If It's Possible At Santa Clara

Why not at SWLAW?

Kavya Mohankumar was a college student in India when she started looking at law schools in the United States.

One school in particular caught the 26-year-old's interest: Santa Clara University School of Law. Mohankumar said she was attracted to Santa Clara's intellectual property law specialty and international flavor.

During the past few years, Santa Clara has crept up into the second tier of law schools. According to U.S. News and World Report, its ranking sits at 94. In the same period, applications have surged. The school received 2,693 in 2000, and 5,288 this year -- for 250 slots.

While these statistics aren't enough to place Santa Clara alongside heavyweights such as Stanford Law School and Boalt Hall School of Law, the change has been enough to raise eyebrows. Santa Clara measures up to the elite with an IP program consistently ranked among the top 10 nationally, and it is starting to build a reputation in other fields as well.

Maybe SWLAW can turn the corner when it hires a new Dean to take over next year with Dean Taylor's retirement.

The man leading the charge is Dean Donald Polden, an affable workplace law expert who arrived last year from the University of Memphis School of Law, where he was also dean. He says he was drawn here, in part, by the warm weather and the Bay Area's reputation as an academic hub.

Location, location, location? You want location? SWLAW is smack dab in the middle of Los Angeles.

In his first year on the job, Polden attended 30 alumni fund-raising events in 17 cities -- and even flew overseas to talk to graduates in Seoul, South Korea. He is intent on moving the law school into new quarters and boosting funding, and he wants to continue to maintain close ties with the school's alumni.

Polden's efforts are luring more and more students. Third-year law student Sia Korovilas said she was drawn by the school's reputation in high-tech law.

"Usually law schools which acquire a national reputation in one area tend to develop national reputations in more areas," said Korovilas.

"[Santa Clara] has strong future potential in climbing the ranking chart," she said.

What about our reputation in Entertainment Law? That counts for something, doesn't it?

I just want to know what it is that is preventing SWLAW from being at least a second-tier school.