University of California College of the Law, San Francisco
law school in San Francisco
The University of California College of the Law, San Francisco (UC Law San Francisco or UC Law SF) is a public law school in San Francisco. It was formerly known as the University of California, Hastings College of the Law (UC Hastings). The school was founded in 1878 by Serranus Clinton Hastings, the first chief justice of the Supreme Court of California. It was the first law school established by the University of California and one of the earliest law schools in California. Although UC Law SF is legally affiliated with the University of California system, it is not governed directly by the Regents of the University of California.
History
Founding of the law school
In 1878, Serranus Clinton Hastings donated $100,000 (equivalent to $3,340,000 in 2025) for the creation of a law school. He arranged for the enactment of a legislative act on March 26, 1878, to create the Hastings College of the Law as a separate legal entity affiliated with the University of California. This was apparently intended for compatibility with Section 8 of the university's Organic Act, which authorized the board of regents to affiliate with independent self-sustaining professional colleges. Another reason for making the gift in this fashion was that Hastings desired to impose certain conditions on his gift, while "policy and law dictated that a free-gift could not be hedged by power of reversion."
According to the Hastings College of the Law's official centennial history, its founder, "whether from arrogance, oversight, ignorance, or a combination of all three, was the author of his own troubles." Although the founder had selected the original Hastings board of directors from among his professional acquaintances, he failed to adequately verify their concurrence with his beliefs that a proper legal education must include a course in legal ethics and must also be hybridized with elements of a liberal arts education. To his horror, it turned out they all believed that the only purpose of a law school was to provide vocational education in how to practice law.
The public source identifies “University of California College of the Law, San Francisco” as law school in San Francisco. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around University, California and College.
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Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 27, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3577853. VIAF identifies the subject as 158844114. The Library of Congress control number is n83028891. Authority coordinates are 37.781, -122.415. 4 of 7 selected statements include explicit references; 4 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1878 and 2025.
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This entry incorporates text from “University of California College of the Law, San Francisco” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.