First-Year Curriculum
The 1L Program
The first year at UC Law SF lays the foundation for understanding the law. We link theory to practice using innovative pedagogies, while emphasizing the need for creativity, adaptability, and innovation in a rapidly changing legal services market. Our first-year curriculum is traditional in that students take the black letter law courses found at all law schools, but unusual in that our students may take an elective in their spring semester.
Our first-year students (aka 1Ls) are divided into five sections of approximately 80 students each, called “Inns of Court.” 1L students take classes with their Inns, with class size ranging from the full Inn to a much smaller group of 12-15 students.
In addition to being the core group of classroom peers in the first year, the Inns of Court program also provides our students with opportunities to meet and interact with faculty, staff, and upper class students — all unique to each Inn — a built-in community of mentors.
The 1L Curriculum
All students take the first-year curriculum:
- Civil Procedure I – (4 or 5 Units)
- Constitutional Law I – (3 Units) or a Statutory Course (students elect to take either Constitutional Law I or the Statutory Course in their first year, students must also take, either in the fall or spring semester of their second year, the course they did not elect to take in their first year).
- Contracts I – (4 or 5 Units)
- Criminal Law – (4 or 5 Units)
- Legal Research & Writing I – (3 Units)
- Legal Research & Writing II – (3 Units)
- Property – (4 or 5 Units)
- Torts – (4 or 5 Units)
Students with a STEM background are strongly encouraged to also take Scientist to Lawyer.
The Inns of Court
The Inns of Court program provides a supportive community for 1L students who are about to take their first steps towards becoming lawyers. Each Inn is named after a renowned alum or professor.
Foltz Inn
Clara Shortridge Foltz was the first woman lawyer on the Pacific Coast, California’s first female deputy DA, and a public defender movement founder. She apprenticed at her father’s law office and attended classes at UC Law SF – then California’s only law school. She played a key role in winning women’s suffrage in California and tried cases when women were barred from juries. UC Law SF granted her a posthumous Doctor of Laws in 1991.
Kane Inn
Emerita Chancellor & Dean Mary Kay Kane joined the UC Law SF faculty in 1977, where she was the first ladder-ranked woman faculty member. She went on to serve as Associate Academic Dean from 1980-82, Acting Academic Dean during the 1987-88 academic year, and Academic Dean from 1990-93. In 1993, she was named Chancellor and Dean, a position she held until 2006. She was the first woman to be appointed to serve as Chancellor & Dean at UC Law SF. Dean Kane was also one of the world’s top civil procedure scholars, and a leader in legal education more broadly, including as head of the American Association of Law Schools (AALS). Dean Kane was honored in 2017 by being interviewed for the AALS’s “Women in Legal Education Project,” which is available here.
Lum Inn
Emma Ping Lum, an alumna of UC College of the Law, San Francisco was the first Chinese-American woman to practice law in California and the United States. Lum became the first Chinese-American female to practice before the United States Supreme Court. She received an A.B. from San Francisco State College and an M.A. from Columbia University. Throughout her career, Lum was affiliated with the California State Bar Association, San Francisco Bar Association, the Queen’s Bench, the Kappa Beta Phi legal sorority, and established a general practice in San Francisco’s Chinatown.
Manuel Inn
Justice Wiley W. Manuel ’53 was the first African-American to serve on the California Supreme Court. Justice Manuel was born in Oakland and attended UC Berkeley. While a student at UC Law SF, Justice Manuel served as editor in chief of the (then) Hastings Law Journal and graduated as a member of the Order of the Coif. Prior to his appointment to the judiciary, Justice Manuel long served as an attorney with the California Attorney General’s Office.
Moscone Inn
Honorable George R. Moscone ’56, the 37th Mayor of San Francisco, helped pay his tuition at UC Law SF by working as a school janitor alongside former Mayor Willie Brown. Moscone was ahead of his time as an early proponent of gay rights, and was the first mayor to appoint large numbers of women, gays and lesbians, and racial minorities to city commissions and advisory boards.