by Austen L. Parrish

One of the joys of being dean of UC Irvine School of Law is the privilege of leading a simply exceptional community. As we begin the Fall 2025 semester, and as I begin my fourth year as dean at UC Irvine, I continue to be amazed at the breadth and depth of the Law School. Our faculty, staff, students, and alumni are extraordinary. I thought I’d take this Dean’s Corner to place a spotlight on some of our faculty’s work.

Our faculty are gifted teachers, who care deeply about what occurs in the classroom. In 2023, Princeton Review ranked our faculty #2 in the nation for the quality of our faculty teaching (tied with Duke, Notre Dame, Stanford, UCLA, Vanderbilt, and Virginia). And earlier this year we ranked #4 in the nation by preLaw Magazine as a “best school for practical training.” But our faculty’s impact goes beyond the classroom. In addition to being top teachers in the nation, UC Irvine School of Law faculty are caring mentors to our students, deeply engage with our community, lead change and innovation, and tackle pressing global issues through interdisciplinary research, writing, and client advocacy. They are also sought after as speakers and commentators, are trusted advisors, policymakers, and advocates to clients and non-profits, and they consult for some of the world’s most-respected organizations and firms.

Before diving in, the new 2025-26 academic year is off to a great start. In August we welcomed wonderfully talented new JD and LLM classes. We continue to attract truly outstanding students to Orange County, and this year we received a record number of applications: over 3700 for around 185 seats. And our graduates continue to make us proud, too. We were ranked #19 in the nation as a go-to-law school for employment in the nation’s top law firms, and we remain a powerhouse for students interested in public interest careers. Each year, over 90% of our students participate in pro bono work, and most years the law school collectively contributes nearly 100,000 hours of volunteer work, when we combine the contributions made through our pro bono program, our clinics, and our externship placements. The prestigious Times Higher Education 2025 World University Rankings listed UC Irvine as #18 in the U.S. and #66 in the world for law.

Highlighting just a few of the countless awards and recognitions our faculty received over the last year underscores the breadth of their superb contributions. Cindy Archer received the 2025 AALS Section Award for Legal Writing, Reasoning, and Research, Mehrsa Baradaran was honored as the inaugural recipient of the Patricia J. Williams Award for her scholarship, Bob Chang was honored with the NAPABA Daniel K. Inouye Trailblazer Award and the 2025 OCAABA Community Pillar Award, Kevin Haeberle’s securities scholarship was reprinted in the prestigious Securities Law Review, Paul Hoffman was part of legal team honored with Public Justice’s Trial Lawyer of the Year Award, Christopher Leslie received two 2025 Jerry S. Cohen Awards for his Antitrust Scholarship, Elizabeth Loftus won a 2025 Best Paper Award from Computer Human Interaction for a study on AI, Ji Seon Song received the Ian Kerr Best Paper Award at the Privacy Law Scholars Conference, Jane Stoever received the Women For: Orange County’s Suffrage Day award, Katie Tinto was recognized by the Clinical Legal Education Association for excellence in public interest work, Ari Waldman ranked #34 among the top 100 legal scholars of 2024 and his work received the 2024 Dukeminier Awards’ M.V. Lee Badgett Prize, among many more too long to list.

Faculty’s research, clinical advocacy, and other activities change people’s lives. Alex Camacho, who is the faculty director of the law school’s Center for Land, Environment, and Natural Resources, provides just one example. His work, alongside the work of Gregg Macey, has focused on critical land use, water and air quality, pesticide use, and other environmental issues facing California and beyond. Michael Robinson-Dorn, who oversees our Environmental Law Clinic, will soon hold the Myron and Sonya Glassberg Chair in Environmental Law as recognition for his tremendous work in the community and with our students.

Much of our faculty’s research aids courts, lawyers, and policymakers. Just this spring, Tony Reese completed his time working on the first-ever American Law Institute Restatement on Copyright Law. His work doesn’t stand alone. Ken Simons has served as the Chief Reporter for the Restatement Third of Torts: Intentional Torts to Persons, Emily Taylor Poppe is serving as the Associate Reporter for Principles of the Law in High-Volume Civil Litigation, and Christopher Whytock has served as the Associate Reporter for the Third Restatement for Conflict of Laws. As a few other examples, David Kaye was recently appointed to the High-Level Panel of Legal Experts on Media Freedom of the Media Freedom Coalition, and over the summer Mario Barnes began serving as president of the Law and Society Association. Faculty research—along with work done in our centers, initiatives, clinics, and programs—produce cutting-edge work in a range of areas that benefit society and the legal profession.

Our faculty’s impact is broad in other ways too. Summer Kim is an example. She is the faculty director of the Korea Law Center, which is one of only three centers of its kind in the United States. The work done through the center is extraordinary. Each year, the Center hosts approximately thirty visiting scholars from Korea, it collaborates with all the top Korean universities and legal organizations, and this summer hosted (for the third time) scholars from Seoul National University. UC Irvine is now the go-to place in the United States for top Korean lawyers and scholars to visit and study.

Our faculty also have been involved in some of the most important and high-profile cases of the day. Robert Chang, who directs UC Irvine Law’s Korematsu Center for Law and Equality, has been exceptionally busy and so has Sue McMahon, filing amicus briefs supporting law firms targeted by the Trump Administration’s executive orders, and challenging an executive order purporting to overturn birthright citizenship. Annie Lai, building on other leading work in the area of immigrant rights, is part of an important class action challenging immigration stops in California made without reasonable suspicion or probable cause. And, this summary doesn’t include the many and wide-ranging contributions of colleagues like Sameer Ashar, Swethaa Ballakrishnen, Joshua Blank, Courtney Cahill, Adam Cowing, Rachel Croskery-Roberts, Veena Dubal, Vic Fleischer, Carrie Hempel, Dalié Jiménez, Dana Lee, Stephen Lee, Jack Lerner, Omri Marian, Carrie Menkel-Meadow, Alison Mikkor, Trilby Robinson-Dorn, Ezra Ross, Ann Southworth, Shauhin Talesh, Beatrice Tice, and Grace Tonner. This is not to mention the hundreds of lecturers, affiliated faculty, adjuncts, emeritus faculty, visitors, and others who make the law school such an exceptional place.

And we continue to add fabulous faculty to our ranks. Last year, Song Richardson and Katie Porter returned to the law school. We also welcomed Andrew Gold, Sue McMahon, and Charles (Chas) Tyler. And this year, we welcomed two new faculty stars. Christopher Williams comes to us from the University of Virginia, and Trevor Reed joins us from Arizona State University. Both are exceptional scholars and teachers, and Christopher is our first alum (a 2019 graduate) to join our faculty ranks.

Looking ahead, there will be more news to report. For now, we remain grateful for being in one of the most supportive and innovative legal communities in the nation.

Austen L. Parrish is Dean and Chancellor’s Professor of Law at University of California, Irvine School of Law. He can be reached at aparrish@law.uci.edu.