Editing UC Davis School of Law (section)

==History==

During the late 1940s, the rapid expansion of what is now known as the [[University of California College of the Law, San Francisco]] (then known as Hastings College of the Law) partially relieved some of the political pressure on [[UC Berkeley School of Law]] to compromise on its rigid standards for student admissions and faculty hiring.<ref name="Epstein">{{cite book |author1-last=Epstein |author1-first=Sandra P. |title=Law at Berkeley: The History of Boalt Hall |date=1997 |publisher=Institute of Governmental Studies Press |location=Berkeley |isbn=0-87772-375-3}}</ref>{{rp|pages=241}}  Berkeley was able to hold the line on its standards and thereby ascended to the [[Law school rankings in the United States|top tier of American law schools]] by the 1990s.<ref name="Epstein" />{{rp|pages=241}}

To further protect Berkeley Law (then also known as Boalt Hall), the university appointed a committee in 1960 to prepare recommendations for the establishment of additional law schools in the UC system.<ref name="Epstein" />{{rp|pages=261}}  The committee recommended that law schools should be established at Davis, [[University of California, San Diego|San Diego]], and [[University of California, Santa Barbara|Santa Barbara]], but Davis was identified as the highest priority because of its proximity to the [[California State Capitol]] at [[Sacramento, California|Sacramento]].<ref name="Epstein" />{{rp|pages=261}}

Formal planning for the law school at Davis began in 1962.<ref name="Epstein" />{{rp|pages=261}}  The law faculty at Berkeley actively supported and worked on the development of the new law school at Davis because they knew it would relieve the pressure on themselves to ease up on admissions standards.<ref name="Epstein" />{{rp|pages=261}}  It helped that one of their own, Edward L. Barrett, Jr., was appointed as Davis's first dean in 1964.<ref name="Epstein" />{{rp|pages=261}}  UC Davis School of Law opened in a temporary space in 1966 and moved to a permanent building in fall 1968.<ref name="Epstein" />{{rp|pages=261}}  The first class of 69 students graduated in June 1969.<ref name="Epstein" />{{rp|pages=261}}

Apart from Barrett, no one else went from Berkeley to Davis.<ref name="Epstein" />{{rp|pages=261}}  Barrett was exceedingly careful to not compete against Berkeley in hiring the first law professors at Davis.<ref name="Epstein" />{{rp|pages=261}}  He knew Berkeley Law regarded [[Stanford Law School]] as its only equal within California, and was "sensitive to the somewhat elitist stance of the Boalt Hall faculty and their skepticism that a first-rate law school could be built on an agricultural campus".<ref name="Epstein" />{{rp|pages=261}}