The University of San Diego School of Law is the 800-pound gorilla in America’s 8th largest city.
“[San Diego] is one of the most creative, innovative and sophisticated communities,” said Dean Stephen Ferruolo. “We dominate the local legal community in a way that no other law school dominates a top 10 [largest] city.”
Nearly one-fourth of all lawyers and one-third of all San Diego Superior Court judges are University of San Diego graduates. That has helped the region’s only Catholic school maintain high standards. Its median LSAT is 159 and the median GPA is 3.55, higher than all but a few schools in the Southwest.
“The atmosphere of this law school is very collaborative and encouraging,” Ferruolo said.
Students receive a personalized education, with easy access to professors.
Ferruolo points out that the schools 7.8-to-1 student-to-faculty ratio is small for a school with close to 700 students.
University of San Diego also performs well on the bar exam. More than 71 percent of its students passed the 2018 bar exam, higher than the  61.46 percent state average. Additionally, 80 percent of students reported employment within 9 months of graduation, 49.2 percent of which were employed in law firms.
The National Jurist awarded the school an A- for diversity and a B+ for practical training. It also offers a variety of joint degrees and specializations, including business, criminal, environmental, taxation and intellectual property. San Diego is home to a thriving intellectual property law market, fueled by its biotech industry.