Whittier College School of Law

Whittier Law School
Whittier Law School's Building 1 (of 4), housing Academic and Bar Support, the Dean's Office, and Student/Alumni Relations
Parent school	Whittier College
Established	1966
School type	Private
Dean	Judith Daar (interim)
Location	Costa Mesa, California, United States
Enrollment	392 (full- and part-time)
Faculty	49
USNWR ranking	Rank not published
Bar pass rate	22% (July 2016)
Website	law.whittier.edu [1]
ABA profile	LSAC link: Whittier Law School

Whittier Law School is a law school in Costa Mesa, California founded in 1966. The law school is part of Whittier College, a private institution. After several years of being ranked among the poorest performing law schools in the country based on bar passage rate and job placement, on April 15, 2017, Whittier Law School announced it would no longer be admitting students and would discontinue its legal program. The closure of Whittier Law School will make it the first law school with full accreditation by the American Bar Association (ABA) to shut down in at least 30 years.

The school was founded as the Beverly College of Law in 1966, and was originally located in the Hancock Park area of Los Angeles' Westside. It was a private, nonprofit educational institution intended to meet the growing need for a law school in the Los Angeles metropolitan area.

In 1974, the Whittier College Board of Trustees voted to merge the Beverly College of Law into Whittier College. In 1975, the Law School became known as the Whittier College School of Law and later as Whittier Law School. In response to a significant gift to the Law School, the Hancock Park building was dedicated as the Ross McCollum Law Center during a ceremony at which Supreme Court Associate Justice Byron R. White presented the major address.

During the 1990s, the Law School, along with leaders at Whittier College, decided to relocate the campus to Orange County in order to satisfy space needs and in response to requests by the community for an ABA law school in Orange County. In 1996, the college acquired the present 14-acre campus in Costa Mesa, remodeled the buildings on the site to accommodate the needs of the Law School, and moved the faculty and students over a period of three years. In 1997, the move was completed and Supreme Court Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy gave the major address at the opening ceremony.

In 2013, Chief Justice of California Tani Cantil-Sakauye spoke at the grand opening of the law school's 4,400 square feet (410 m²) court room. A substantial amount of the funds to build the new $2 million facility was donated by Paul Kiesel, a Whittier alumnus and partner at Kiesel Law, LLP. Over 150 contributors, including alumni, faculty, judges, law firms, members of the Orange County community, and Whittier Law School student groups, were responsible for the remainder.