McGeorge School of Law

University of the Pacific McGeorge School of Law is a private, American Bar Association (ABA)-approved law school in the Oak Park neighborhood of the city of Sacramento, California. It is part of the University of the Pacific and is located on the University's Sacramento campus.

University of the Pacific McGeorge School of Law
Parent school	University of the Pacific
Established	1924; 101 years ago (1924)[1]
School type	Private
Dean	Michael Colatrella
Location	Sacramento, California, US
Enrollment	577 (Full and Part–time)[2]
Faculty	36 (Full-time) 75 (Part–time)[2]
USNWR ranking	163rd (tie) (2025)[1]
Bar pass rate	57% (July 2022 California bar first time takers)[3]
Website	McGeorge School of Law
ABA profile	McGeorge School of Law

History

The school that eventually became McGeorge began in 1921 when University of Chicago Law School graduate^[4] and Standard Oil executive Verne Adrian McGeorge began teaching law students at night in downtown Sacramento, California. After its formal establishment as a school in 1924, this Sacramento Law School, subsequently renamed in Professor McGeorge's honor as the "McGeorge School of Law", merged with the University of the Pacific in 1966 and came to be known as "Pacific McGeorge".^[5] McGeorge became an integral part of the University of the Pacific in 1991.^[5] The current dean of McGeorge School of Law is Michael Hunter Schwartz, formerly the dean of the William H. Bowen School of Law at University of Arkansas at Little Rock from 2013 to 2017.^[5]

Accreditation, memberships, rankings

McGeorge has been approved by the American Bar Association (ABA) since 1969.^[6] As an ABA approved law school, McGeorge graduates are eligible to sit for the bar examination in any American jurisdiction.

Memberships

McGeorge joined the Association of American Law Schools (AALS) in 1974.^[7] It has a chapter of the Order of the Coif, a national law school honorary society founded for the purposes of encouraging legal scholarship and advancing the ethical standards of the legal profession.^[8]

Rankings and bar exam passage rate

See also: Law school rankings in the United States

In the 2025 U.S. News & World Report law school rankings, McGeorge School of Law was ranked tied for 163rd out of 197 schools.^[1]

Of the McGeorge alumni who took the California bar for the first time in July, 2022, 57% passed. It ranked fifteenth among the eighteen ABA-accredited California law schools.^[3]

Admissions

For the class entering in 2024, the law school accepted 613 out of 1031 applicants (a 59.46% acceptance rate), with 207 of those accepted enrolling (a 33.77% yield rate – the percentage of accepted students who enrolled). Five students were not included in the acceptance statistics. The class consisted of 212 students. The median LSAT score was 155 and the median undergraduate GPA was 3.52. One student was not included in the GPA calculation. The reported 25th/75th percentile LSAT scores and GPAs were 152/158 and 3.13/3.77.^[2]

Tuition costs

McGeorge's tuition and fees for full-time students during the 2019–2020 academic year cost $56,776 per year, while tuition and fees for part-time students was $42,418-47,824 per year.^[9]

Academic programs

McGeorge offers degree programs leading to the award of the J.D. (Juris Doctor), the LL.M. (Master of Laws), the M.P.A. (Master of Public Administration), the M.P.P. (Master of Public Policy) and the J.S.D. (Doctor of Juridical Science) degrees.

McGeorge offers both a three-year day division program and four-year evening division program.

The first year curriculum at McGeorge consists of 27 units.^[10] McGeorge law students must also complete 29 units of upper-level required curriculum.^[11] Therefore, 56 units out of the 88 units to graduate are required courses.^[12] All students take the same required courses.

Location

The McGeorge School of Law is located on University of the Pacific's Sacramento campus at 3200 Fifth Avenue in the Oak Park area of Sacramento, the capital of California.^[13]

Journals and publications

• The University of the Pacific Law Review (formerly titled "McGeorge Law Review" and "The Pacific Law Journal"). A student-run, scholarly journal publishing four issues annually. Two issues are published each year containing professional articles and student-authored comments or casenotes; one issue contains the Review of Selected California Legislation, or "Greensheets"; and one issue contains a symposium, focusing on a specific, significant legal topic.
• California Initiative Review. An online analysis of California ballot initiatives and related issues.
• California Water Law Journal. A forum for water law research.

Notable people

Notable alumni

• Greg Aghazarian – California State Assemblyman, 26th District
• Mark Amodei – U.S. Congressman from Nevada
• Ronald J. Bath – USAF, Director of U.S. Air Force Strategic Planning
• Scott Baugh – former California State Assembly Republican Leader, 67th District
• Scott Boras – sports agent
• Consuelo María Callahan – Judge, United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
• L. Whitney Clayton – Presidency of the Seventy of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
• Lloyd Connelly – Judge, Sacramento County Superior Court
• Ellen Corbett – California State Senator, 10th District
• Christine Craft – attorney, radio talk show host, and former television news anchor
• John Doolittle – US Congressman 1991–2009
• Morrison C. England Jr. – Judge, United States District Court for the Eastern District of California
• Noreen Evans – California State Assemblywoman, 7th District
• Dayvid Figler – Former Las Vegas Municipal Court Judge, NPR commentator
• Bryan Freedman – attorney specializing in entertainment law^[14]
• Edward J. Garcia – Judge, United States District Court for the Eastern District of California
• John M. Gerrard – Justice of the Nebraska Supreme Court
• James Hardesty - Justice of the Nevada Supreme Court
• Mikayil Jabbarov – Minister of Economy of the Azerbaijan Republic^[15]
• Michael A. Lilly – Attorney General of Hawaii (1984–1985)
• Bill Lockyer – California State Treasurer and former California Attorney General
• Steve Martini – attorney and best-selling author of legal thriller novels
• Deborah Ortiz – former California State Senator, 6th District
• Victor Plata – Olympic athlete in triathlon^[16]
• Johnnie B. Rawlinson – Judge, United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
• Dana Makoto Sabraw – Judge, United States District Court for the Southern District of California
• Robert J. Sandoval – first openly gay judge on Los Angeles County Superior Court
• Steven D. Strauss – author, columnist, and lawyer^[17]
• Christian Wellisch – former professional mixed martial arts combat athlete^[18]

Notable faculty

• J. Clark Kelso, Federal Receiver overseeing healthcare reform in California's prison system, former Acting California Insurance Commissioner (for the year 2000), former chief information officer of California.
• Anthony Kennedy, retired Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court (served from 1988 to 2018),^[19] Pacific McGeorge faculty member since 1965 teaching during summers in Salzburg, Austria, at the University of Salzburg for the law school's summer international program.^[20]

Present Dean and Dean Emeriti

• Michael Colatrella, 2025 - Present
• Michael Hunter Schwartz, 2017 – 2025
• Francis J. –"Jay" Mootz, 2012–2017
• Elizabeth Rindskopf Parker, 2002–2012, former Executive Director and CEO of the State Bar of California,^[21] former CIA General Counsel
• Gerald Caplan, 1991–2002
• Gordon D. Schaber, 1957–1991
• John Swann, 1946–1957
• Lawrence Dowrety, 1937 – WWII closure
• Gilford Rowland, 1933–1937
• Russell Harris, 1930–1933
• Vern Adrian McGeorge, Founder, 1924–1930