California Western School of Law Nearly 100 Years Old!

2024 is only months away. Which means that California Western School of Law is almost 100 years old!

We at CWSL are eager for our centennial celebration to begin, to celebrate being the oldest law school in San Diego and to demonstrate how we are setting ourselves up to be an elite academic institution for our next hundred years.

We are so eager, in fact, that Alumni Weekend, Oct 13 & 14, will mark the official launch of our centennial.

As past students gather for campus tours, symposia, and an awards dinner, we will take the opportunity to begin showcasing what the next century of Cal Western will look like.

Our next century school will address the social, political, and environmental issues that matter most.

Our next century school will provide the best technology and the best pedagogy, staying ahead of the curve while staying committed to our principles.

Our next century school will embrace diversity as a principle of ethics not a plaything of politics.

This is the ambitious and thoughtful vision that Dean Scott and her leadership team have for Cal Western and are putting into practice every day:

• Developing new academic concentrations in Social Justice and Intellectual Property, Privacy, and Media Law.
• Revamping our Competitive Advocacy Program’s practice space to meet the 21st century needs of an elite program.
• Launching the Law, Justice, and Technology Initiative, which will entail a comprehensive overhaul of the curriculum and resources we offer our students, making sure they are empowered to use the latest legal technologies ethically and effectively and to navigate the complexities of new technology law as it arises.
• Establishing a DEI Chair, Scholars-in-residence, and ongoing symposia on civil rights and legal strategies to dismantle systemic oppression.
• Recruiting and retaining faculty whose research and teaching address the key constitutional, ethical, technological, and environmental issues in law today.
• Providing 80% of our student body with some form of scholarship; remaining committed to training lawyers and advocates who come from a wide range of backgrounds and experiences

In 2000, the late Dean Castetter, reflecting on the history of Cal Western, whose legitimacy he helped establish, remarked: “A Law School is a living social organism. The many people deeply involved are responsible for, and become a permanent part of, this living Law School.”

100 years makes for an old organism, which proves the strength of our principles and the dedication of the many people who have taken on the responsibility to uphold them for the last hundred years.

We remain determined to demonstrate that this living Law School, California Western, is more vital than it’s ever been.