Are all law faculties the same? In some respects. Most include people who excelled when they were students and have enjoyed other success in the profession. There is a distinctive ethos among the Pacific McGeorge faculty, however, which can inure to your benefit. Pacific McGeorge faculty members— even those who have been at it for many years— remain ardent students. They want to learn more, so they research and write about how to improve the law. They want to get better, so they try new methods every year. They want you, their fellow students, to succeed, so they put no caps on office hours. You have heard about contagious enthusiasm. Come get a taste.
Teaching at Pacific McGeorge
Faculty Practical Experience
Student-Faculty Interaction
Teaching at Pacific McGeorge
Teaching at Pacific McGeorge is about learning. The focus is on you. What are you absorbing? Do you see what those who made the law were trying to accomplish? How do you grade their effort? Can you apply the law to a new set of facts, noting its purpose? Can you form the best arguments for alternative outcomes? In sum, are you learning to both use and advance the law?
The environment is different from an undergraduate class in which you read material and one day take a test. Law is an active profession, and you get ready for it with activity. It may be dialogue in class. It may be role-plays. It may be actual representation of clients at a clinic with a faculty mentor. Whatever it is, it will be active.
The Pacific McGeorge faculty lead that activity, putting a wealth of knowledge and experience onto play. When a professor poses a question in class, it may be a tough issue she faced as a litigator. When a professor suggests a good paper topic for a seminar, it may be a point he is still grappling with in his own scholarship, or an issue of interest to the California Legislature. They are making the connection between where you are today, and where you hope to arrive. As Pacific McGeorge Professor Claude Rohwer has put it:
"We're teaching our students to serve clients."
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Faculty Practical Experience
It's no coincidence that lawyers practice law. While you must know the letter of the law to properly execute it, only practicing the law leads to successful lawyering. Pacific McGeorge professors are practiced in the profession. In fact:
- More than 70% of the Pacific McGeorge faculty have practiced with law firms located in cities throughout the United States (including, Boston, Cleveland, Denver, Houston, Los Angeles, New York City, Philadelphia, Sacramento, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C.).
- Pacific McGeorge faculty have clerked for justices and judges at the U.S. Supreme Court, US Circuit Courts of Appeals, and US District Courts.
- Over a third of the Pacific McGeorge faculty have held positions in government or public interest groups at national, state, or local levels (including, the US Department of Justice, US Treasury Department, U.N. International Law Commission, NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund, Securities and Exchange Commission, and more).
- The 50 adjunct faculty at Pacific McGeorge, who teach elective courses in their fields of expertise, are drawn from currently practicing attorneys from across the country.
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Student-Faculty Interaction
Laws are written for people. And in their teaching, Pacific McGeorge faculty never lose sight of the people involved. Pacific McGeorge faculty are genuinely interested in the people who make up their classes. They are accessible when you have questions or concerns. They willingly take on mentoring roles, encouraging you to excel through challenging research and writing projects, clinical work, and moot court experiences. Students keep in touch with their professors long after graduation because they have a sense of partnership.
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