by Austen L. Parrish
As we head into the new year, we have much to look forward to at UC Irvine School of Law. Taking stock of 2024, I am grateful for the extraordinary support of the Southern California legal community, including those at the Orange County Bar Association and all its affiliates.
It’s that remarkable support that has helped us become one of the nation’s best public law schools. In partnership with so many local lawyers, the Michael G. Ermer Pro Bono Program is one of the largest pro bono programs in the United States. Our students volunteer starting in their first semester of law school—giving back to those in need, while learning critical skills. Our clinical program is similarly distinct in the depth of its community connections, including our off-site offices in Santa Ana. At a time when some schools have been criticized for not providing sufficient practical experiences, all our students must represent clients in a six-unit core clinic prior to graduating. In our Lawyering Skills program, all first-year students interview a client through partnerships with pro bono and government organizations. And our research centers and institutes—including our Korea Law Center, our Family Violence Initiative, our Center for Land, Environment and Natural Resources, to name just a few of the more than dozen at the school—work with leaders in California and beyond.
Community commitment to the law school’s success is underscored in other ways too. Each year we host over two hundred ninth graders from the Santa Ana and Anaheim Unified School Districts as part of our Saturday Academy of Law, and dozens of undergraduates as part our Pre-Law Outreach Program. The OCBA Charitable Fund provides critical support to both programs. I’m also convinced the mentoring and other support that the legal profession provides is one reason why Reuters in 2024 ranked the law school #12 in the nation and #1 in California as “top for jobs” for having the most graduates that went on to full-time, permanent jobs that require bar passage. Orange County is certainly one of the reasons we can attract the very best scholars, researchers, and spectacular teachers from all over the world to Irvine.
Looking ahead, community will remain at the forefront. On January 30, California will celebrate Fred Korematsu Day of Civil Liberties and the Constitution. Established in 2010, Korematsu Day was the first statewide day in U.S. history named after an Asian American. Several states—including Arizona, Florida, Hawaii, Michigan, New Jersey and Virginia—later also established an annual day of recognition. The famous Korematsu v. United States is still studied today, as is the coram nobis litigation that cleared Korematsu’s name and the names of more than 125,000 other incarcerated Japanese Americans, laying the foundation for the 1988 Civil Liberties Act. Korematsu, whose portrait appears in the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery and who, in 2021, was posthumously awarded the Freedom Medal by The Roosevelt Institute, was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1998.
For us at UC Irvine, Korematsu Day has taken on special significance. Last October, we officially launched the Fred T. Korematsu Center for Law and Equality at UC Irvine, relocating it from its long-time home in Seattle. Led by executive director Professor Robert Chang, the Center’s mission is to use legal research, litigation advocacy, and clinical education to advance civil rights and racial justice issues, and it will partner with local and national law firms, non-profits, and advocacy organizations to do so. The Center and a soon-to-be-established clinic will provide tremendous training for our students, giving them an opportunity to work on amicus briefs, some limited direct representation matters, and legal research (including book projects).
The October launch celebration was special. More than 150 people attended and California’s Attorney General Rob Bonta gave the keynote. We were also joined by Karen Korematsu, Fred Korematsu’s daughter, and many long-time friends and supporters of the Center from Seattle. Anna Mercado Clark, the president of the National Asian American Bar Association, flew in from New York to join us. Sylvia Mendez—a civil rights advocate whose family’s landmark case, Mendez v. Westminster School District of Orange County, played a crucial role in ending school segregation in California and who also holds a Presidential Medal of Freedom—attended the event too. At the celebration, we announced that Professor Chang would hold the Sylvia Mendez Presidential Chair in Civil Rights.
What was remarkable, but not surprising, was the overwhelming support from leaders throughout Southern California’s legal community. Over two dozen bar presidents, members of the judiciary, and leaders of bar associations and nonprofit organizations joined us to speak at the event. Many who attended are regularly celebrated in the pages of this magazine for shaping the legal profession in Orange County. And, of course, the Orange County Bar Association was there in full force. We were pleased that UCI law alum and then-OCBA President, Christina Zabat-Fran, was one of the first speakers to welcome the Center. Then-President-Elect Mei Tsang also joined us.
As we begin 2025—the sixteenth year since the law school opened—I’m looking forward to all that our faculty, staff, students, and alumni will achieve. I know I speak for all at UC Irvine when I say we are grateful for being in the heart of Orange County, in one of the nation’s most vibrant, supportive, and special legal communities.
Austen L. Parrish is Dean and Chancellor’s Professor of Law at the University of California, Irvine School of Law. He can be reached at aparrish@law.uci.edu.