People's College of Law

The People's College of Law (PCL) is a private, non-profit law school located in Los Angeles, California. PCL offers a part-time, four-year evening law program centered around work in the public interest.

Aimed at addressing inequities in law and society, PCL was founded in 1974 for individuals historically denied access to legal training and representation. The school maintains a socio-political requirement that states: "An eligible candidate will be able to demonstrate a commitment to progressive social change." As such, PCL uses an alternative method of law school admission which rejects the LSAT due to what the school views as its cultural and sociological limitations. Tuition is kept low through the use of unpaid volunteer faculty and the work of students and members of the PCL community to maintain the facilities. Student involvement is coordinated through an accountability system, in which each student works at least 40 hours per year to help maintain PCL.

PCL is currently authorized to grant juris doctor degrees by the California State Department of Education and is listed with the Committee of Bar Examiners of the State Bar of California as an unaccredited law school. Students must take and pass the First-Year Law Students' Examination, also known as the "Baby Bar," at the end of their first year in order to receive credit for their law study and eventually qualify to sit for the California Bar Exam. It is not accredited by the American Bar Association.

The current Mayor of Los Angeles, Antonio Villaraigosa and Gilbert Cedillo, California State Senator of the 22nd District in Los Angeles, are graduates and the most famous alumni of PCL. Villaraigosa failed the California Bar Exam in each of four attempts, and thus remains unlicensed to practice law. [ [http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/la-me-bar21feb21,1,7927848,full.story?coll=la-mininav-outdoors] Dead link|date=March 2008] Gilbert Cedillo is not a member of the California State Bar. [ [http://members.calbar.ca.gov/search/member.aspx] Member Records ]

Bar Pass Rate

People's College of Law has recently announced that statistics published by the State Bar indicate that 50% of graduates taking the July 2007 Bar Exam for the first time passed. However, it is based on one student actually passing the bar of the two that attempted the examination for the first time. The four students who repeated the examination at the same time all failed the bar examination. People's claims that this bar passage rate surpasses the ABA accredited Western State University College of Law's bar passage rate. [ [http://calbar.ca.gov/calbar/pdfs/admissions/Statistics/JULY2007STATS.pdf; http://peoplescollegeoflaw.edu Peoples College of Law: Producing Peoples Lawyers - Home ] ]

References

External links

* [http://peoplescollegeoflaw.edu/ People's College of Law] official site