Leading the Way
| Author | Jason Tashea |
| Pages | 34-35 |
Business of Law
34 || ABA JOURNAL JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2019
on planning and building t he academic program.
The first class of st udents arrived on campus in Augus t
2009. They received ful l, three-year scholarships. Chemer in-
sky came up with t he idea and was responsible for fundrais -
ing the cost, which wa s expected to be $6 million. In t he
2017-2018 school year, there were 10 UCI Law students with
full scholarsh ips, and 202 had half-to-full schola rships.
“It was terribly exciti ng to be part of creating a new law
school. We worked really hard to cre ate a special place,” says
Ann Southworth , a UCI Law professor whose work focuses
on professional responsibilit y. She was recruited by Catherine
Fisk, a labor law professor who is ma rried to Chemerinsky
and also now at Berkeley Law.
The inaugural law scho ol class had 60 members, with a
median LSAT score of 167. According to it s 2018 Standard
509 Information Report , the law school had 514 students and
a median LSAT of 163.
Out of the five Univer-
sity of Californ ia law
schools, UCI has the
fewest students and the
third-highest percentage
of 2017 graduates with
full-time, long-term job s
that either require or pre-
fer candidates w ith law
degrees.
When asked whe ther
he has advice for other
law schools regarding
class sizes and ke ep-
ing respectable medi an LSAT scores, Chemerinsky says t hat
depends on what sort of law school it is and wh at its leaders
want it to become.
“Every school has a dierent s tory,” he says. “At UCI, it was
clear what kind of law school the c ampus wanted it to be, and
it was my task to get t here.” Q
Leading the Way
Inspired by Europe’s sweeping GDPR,
California’s new data privacy law
could change how companies
do business in the Golden State
By Jason Tashea
This past November, Califor nians were
going to have the opportunit y to vote on
a sweeping data priva cy ballot initiative.
The language was s et, the signatures were
collected, but the in itiative never made it
to the ballot.
A creation of Alas tair Mactaggar t, a wealthy Bay
Area real es tate developer, the initiative aimed to bri ng
accountabilit y to the data economy. “I wanted to start
to address how we as c onsum-
ers can get control of our in for-
mation,” says Mactagga rt, who
spent more than $3 million on
the campaign.
While the initiat ive polled
well with the public, there w as
significant cr iticism.
“We were strongly opposed
to it,” says Kevin McKi nley,
director of Ca lifornia govern-
ment aairs for the Interne t
Associa tion, an industry g roup.
He says the bill was unworkable bec ause it was written
with “far-re aching definitions that had no ground ing in
law in America or Europe .”
Legislators a lso had misgivings. Ca lifornia ballot ini-
tiatives, if pas sed, are hard to amend. With a June 29
deadline to ta ke the initiative o the ballot, a tra de was
proposed: If the leg-
islature could pas s a
data prote ction law,
Mactag gart would pull
the initiative.
After a flurr y of negoti-
ations, Gov. Jerry Brown
signed the bill into law on
June 28.
The Califor nia Con-
sumer Privacy A ct of 2018
is the stric test consumer
data protection law in t he
country. The law appl ies
Technology
University of Cali fornia at Irvine S chool of Law
UCI Law professor Ann So uthworth
Alastair
Mactaggart
Kevin
McKinley
PHOTOS COURTESY OF ANN SOUTHWORTH, ALASTAIR MACTAGGART, INTERNET ASSOCIATION, WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
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