Hey, at least it's better than driving through Kansas.
But I digress. Santa Clara has been my top choice law school for a while now, and in spite of a recent bad experience with them, I decided that the ASW might be the perfect way to recapture that lost spark of interest. So I gassed up the hybrid and bought some twizzlers, and made the 5 hour trek up there (Santa Clara is actually only about 4 hours, but I drove up farther to visit my uncle in Marin County).
First and foremost, it POURED (like, we're talking "is-that-noah-over-there-building-an-ark?" poured) the whole time I was at Santa Clara. While I was lucky enough to have a rain coat and an umbrella in my car, I was not fortunate enough to have thought of packing my wellies, so I ended up walking around in my white canvas Toms all day. This has very little to do with the school itself, but my level of comfort probably affected a few of my observations.
Santa Clara is a BEAUTIFUL campus, and anyone who is considering it should definitely go visit. Aesthetically it's really pleasing - green, spanish style, close to the mission, across the street from the train station (so you could feasibly commute in from the city -- although hopefully you wouldn't try during 1L)...really just great. Santa Clara Law is celebrating their 100th anniversary this year -- wow. The streets are all hung with "SCU Law" banners, and I thought that was pretty nice!
The set up for the event was nice. Check-in was in front of the rooms in which the morning panels and classes were taking place, which was convenient. We were situated in Bannon Hall, which is where the majority of the law school and law classes are housed. The rooms were nice, well set-up so that every seat had a clear shot of either of the projection screens and the prof. There was at least one outlet for every seat, and the chairs were comfortable, but the lighting could have been better.
After hearing the dean speak for about 15 minutes (he took two questions, one about the rising cost of law school and one about legal fraternities and pretty much didn't answer either of them), two professors (Torts and CivPro) came in to do a quick question and answer session and discuss what the students could expect during their 1L year. A lot of people seemed like they were pretty nervous about the Socratic Method in application, and the professors did their best to allay the 0Ls fears. They also talked about time management and dedication (duh).
One interesting tidbit that stuck with me was something the CivPro prof said. She said, "Law school isn't really SCHOOL. It's the beginning of your profession. If you look at it in that way, I think you won't get caught up in the small, mundane stuff, and you'll make it through okay."
Then the contracts professor (Pope) came in to do a mock class. She had assigned three readings, and attempted to cover them all, but ran out of time before even getting to the third one. The readings were actually fairly interesting (they were about advertising and when advertising constitutes an offer and a contract) and the class seemed engaged. Personally this felt like an incredibly tame, soft version of what a class might be like. (Although I did take notes; one said, "Gunner in the back -- cute shoes, not cute attitude. Hands down, Hermione Granger.")
Unfortunately, since it was a Saturday we didn't get to sit in on an actual class to see the comparison.
After the contracts professor came the LARAW (Legal Analysis, Research and Writing) demonstration. It was supposed to be a mock class, but it DEFINITELY wasn't. The professor (Ekern) was engaging and interesting. It seems like the sections are split into smaller groups for LARAW, and that's where you learn lawyering skills. Prof Ekern definitely seemed like she would be a good resource for 1L students to go to when they had questions about the process of 1L. I was impressed.
THEN we had a panel of 6 students (5 FT, 1PT; one 1L, one 2L, three 3Ls, and one 3E) come in to talk about the student's perspective on SCU. I kept hearing over and over that the school was expensive. It seems like the debt load on these students is worrisome. While the students raved about the active alumni base and the ease of networking, I was a little wary, just based on the competition from the other Bay Area schools. However, two of the three 3Ls had jobs already lined up after graduation, and the third said she hadn't even been looking, that she's focusing on passing the bar. So maybe it's not all that bad. No one was suuuuper stressed about not having a job or not passing the bar, everyone seemed pleased to be there. The 2L and 1L both had internships lined up, the 2Ls was paid (with relocation).
The students were from a wide variety of practice interests (2 Public Interest, 1 IP, 1 Family law, 1 Intl. Law), and all seemed like they had a good experience in finding classes that suited them, which helped calm my nerves about going to such an IP-centric school. They also seemed to appreciate the opportunities afforded to them by being a part of a school with an attached undergraduate campus (sports games, choice of libraries, etc.), and none of them mentioned the undergrad campus being a distraction at all, which was also a worry of mine. It seemed to me that there wasn't much evidence of serious competition, either, which is good.
After spending literally the WHOLE morning in the same room, in the same seats, by the time lunch came around we were ready to stretch our legs. We walked a little ways to the Locatelli Center, past a heated Olympic-sized pool and the field that the San Jose Earthquakes (the local soccer team) calls home. Lunch was nice, veggie burgers and BBQ chicken, but there weren't assigned faculty/current students at each table, which made lunch kind of non-informative (for my table, anyway. I noticed a few tables with three or four professors or students, so the prospies at those tables must have been very informed).
After lunch we took a campus tour. It was the Saturday after Spring Break started, so it seemed like everything was closed. Not to mention my feet were wet and cold. We saw the (impressive) moot court room, the undergrad/grad dining facilities, the bookstore, the law library (fair -- not too new, but enough resources for all), and the two main law buildings, Bannon and Bergin.
Overall, I think that the experience was fair. They certainly didn't knock my socks off, and when I compare the effort McGeorge put into their ASW with SCUs I'm left a little disappointed. BUT, that being said, Santa Clara seems like it would be an amazing place to spend three years, and the students that I talked with all seemed incredibly pleased with their choices. It's well ranked, has 13 study abroad programs, a great reputation in Northern and Central California, and seems to put a lot of effort into preparing students to become lawyers.
In short, (or TL;DR, whatever): While Santa Clara didn't knock my socks off, they were impressive enough to stay on my very short list. I don't think choosing Santa Clara would be making a "wrong" choice.
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