President and Dean Sean M. Scott Named Top Business Leader in SD

The San Diego Business Journal has recognized Dean Scott as one of the 500 most influential business leaders in the San Diego area. As California Western School of Law approaches its 100th year, we are grateful to have Sean M. Scott, our visionary President and Dean, at the helm, setting the course for another century of training practice-ready lawyers and advocates. 

In her three and a half years at CWSL, Dean Scott has promised change for the better and has delivered on it, modernizing our campus and curriculum, raising the school’s academic profile, and achieving financial sustainability. In the last year alone, Dean’s Scott’s accomplishments include: 

• Completing fundraising for the Law, Equity, Inclusion, and Diversity Initiative – having raised over $5 million to support an Established Chair, Scholars-in-Residence, and speaker series on crucial social justice topics.
• Creating a first-generation scholarship fund to support students who are the first in their family to go to college.
• Achieving ABA reaccreditation and first-time WSCUC accreditation, solidifying the school’s academic credentials
• Recruiting and hiring nationally and internationally renowned faculty, who are experts on high-relevance topics, including Environmental and Energy Law, Fourth Amendment rights and police procedure, and First Amendment rights/matters of Church and State.
• Launching the Law, Justice, and Technology Initiative, through which we will continue to modernize our campus and the technological resources we offer students, update our curriculum and pedagogy to put our graduates ahead of the curve in the burgeoning fields of media and technology law, and attract faculty and speakers who are eager to engage with the new possibilities for the law and the challenges to justice that AI and other new technologies present. 

All this in addition to attending numerous community events, organizing networking opportunities between student organizations and legal professionals, advising aspiring law school deans, and speaking on critical issues facing our democratic institutions and the academy. This week, Dean Scott will be speaking on a panel co-hosted by CWSL and the California Judges Association (CJA)’s Judicial Fairness Coalition (JFC) entitled “Protecting the Judiciary from Unfair Criticism and Promoting Civility in the Legal Profession.” 

You can see Dean Scott’s nomination in the latest issue of the San Diego Business Journal here: Celebrating the Influential San Diegans of 2023 - San Diego Business Journal (sdbj.com).