Santa Clara University law school marks centennial with graduation ceremony

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Santa Clara University’s School of Law sent 300 of its students into the world Saturday armed with new law degrees, encouraging them to become “the conscience of Silicon Valley” and the country.

“Be the conscience that our society needs,” said the Rev. Michael Engh, president of the university, who addressed the graduates beneath a sunny California sky in the school’s Mission Garden.
The Jesuit university’s law school, which prides itself on its social justice and non-profit law focus as well as a more recent specialty in high tech, is celebrating its centennial year.
The Class of 2011 joins more than 11,000 other graduates who have received degrees from the school since its founding in 1911, noted Dean Donald J. Polden. The student’s graduation gowns came with a special tassel to mark the anniversary, he said.
Next stop: the bar exam. And after that, a profession that as the commencement speaker, retired State Supreme Court Justice Carlos Moreno, observed, has vast potential for doing good and helping society’s weak and vulnerable.
“You will be truly amazed at the impact you will be able to have with it,” he said of the student’s new degrees. “Your law degree will, I assure you, give you the power to insure access to justice for all,” he said.
“Don’t think for single moment that because you are one person, that you can’t make a difference. You are one lawyer.”
The school estimates that 58 percent of its graduates
still live in the greater Bay Area. Many of them have gone on to prominence in public service or private practice.
Google’s chief legal officer is an alumnus of the law school. Others hold key legal jobs at Charles Schwab, Safeway, Rambus, Oracle and eBay, and up north, Microsoft.
Other alumni are in top-tier positions in intellectual property practice in the valley.
A third of Santa Clara County’s superior court judges are alumni, and about 220 graduates are judges throughout the country and elsewhere, according to the university.
Still others have risen to prominence on the national stage, including U.S. Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-San Jose, who was at the commencement; and Leon Panetta, the former congressman, White House chief of staff, CIA director and now Defense Secretary-designate.
With these examples to focus their ambitions, a few graduates talked about their plans:

Brittney Salvatore, 27, Napa. After taking the bar exam in July, she plans to spend four months in China and India “and a few other places,” laying the groundwork for a non-profit. Her idea is to help large organizations such as universities connect their research to places that can use it best. “A lot of great ideas don’t get implemented,” she said, because they are simply tried in the wrong place. She did her undergraduate work at Santa Clara. “The Jesuit mentality really infiltrated,” she said, “asking us to think outside the box.”

Carlos Rosario, 28, Santa Clara. President of the student bar association, Rosario has lined up a job with a boutique San Jose intellectual property firm. “I always wanted to work around here, and I figured tech was the best way to go,” he said. A Bellarmine alumnus with computer engineering degrees from the University of Southern California and UCLA , Rosario left a six-figure aerospace job in Southern California to study law. Political aspirations: “Maybe one day in the future.”

Jennifer McAllister, 43, San Jose. After 20 years in cosmetics, publishing and culinary work, the Chatham University graduate decided to return to school for a law degree. “I didn’t want to sell cosmetic packaging all my life,” she said; and after she served on a grand jury for a month, she was hooked. “The work that the district attorneys did was very interesting,” she recalls. “I saw that they had to think for a living.” She says her “dream job” would be working in transgender law, “but I’m pretty much prepared to take any work that comes my way” until then.

Sarah Mercer, 34, Sacramento. Following a public policy and health advocacy career in the state capitol, Mercer said she realized she needed a law degree to makes sure the bills she’d worked to see passed into law actually were enforced. “Having public policy skills along with the legal skills, I can help the most vulnerable in our society,” she said. Mercer said she will open the California Pan-Ethnic Health Network’s Sacramento office.

Justice Moreno was presented with an honorary degree – his first from Santa Clara. He is a Stanford alum, noted retired state Supreme Court Chief Justice Ed Panelli in an introduction. “His GPS probably wasn’t working when he applied to law school, and he ended 20 miles north instead of stopping here at Santa Clara,” joked Panelli, a Santa Clara law graduate.

Panelli turned to Moreno and said his fellow former justice was being honored “because of your long outstanding commitment to the fair and efficient administration of justice and your leadership of the judiciary.”

Contact Pete Carey at 408-920-5419.

Some notable SCU Law ALUMNI:

Former San Jose mayor (and former 49ers part-owner) Al Ruffo, ’36
CIA Director Leon Panetta, ’63
Former state Supreme Court chief judge Ed Panelli, ’55
California Appeals Court associate justice (and former California State Senator) Charles Poochigian, ’75
U.S. Rep. Zoe Lofgren, ’75
Santa Clara County Assistant District Attorney Rolanda Pierre-Dixon, ’80

Source: Santa Clara University

Key moments in the history of Santa Clara University School of Law:

1911 ““ Law school founded.
1914 ““ First graduating class.
1926 ““ Mission church burns, including 1,000 books from the nearby law library. No degrees conferred next two years.
1937 ““ Accreditation by American Bar Association.
1942 ““ Maseo Kanemoto receives his diploma and passes the bar while interned with other Japanese-Americans during World War II.
1943 ““ Law school closed for duration of the war
1947 ““ School reopened.
1952 ““ Aurelius “Reo” Miles becomes first African American to graduate from Santa Clara law.
1955 ““ Women permitted to apply.
1963 ““ First three women graduate.
1970 ““ George Alexander becomes dean, embarks on efforts to diversify the law school’s student body.
1974 ““ Beginnings of Institute of International and Comparative Law, focusing on Asia.
1990 ““ High Tech Law Institute formed.
1999 ““ SCU’s Social Justice and Public Service law program started.
2000 ““ Northern California Innocence Project is formed.
2011 ““ Centennial year.

Source: Santa Clara University