Twenty years ago, a fragment of the Chapman community gathered in temporary quarters in Anaheim, launching something new for the university: a law school.
Now, the Dale E. Fowler School of Law is anchored in the grandiose Donald P. Kennedy Hall on Glassell Street. Fowler was named in 2013, following a $55 million gift from Santa Ana real estate developer Dale Fowler and his wife Sarah Ann – the second-largest reported gift to any law school in the United States. The Fowlers’ gift will be used to hire top professors and lower the cost of education for future students.
Chapman’s School of Law opened in 1995 with Jeremy Miller as the inaugural dean. Miller helped develop a small faculty group that taught at the temporary Anaheim location. As Miller retired in 1997, the school was entering an important time. It had to continue to build faculty while pursuing accreditation and earning recognition from the legal world.
Enter Parham Williams, Fowler’s longest-standing dean, who held the position from 1997 to 2007. Williams came into the law school armed with few alumni, a relatively small staff and a transitory facility, with the goal of creating a lasting, accredited institution.
“It was an exciting challenge to say the least,” said Williams.
With less than 100 alumni at the time, Wiliams was challenged with attracting attention from the Orange County Bar Association and the judiciary to garner support of the new law school. His solution spawned one of Kennedy Hall’s mainstays – a rotating art gallery.
“You can have a cocktail party and swill a little booze around, but that’s not anything that fixes any memory permanently,” said Williams. “At that time, there were roughly 9,000 lawyers and judges in Orange County. In that group of people, you had some extraordinarily talented individuals in various artistic fields. We had this beautiful building with these enormous expanses of white wall and nothing on them. It just occurred to me, let’s see if any of these 9,000 people has done any artistic work – painting, photography or whatever – and let’s invite them to have a show here.”
The results were “darn good,” as Williams put it. Artists invited other members of their law firms, drawing a major presence from the legal world whenever Fowler would have a show. There was also the occasional book signing. Williams’ only regret is that Kennedy Hall was never able to put on an all-lawyer music recital – something that he muses the school might strive for in the future.
For all his efforts, Williams was successful in earning full accreditation for the school by 2002. By 2006, Fowler was a member of the American Association of Law Schools. The way had been paved, and Williams retired as dean in 2007.
“Well, you have to feel very good about that,” said Williams. “Not only I, but everyone in support of the school had this same feeling that we’d accomplished something of considerable significance.”
A young law school
The last 20 years have given Fowler plenty to celebrate, but the school is only around halfway to seeing even its oldest alumni fully mature. Twenty years after graduation, many of Fowler’s alumni are working their way up through law firms, district attorney offices and in some cases making partner at a law firm. It will be some time until those same alumni are senior partners, judges and so on. At that point, Fowler will have seen its first class members reach the pinnacle of their careers, putting the school’s alumni on par with those of other long-standing law schools.
As a young law school, Fowler has quickly established itself, with room to grow. The school last week tied for No. 127 on U.S. News & World Report’s 2016 list of the Best Law Schools. – up from No. 140 last year.
U.S. News and & World Report data shows Fowler’s employment rate at graduation at 21.5 percent compared to No. 1 Yale’s 88.2 percent, with Fowler’s expected median private sector starting salary tailing at $66,750 – behind Yale’s $160,000.
Looking at Fowler, Yale and Stanford (tied at No. 2 overall), Fowler has a student-to-teacher ratio — 9.1 compared to Yale’s 7.6 and Stanford’s 7.3.
One area that Fowler has consistently excelled at is quality of life for students. The 2015 edition of the Princeton Review’s Best 169 Law Schools ranked Fowler’s quality of life as third best in the nation, trailing Duke and Virginia. This marked the 11th straight year the school has made the top 10 in Princeton’s quality of life list.
The school’s passage rate on the California bar exam is in the top third of California law schools.
Fowler’s future
No longer a fledgling school, Fowler has gathered many respected professors to its halls. Led by former U.S. congressman and Dean Tom Campbell, Fowler’s faculty includes Nobel Prize winner Vernon Smith, constitutional scholar John Eastman, radio host Hugh Hewitt, four Supreme Court law clerks and three members of the American Law Institute.
The school has many specializations, including taxation, trial advocacy, business law, entertainment and media law as well as international and comparative law. Campbell said that when he was going through law school, none of these specializations were available. Specializing grants students a higher chance of securing a job in their field.
Under Campbell’s leadership, the school has gained a focus on skill-based learning, an approach that connects law students with the working world by incorporating lessons from legal practitioners.
“You can study how to bring and defend a lawsuit from a textbook, and indeed you should,” said Campbell. “But how much better, richer and more valuable it is to have a laboratory taught by an attorney who is in court that very week.”
These laboratories double as a networking opportunity for students, who meet with all manner of legal professionals throughout the course. At present, Fowler has two of these laboratories in mandatory courses – one in the first year on how to try a case and one in the second year on being a transactions attorney. An additional seven laboratories are available for students to choose from in upper levels, but Campbell hopes that all upper-level courses will eventually have a laboratory component.
Laboratories aside, Fowler students can also engage with the legal world through the school’s legal clinics. Fowler has seven legal clinics, each offering free services in specialized areas including taxes, mediation and family violence.
Fowler students regularly enter legal contests, with teams taking first, second or third in more than 50 competitions since the school’s inception. With 20 years now behind the young law school, Campbell says Fowler’s students will carry its name onwards as attention now turns to the future.
“Our students have drive, they’re self-starters. There’s no sense of entitlement here,” said Campbell. “We’ve got students taking more than one internship, working for a law firm while they’re at school; I wonder when they ever have any free time. They’re driven, and I’m proud to be their dean.”
Fowler will celebrate its 20th anniversary with a gala on March 28. The evening will include a dinner under the stars, a live performance by an alumni and faculty band, special guest appearances and a fireworks spectacular. Tickets are available at chapman.edu/law/events/20th-anniversary-gala.
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Timeline
1993
Chapman University begins studying the feasibility of establishing a Law School.
1994
June
Chapman University Board of Trustees approves the establishment of a Law School.
September
President Doti announces the formation of the Law School.
1995
January
Jeremy Miller is appointed inaugural dean.
August
Law School’s first class held in a temporary facility in the City of Anaheim.
1996
NEXUS: A Journal of Opinion, a Chapman publication, releases its inaugural issue.
1997
June
Parham Williams becomes second dean of the Law School, overseeing a decade of law school’s growth and prominence.
November
Groundbreaking Ceremony for the new Law School building on Chapman University campus. Yale Law School Dean Anthony T. Kronman is guest of honor.
December
Tax Clinic is established.
1998
February
Law School receives provisional accreditation from the American Bar Association.
Spring
Chapman Law Review publishes its inaugural issue.
May
Law School’s first class graduates.
1999
June
Doors open to Law School’s new building on Chapman University’s main campus in Orange.
October
Dedication Ceremony for the new building as Donald P. Kennedy Hall, named in honor of Mr. Kennedy, a Chapman trustee and benefactor. Clarence Thomas, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, is the guest of honor.
2000
Elder Law Clinic is established.
2001
Dedication of the Wylie A. Aitken trial courtroom.
2002
The American Bar Association grants full accreditation to Chapman University School of Law.
2003
Constitutional Jurisprudence Clinic is officially established.
2004
Elder Law Clinic is named The Alona Cortese Elder Law Clinic.
2006
Law School is elected to membership in the Association of American Law Schools (AALS).
2007
June
Dean Parham Williams retires after a decade-long tenure. The Parham and Polly Williams Photo Gallery in the lobby of Kennedy Hall is named in his honor.
John Eastman becomes third dean of the Law School.
The Chapman University School of Law Board of Advisors is established.
July
Nobel Laureate Vernon Smith joins the Law School faculty.
September
Family Violence Clinic is established.
2008
Entertainment Law Clinic is established.
2009
January
Appellate Tax Advocacy Clinic is established.
August
Mediation Clinic is established.
2010
Dean John Eastman steps down to run for California Attorney General. Scott Howe assumes the role of Interim Dean.
2011
February
Tom Campbell becomes fifth dean of the Law School.
September
The Business Law Emphasis Advisory Board is established.
2012
Family Violence Clinic is named the Bette & Wylie Aitken Family Violence Clinic.
2013
Chapman University School of Law is renamed The Dale E. Fowler School of Law at Chapman University, following a $55 million gift given by Chapman University alumnus Dale E. Fowler and his wife Sarah Ann.
2014
April
Frank J. Doti Lecture Hall is named.
September
Dedication of the Fritzie G. Williams Lecture Hall.
October
Law School ranks #3 for Best Quality of Life in Princeton Review’s Best 169 Law Schools, the 11th straight year in the top 10.
November
Law School exceeds California ABA accredited law school pass rate for the California Bar Exam for the fourth straight year.
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Kennedy Hall – a historic site
Parham Williams, Fowler’s former and longest standing dean, oversaw many transformations as the school grew from a fledgling college to become fully accredited. This period was also when the school moved into its current home: Kennedy Hall, opened in 1999. The hall – named for longtime Chapman trustee and benefactor Donald P. Kennedy – was newly built for the law school, but the site has a rich history that has been blended in to the hall’s design.
Everything began in 1872, when investor Alfred Chapman granted a two and a half acre plot to the local school district for the purposes of building a school. Shortly following this gift, a humble grammar school opened with about 50 students and one teacher.
In the following years, this grammar school was built up, burned down, built up again and ultimately razed. In its place, the district set up the grandiose Orange Intermediate School in 1914.
A Mediterranean Revival style building with some Renaissance influences, this Intermediate School was a portrait of the lavishness showered upon institutional buildings in the early 20th century. The building featured an ornamental brick entrance, with arched windows and cornice embellishment.
By 1957, the school had closed its doors to students and was reduced to holding offices for the Orange Unified School District.
Chapman had acquired the property by 1997, when they held a groundbreaking ceremony for the future home of the university’s newest addition: a law school. The university opted to preserve the facade of the old building – the lavish entryway of the historic intermediate school still stands today as the external centerpiece of Kennedy Hall.
Contact the writer: jwinslow@ocregister.com
