San Joaquin College of Law (SJCL) is a

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law school A law school (also known as a law centre or college of law) is an institution specializing in legal education, usually involved as part of a process for becoming a lawyer within a given jurisdiction. Law degrees Argentina In Argentina, ...

Clovis, California Clovis is a city in Fresno County, California, United States. The 2020 population was 120,124. Clovis is located northeast of downtown Fresno, at an elevation of 361 feet (110 m). History The city of Clovis began as a freight stop along the S ...

History

SJCL was founded in

Fresno Fresno () is a major city in the San Joaquin Valley of California, United States. It is the county seat of Fresno County and the largest city in the greater Central Valley region. It covers about and had a population of 542,107 in 2020, maki ...

in 1969 by Fresno County Municipal Court Judge Dan Eymann, U.S. District Court Judge Oliver Wanger, and attorney John Loomis. The school began instruction in 1970 on the campus of Fresno Pacific College (now

Fresno Pacific University Fresno Pacific University (FPU) is a private Christian university in Fresno, California. It was founded as the Pacific Bible Institute in 1944 by the Pacific District Conference of Mennonite Brethren Churches. The university awarded its first Bac ...

). It remained there until 1980, when the campus moved to Shields Avenue. In 1996, SJCL relocated to the original Clovis High School building. The structure was built in 1920. The renovation, including a new courtroom, lecture hall, and enlarged library, allowed the Law School to expand, while still maintaining the historic character of the building.

Accreditation

SJCL is approved by the Committee of Bar Examiners of the

State Bar of California The State Bar of California is California's official attorney licensing agency. It is responsible for managing the admission of lawyers to the practice of law, investigating complaints of professional misconduct, prescribing appropriate disciplin ...

. It is not accredited by the

American Bar Association The American Bar Association (ABA) is a voluntary bar association of lawyers and law students, which is not specific to any jurisdiction in the United States. Founded in 1878, the ABA's most important stated activities are the setting of acad ...

. As a result, SJCL graduates may not qualify to take the bar or practice outside of California.

Bar pass rate

For the July, 2022 California bar exam, the school's pass rate for first-time takers was 51% vs. a statewide average of 66.8%. Among the twenty-one California law schools with thirty-five or more first-time takers, SJCL ranked eighteenth. In order to evaluate the "qualitative soundness of a law school's program of legal education," the State Bar of California requires all California-Accredited Law schools to provide cumulative bar passage rates for the previous five years. For 2018-2022, SJCL's cumulative five-year bar pass rate was 76.3%.

San Joaquin Agricultural Law Review

The ''San Joaquin Agricultural Law Review'' has been published by SJCL students since 1990, making it the oldest of the three

law review A law review or law journal is a scholarly journal or publication that focuses on legal issues. A law review is a type of legal periodical. Law reviews are a source of research, imbedded with analyzed and referenced legal topics; they also pro ...

s in the United States focusing on agriculture law.

New American Legal Clinic

The New American Legal Clinic (NALC) is a non-profit immigration law clinic that operates out of San Joaquin College of Law. There is both a classroom and practical component to the clinical course which is offered every fall, spring and summer session. There is a director and legal director as well as clinical staff that instruct and assist the students in completing and filing cases with the Department of Homeland Security/USCIS as well as the immigration courts. Cases are handled by students and supervised by professors. The NALC Clinic is also recognized as a source of information for media, practitioners, immigrants’ rights groups and collaboratives and agricultural and other industry employers in the Central San Joaquin Valley of California.

Family Law Mediation Clinic

Students and faculty of San Joaquin College of Law provide

alternative dispute resolution Alternative dispute resolution (ADR), or external dispute resolution (EDR), typically denotes a wide range of dispute resolution processes and techniques that parties can use to settle disputes with the help of a third party. They are used for ...

services in a free

family law Family law (also called matrimonial law or the law of domestic relations) is an area of the law that deals with family matters and domestic relations. Overview Subjects that commonly fall under a nation's body of family law include: * Marriage, ...

mediation clinic. They meet with husband and wife in the

mediation Mediation is a structured, interactive process where an impartial third party neutral assists disputing parties in resolving conflict through the use of specialized communication and negotiation techniques. All participants in mediation are ...

setting to help them negotiate a legal agreement while avoiding the time and expense of going to court. In their role as mediators, they do not represent either party, nor do they represent the parties jointly.

Notable faculty

* Anthony P. Capozzi (1974–1978) Criminal law

References

External links

* {{authority control Law schools in California Educational institutions established in 1969 Schools accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges Clovis, California Universities and colleges in Fresno County, California San Joaquin Valley 1969 establishments in California Private universities and colleges in California