The National Black Prosecutors Association (NBPA), established in 1983, is a professional member organization comprised of over 800 prosecutors.  Their mission is to recruit, train, and advance the careers of minority attorneys as prosecutors at all levels of government.  This year’s annual NBPA job fair will be held online on Tuesday, August 17, 2021. There’s still time to register at a discounted rate, after which point the registration price will rise to $50 for students and recent graduates, and $100 for experienced lawyers.

Registration Period
Law Students & 2021 Graduates
Experienced Attorneys

General Registration

May 12th – June 30th

 Free $25

Late Registration

July 1st – July 23rd

 $50 $100

For additional information about the NBPA and to register for the conference, visit www.blackprosecutors.org.

What is a Judicial Clerkship?

A judicial clerkship is a full-time position working for a federal or state judge that often (but not always) starts right after you finish law school. Clerkships may be with any level of court (supreme, appellate or trial court). In addition to the traditional courts, consider special federal courts such as the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, U.S. Court of International Trade, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, U.S. Tax Court, U.S. Court of Veterans Appeals, and the U.S. Department of Justice’s EOIR Immigration Courts.

Law clerks research and draft opinions and orders for the court. They also participate in many phases of the court’s decision-making process. There are “fixed-term” clerkships, which generally last one or two years, and there are “permanent” law clerks, also called “staff attorneys” or “research attorneys”, whose terms are indefinite. Most of the opportunities we are discussing here are fixed-term, though our graduates have been hired directly from law school into permanent Appellate Court Attorney positions with the California Court of Appeal recently.

Continue Reading 6 Common Questions About Post-Graduate Judicial Clerkships

Jade Gasek (Class of 2020)
Jade Gasek, class of 2020

I recently sat down with Jade Gasek (’20), who shared a bit of his story and some helpful insights for our current law students. Following his undergraduate education at Dartmouth College, Jade spent a few years out of academia to decide whether law school was the right choice for him. Having spent that time reflecting on his goal of helping those who can’t help themselves, Jade came to McGeorge with a renewed focus and readiness to face the rigors of law school. With a JD in hand, Jade is now preparing to join Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe in January 2022 as a litigation associate.

After the COVID-19 pandemic delayed Orrick’s start date for first-year associates, the firm offered them the opportunity to participate in a fellowship where they could work for a year with a community nonprofit organization of their choice before officially joining the firm. Jade is currently in the middle of his fellowship with the Thurgood Marshall Civil Rights Center at Howard University School of Law, where he provides pro bono services relating to police violence, mass incarceration, and reparations.  This includes litigation under Section 1983 for claims of excessive police force by police and prison officials. Jade has also worked with local leaders in Washington D.C. (where the Center is located) to figure out how to effectively reduce harm during police interactions, such as during traffic stops and other daily occurrences. This involves re-evaluating current traffic laws and enforcement therein to mitigate the potential for violence.

Continue Reading Student Spotlight: Jade Gasek (Class of 2020)

Alexander Ames, 2L (Class of 2022)
Alexander Ames, 2L (Class of 2022)

The McGeorge Alternative Summer Advantage Program (“McGeorge ASAP”) is a self-directed volunteer summer legal research project created by alum Lexi Purich Howard and Asst. Dean of Career Development Molly Stafford in response to COVID-19.  The program matched McGeorge students who lost summer opportunities due to the pandemic with local attorneys for guidance on a research project on the topic of the student’s choosing. This week’s ASAP paper was authored by Alexander Ames (2L, 2022) under the mentorship of Nathaniel Jenkins, an associate at Littler Mendelson P.C. This paper was written during the summer of 2020 and shortly after the enactment of California Executive Order N-62-20; however, Mr. Ames’s insights on the issues remain pertinent and will inform how future cases may be ruled in the event of another, or continued, pandemic.

“In early 2020, the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic began spreading rapidly across California. Currently in California there are more than 420,000 cases and over 8,000 deaths.[i] Initially, there was a statewide shut down that left many people either without work, or working from the safety of their homes, remotely. In the following months, many industries have started to open, and many workers are returning to work. This poses several questions, such as who would be held liable if an employee contracts COVID-19 while at work? The answer on the surface may be simple, but there can be rising, troublesome complications that follow…”

Read the full article here.

On May 7, 2021, Assistant Dean for Career Development and External Relations Molly Stafford received the University of the Pacific’s Podesto Award for Excellence in Student Life, Mentoring and Counseling. This is a well-deserved award that recognizes the care and tireless commitment Molly shows while serving McGeorge students. Her leadership has helped raise our students to new levels of excellence and success.

“[Molly] does her work with her heart and her head. Under her leadership, not only has the McGeorge Career Development Office achieved the best U.S. News Jobs rate in the law school’s history (during a pandemic!), but also has demonstrated commitments to the whole student (by emphasizing work-life balance, student empowerment, and students’ dreams for themselves) and to diversity, equity, and inclusion.”

– Dean Michael Hunter Schwartz, McGeorge School of Law

Thank you, Dean Stafford, for all you have done and continue to do. McGeorge is lucky and proud to have someone of your caliber leading us and our students.

Why do we need diversity?

Diversity in law brings diverse perspectives. As I read cases in my classes, I notice how laws and rulings impact a wide range of communities. However, the legal field does not reflect a diverse population. According to the American Bar Association, 2008 statistics show that only 34.4% of lawyers are women, 4.6% Black or African American, 2.9% Asian, and 3.8% Hispanic or Latinx. 86% are non-Hispanic white people. Further, in 2019, LGBTQ+ lawyers represented only 3% of all lawyers at firms that participated in a National Association for Law Placement report, and only 0.5% of lawyers identify as having a disability.

What do we mean by a diverse population?

Diversity means representation from a wide range of communities. However, representation is not enough. Systemic racism may be linked to the lack of diversity within the legal profession. It is embedded in various institutions within society and the legal profession is not excluded. Systemic racism exists when ideas of white supremacy operate in various levels of institutions. It is difficult to dismantle considering we are still speaking out against oppressive systems in society today. As diversity efforts in these institutional levels are pursued, it is important to understand that it is not isolated from civil rights movements. Rather, it should propel them forward by creating equitable access to the legal field.

Continue Reading Diversity in Law

As part of your experiential learning requirement at McGeorge, you may be confused by one term in particular: “externships”. Externships are one of the options available to McGeorge students to fulfill their experiential learning requirement if they are not able or not interested in joining one of the clinics. But what exactly are they, and are they the same as an internship?

 

Externships, to be clear, are nearly synonymous with internships. Externs perform similar, if not identical, work as their intern counterparts. The biggest difference is that you will receive academic credit for an externship, whereas an internship is typically done outside the scope of any academic curriculum and may or may not involve financial compensation. McGeorge’s Externship Program has 100+ pre-approved externships available to law students spanning several practice areas with a plethora of government agencies, chambers, non-profits, and select private firms. Externs learn how to apply their legal knowledge to real cases, consult with actual clients, collaborate with active attorneys, improve their research and writing skills, and in some cases, even represent clients in court. It’s a great way to gain real-world experience under the guidance of practicing attorneys. Most externs will reaffirm their passion for their career goals through this hands-on program, while some students realize that their image of a particular career path doesn’t fit with reality, allowing them to easily alter their focus before they’ve committed too much time to a career they ultimately wouldn’t have been satisfied with.

Continue Reading Externship vs. Internship: Which Is It?

The McGeorge Legal Clinics have been on an impressive run over the last several years. In the last year alone, the Community Legal Services (the year-round clinic) closed over 200 cases for nearly 600 low-income clients in the Sacramento area. Over the last two years, CLS has recovered $2.75 million for financially exploited elders and $1.7 million in discharged consumer debt. The Student Attorneys, post-graduate fellows, and faculty of the Legal Clinics have been an invaluable resource to the Sacramento community, providing pro bono services to those who otherwise would have had no access to such services.

Keep up with the latest news and updates from the Legal Clinics with their new blog, McGeorge Legal Clinics.

This blog is the first post in a series that will examine diversity in the legal field. The blogs will highlight diversity issues and efforts within the legal community. Click here for a list of Asian American ally resources.

I want to start off this blog post by honoring victims of hate and violence. Victims that were attacked, only because of their identity.

I am writing this as a Filipino American immigrant woman and as a law student. I am writing this from my perspective as I am processing the attacks against my community.

The Asian American community is mourning. In the past few months, there has been a rampant increase in Asian American hate and violence. As I hear about these attacks, I think of my family members. I think of my great uncles, great aunts, and my grandmothers as I hear about attacks on the elderly. I think of my mom and my aunts as I hear about attacks on Asian American women.

The McGeorge School of Law Asian Pacific American Law Student Association wrote a statement in response to these attacks:

“We are not a virus. We are not a model minority. We are not a monolith. We are not your punchline or your scapegoat. We need to stop normalizing complacency. We need to amplify the narratives of our Asian storytellers, victims, survivors, and family members. And in the process, we need to look unto ourselves, in striving for anti-racism for ALL communities, for we do not tolerate selective support or solidarity. Anti-racism does not work unless we remain in total solidarity, together.”

Continue Reading Processing Asian American Hate

The 2022 annual U.S. News and World Report rankings for law schools were recently released, and McGeorge made some significant strides forward among our academic peers, improving enough to move out of U.S. News’ “Ranking Not Published” category to be ranked #141 in the country. Two components that had the most significant impact on this were improvements in McGeorge’s bar passage rate and employment rate.

McGeorge’s bar pass rate went up 13.8 percentage points, and for the first time in 25 years, exceeded the state’s average pass rate for California ABA accredited law schools. One reason why the bar pass rate went up so much was because more and more students are participating in McGeorge’s Bar Exam Attack Track (BEAT) program and McGeorge’s bar incentive program. Student who complete these FREE programs pass the exam at significantly higher rates than those who do not. These programs aren’t a replacement for commercial bar prep programs, but rather additional resources.

Employment rates of McGeorge graduates for JD required or JD advantage jobs also improved significantly, up 12.6 percentage points from the prior year. When you find a job, either leading up to graduation or after you have graduated, please let us know. We want to celebrate your good news with you and knowing about your successes is vital to tracking and assessing our work with you.

In more good news, McGeorge’s Trial Advocacy program improved to 8th in the nation, our legal writing program improved to 21st nationally, and our Dispute Resolution and International Law programs are both ranked in the top 50 in the country. Our environmental law, intellectual property law, and constitutional law programs also showed significant improvement in this year’s U.S. News rankings.

Thank you to all who helped make this achievement possible – faculty, staff, administration, and leadership; and congratulations to our McGeorge students!