WSU California Law School
Located between Los Angeles and San Diego, Western State University College of Law is in the heart of Orange County. Orange County boasts attractions like Disneyland, and world-renowned cultural events like the Laguna Beach Festival of Arts/Pageant of the Masters, and Broadway-quality entertainment at the Orange County Performing Arts Center, and a vibrant legal community.
I would tell them that this is a great profession and that Western State is a fine school. It is right down the street here in Orange County and Western State has I think one of the finest clinical education programs in the country. Whether it’s the DAs office, the public defenders office, the court of appeals, family law, legal clinic, there’s more opportunities at Western State than perhaps any other school in the nation when it comes to practical learning of the law, getting your feet wet and doing law work.
Well, we have a wonderful location. We’re, you know, located in Orange County, in the heart of southern California. Access to all types of resources and facilities. Not just legal and educational, but cultural, entertainment, and so forth. Ah, the school, as I’ve said, is relatively small. We have a relatively small student body, but our faculty is very experienced and very helpful.
I love the fact that it’s here in Orange County, which was my home at the time. I love the fact that it is in an area that you can feel comfortable living in, where you have the opportunity to either make your home here or choose not to, but if you do it’s a great place to stay and once you get your degree from here it seems also like the next step is to maybe build your shingle here, and I like the fact that you can do that because you know it’s a good community. You have Cal State Fullerton across the street, which was always a place I used to go and study when you just wanted to, you know, grind, you know, the books and have … see that other people were in the same boat as you were - was always a good thing.
It’s centered in Orange County. It’s right across the street from a large campus of Cal State system, University of Cal State Fullerton. We have a consortium agreement with Cal State so that any of the services in the library and databases that is available to a Cal State student is available to our students. So it’s an academic environment. It’s in the center of Orange County, which is very beautiful. It’s half an hour from the beach and not that far from the mountains. So it’s a very lively community.
I grew up in New York City, went to City College, went to law school back East, and wondered how people were really able to work and study on a daily basis with the beach just a few miles away and just incredible weather. Obviously people do live their lives, but it’s a gorgeous, gorgeous location – Orange County. I’m glad I grew up in New York, but I’m glad I’m living out my adult years in Orange County. As far as opportunities for placement, Orange County is no longer a bunch of orange groves the way it was many, many years ago. This is now no long a beedroom cummunity to Los Angeles. It’s an international corporate hub and so businesses reach out across the Pacific here in Orange County and we have an incredible representation of major law firms who have a lot of their branches here in Orange County. We have a vibrant bar association. In fact, I know personally from it because I’m also the editor of the Orange County Lawyer magazine, which is a publication of the Orange County Bar Association, and so I get to meet a lot of people in the OCBA. It’s a vibrant, a very vibrant legal community here in Orange County.
The location, number one. I mean, it’s in close proximity to the beaches, Los Angeles – anywhere you might want to go. If you ski, you can ski, water ski, snow ski: location. Location, location, location, location. That’s good. People here in Orange County: I like the area. I like living here in Orange County. Good place to live, good place to raise a family. So, that’s why I like it. That’s what I would tell people.
Well, we’re here, in the sort of in the center of the storm. We have a very large Orange County D.A’s Office, Public Defender’s Office, a lot of cases. A lot of people don’t know this; Orange County has the 5th largest D.A.’s Office and 5th largest Public Defender’s Office in the country. We’re just south of Los Angeles, which of course has a huge District Attorney’s Office, with lots of opportunities. And we’re adjacent to Riverside County. Riverside County is exploding, population-wise; therefore, their need for criminal law practitioners is also exploding. In fact, the D.A. of Riverside is a Western State grad, and we are able to place a lot of people in internships out there. So, the internships, and the externships. This is an abundant place to practice law, for criminal practitioners, and it’s a great place for students to go out and work with really highly skilled professionals, people with experience in a large gamit of cases.
Well, I am probably biased, but I think Orange County is a wonderful place to live. It’s a wonderful place to work. It’s a wonderful place to study law, and to practice law. We, of course, have a very nice climate and a very, very nice community in which to live. Comfortable, but also very rich in terms of diversity. This is a thriving busiess and financial center in its own right and it’s also close to the metropolitan Los Angeles area, and to many other fast growth communities in the Inland Empire, and throughout southern California. But in addition to that, California is a very exciting and diverse place, where law is being made, and cutting edge decisions are being made everyday. So, for a young lawyer looking to make a difference, what a wonderful place to learn, to learn to server an ethnically diverse community, and also to make a difference as law is developed.