Hastings, San Diego, USF, Santa Clara, and San Diego.

1/86

We also continue to enjoy a terrific and well-deserved national reputation.

  • We are one of only 86 law schools in the United States that has achieved Order of the Coif status

Ranked!

  • Top 10 law schools for trial advocacy (U.S. News)
  • Top 20 for legal writing (U.S. News)
  • Top 35 for international law (U.S. News)
  • Top law school for practical training (National Jurist Magazine)
  • #8 in the nation for diversity resources (Princeton Review)

Wins

  • McGeorge finished among the Top 10 law schools in the American Bar Association’s 2019-2020 Law Student Competitions Championship, reflecting the fact McGeorge’s success in the ABA’s Moot Court, Client Interviewing and Counseling, and Negotiations competitions.
  • A McGeorge student won the Top Gun Competition for the United States in 2020, an honor bestowed on the top trial advocate in the nation.
  • In 2019-2020, McGeorge won best brief, won best oralist, won best advocate, or finished among the top three law schools in 16 mock trial or moot court competitions

Faculty Soar

  • At 183 of the 204 ABA-approved law schools in the United States (89.7%), a professor has used a casebook or other law school text authored by a McGeorge professor.
  • Three different McGeorge professors are the designers and editors of their own multi-volume law school textbook series.
  • Leading National Experts
    • International water law
    • International banking law
    • Corpus Linguistics (a cutting-edge interpretative technique that is increasingly being relied on by supreme courts)
    • First Amendment Law
    • Legal Writing
    • Craft beer law
    • Criminal law
    • Property law
    • Law School Pedagogy

McGeorge’s goal is to offer the very best practice-focused and student-centered legal education in the United States, and we are moving fast towards that goal.

I hope you are as proud of our law school as I am, and I hope you will help us continue this progress by sharing your time, talent, and resources with the law school.

I wish you all the best in 2021.

— Dean Michael Hunter Schwartz