UC Law SF Launches $100 Million “Into the Future” Campaign to Advance Legacy of Academic Excellence and Advancing Justice
Graduates thrive at UC Law San Francisco because of the College’s strong foundation of donor support, which sustains student success programs, advances faculty excellence, and fuels groundbreaking centers and initiatives. The Into the Future campaign builds on this momentum, ensuring students and faculty have the resources to lead in a rapidly evolving legal landscape.
This is the College’s First Ever Comprehensive Campaign to Support Students, Faculty, and Innovative Initiatives
- UC Law SF has launched “Into the Future,” a $100 million comprehensive campaign to strengthen student success, faculty excellence, and innovative initiatives.
- Donors support scholarships, endowed faculty positions, and groundbreaking research on urgent issues like AI, drug pricing, and human rights.
- The campaign will ensure that the oldest law school west of the Rockies remains a leader in preparing students, producing influential research, and advancing justice.
UC Law SF today launched its first-ever comprehensive fundraising campaign, with a goal of raising $100 million to support the College’s students, faculty, and programs that strengthen education and the legal profession. The campaign, titled “Into the Future: The Campaign for UC Law San Francisco,” will ensure that the oldest law school west of the Rockies remains a leader in preparing students, producing influential research, and advancing justice.
The practice of law is evolving rapidly, with global challenges and disruptive technology, including artificial intelligence, raising new questions and concerns around privacy, criminal justice, health equity, and human rights.
The Into the Future campaign’s priorities will position the College, and its students, to stay at the forefront of a changing profession. The priorities are:
- Student success – Supporting talented students through scholarships and programs that prepare graduates for successful careers.
- Faculty excellence – Supporting and attracting the country’s top legal minds, as they advance UC Law SF’s legacy of exceptional teaching and produce influential research and scholarship that shapes law and policy.
- Innovative initiatives – Supporting research centers, scholars, and collaborations that tackle societal challenges and expose students to real-world legal challenges, including AI law, launching startups, and access to justice in the Bay Area and around the world.
As a CBL Scholar, Marilyn Aguilar-Portillo ’27 receives financial support and mentorship — resources made possible through donor support that propels student success.
“As the first and foremost law school in California, we have served as a beacon for the legal profession, guiding generation after generation,” said Chancellor & Dean David Faigman. “Through the support of our wonderful donors—the lawyers, leaders, activists, inventors, partners, and public servants of our great law school—UC Law SF will continue to succeed.”
Student Success: Investing in Future Leaders
Scholarships and other forms of student support are central to the $100 million campaign. They help UC Law SF compete for top students nationwide, reduce financial barriers to legal education, and help students gain valuable practical experience across all areas of law.
2025 Center for Business Law Scholar Marilyn Aguilar-Portillo ’27, a first-generation college grad and law student, said her scholarship “represents more than just financial support—it is a recognition of my potential to contribute meaningfully to the field of business law. It is also a powerful affirmation that I am on the right path, reinforcing that my ambitions are both valid and achievable.”
Donors make possible programs like public-interest summer grants. This year alone, UC Law SF awarded 92 grants, each providing $5,000 so students could pursue government or nonprofit internships that would otherwise be unpaid.
One recipient, Isabella Freitas Hicks ’27, spent the summer with the California Energy Commission. She drafted regulatory amendments, analyzed federal policy changes, and wrote memos on the impact of proposed legislation. She said, “I gained firsthand experience in the energy sector, which is directly aligned with my goal of becoming a land use attorney focused on renewable energy development.”
Professor Manoj Viswanathan, co-director of the UC Law SF Center on Tax Law, holds the Joseph W. Cotchett ’64 Professorship — an endowed position established by a distinguished alumnus and donor to support faculty whose teaching and research “will help preserve a just society that affords everyone an opportunity.”
Donor support also powers programs like the Legal Education Opportunity Program (LEOP) and the First Generation Program, as well as bar exam preparation, student organizations, legal clinics, and fellowships.
Faculty Excellence: Advancing Research and Scholarship
Faculty excellence has long distinguished UC Law SF. Endowed chairs and professorships—central to this campaign—allow the College to recruit and retain top scholars, support groundbreaking research, and mentor the next generation of leaders.
Recent examples of faculty work highlight the breadth and impact of UC Law SF scholarship. Professor Manoj Viswanathan, co-director of the Center on Tax Law, analyzed proposed reforms to make Social Security funding more equitable by shifting burdens from low-income to high-income taxpayers. Professor Dorit Reiss has emerged as a leading voice on vaccine law and policy, publishing widely on regulation, mandates, and liability. And Professor Emily Murphy, drawing on her background in neuroscience and law, has explored how behavioral science can inform policies that maximize individual freedom and agency.
“Endowed positions are an investment with lasting impact,” said Provost & Academic Dean Morris Ratner. “They create a legacy of support for research excellence.”
Generous donor support fuels UC Law SF’s innovative programs, research centers, and experiential learning opportunities, enabling students and faculty to explore new frontiers in law. The Into the Future campaign amplifies this work, ensuring the College remains a hub of creativity and thought leadership.
Innovative Initiatives: Shaping the Future of Law
UC Law SF is also reimagining legal education through bold initiatives made possible by donor investment.
The College’s programmatic and research centers are key drivers of innovation. The Center for Innovation (C4i) is one of 17 UC Law SF centers producing groundbreaking research and tackling a wide range of pressing issues in various fields—from business law and international development to asylum law, Indigenous rights, and dispute resolution.
C4i is led by Professor Robin Feldman, who guides the center’s Law and Medicine Initiative and AI Law & Innovation Institute. The institute works to help courts, lawmakers, and agencies navigate the legal dimensions of rapidly evolving artificial intelligence.
Feldman and her colleagues are tackling questions ranging from AI’s impact on democracy to liability for harms caused by autonomous systems. Feldman, an expert in AI, pharmaceutical law and innovation, recently published research analyzing regulatory loopholes that allow drug companies to block competition from generics, keeping drug prices higher.
“The affordability of life-saving medications, the incentives that drive innovation, and the impact of AI on democratic institutions—these are the kinds of urgent issues that centers like ours are addressing,” Feldman said.
Other innovative programs, such as LexLab, C4i’s Startup Legal Garage, and the Corporate Counsel Externship Program, help students work directly with real-world clients, from Silicon Valley startups to Fortune 500 companies.
A Pivotal Moment
As the legal field transforms, Into the Future campaign leaders see this effort as vital to training tomorrow’s lawyers and bolstering San Francisco’s role as a hub of innovation and economic strength.
“This campaign benefits our city, our community, and our system of justice,” said Co-Chair Michael Kelly ’76, a shareholder at Walkup Melodia Kelly & Schoenberger. “There is no downside to making a top-tier legal education affordable for bright, optimistic, energetic students who are committed to justice for all.”
Fellow Co-Chair Joseph W. Cotchett ’64, founding partner of Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy LLP, emphasized the broader societal stakes.
“Education is the foundation of a functioning democracy, and UC Law San Francisco plays a vital role in preparing lawyers who safeguard freedoms and strengthen the institutions that uphold justice,” Cotchett said.
Campaign co-chair Kristin Sverchek ’07, former president at Lyft, said attending law school in the heart of the tech industry enabled her to launch a successful career in tech, both at law firms advising tech companies and in-house at Lyft.
“UC Law SF helped me develop the grit, innovative legal thinking, and resilience needed to succeed,” Sverchek said. “And I’m proud to see how UC Law SF has doubled down on innovation with centers like LexLab, the Center for Innovation, and AI Law & Innovation Institute. An investment in UC Law SF today is an investment in the next generation of lawyers who will lead in courtrooms, boardrooms, and beyond.”
A Call to the Future
Faigman announced the public launch of the campaign at an event with College donors and alumni today.
“Over the last three years, we’ve been operating a quiet campaign reaching out to many of our donors to talk about how we might build an endowment to support the scholarships, faculty, and innovative initiatives that are part of a really great law school,” Faigman said.
During the event, Chief Advancement Officer Julia Jordan announced new donor gifts that are supporting the campaign, including:
- $350,000 in initial funding for the new Center for Constitutional Democracy.
- $200,000 for the Khaleed Rasheed Scholarship fund, raised in partnership with and with funding from McManis Faulkner.
- Contributions from Roger Dreyer ’80 and Carol Wieckowski Dreyer ’79 to support the UC Law SF Trial Team Program and create a scholarship program for Trial Team members
Faigman also announced $1.1 million in new gifts from Cotchett, including:
- $500,000 to name a classroom in honor of former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown ’58
- $500,000 to name a classroom in honor of former U.S. Representative Jackie Speier ’76
- $100,000 in funding for the Center for Constitutional Democracy
Faigman shared at the campaign’s launch event that a total of $66.1 million has been raised — nearly two-thirds of $100 million the College aims to raise by the summer of 2027.
“We are very much on our way to reaching that goal,” Faigman said.
For nearly 150 years, UC Law SF has trained lawyers and influenced the legal profession. The College remains the No. 1 producer of graduates accepted into the California bar. Into the Future—the most ambitious fundraising campaign in the College’s history—aims to empower the students, faculty, and initiatives through gifts that will shape the practice of law, transform the law school, and lead our society.
“This campaign is an investment in the people and programs that will carry UC Law SF’s legacy forward,” said Jordan. “It ensures the College continues to lead at the intersection of law, technology, and justice, empowering our students, professors, and community to tackle today’s challenges and shape a brighter future for all.”